The Wounded Inner Child

What is the importance of these inner states? How do they function in the lives of people? The "wounded inner child" needs to be held, loved and protected. He or she needs to be heard, to be given a voice. He needs to be given wings to fly, a voice to sing, hands with which to create, and legs to run. He needs to be given the space to grow so that he is no longer wounded - or so that his woundedness no longer is crippling. When the wounded inner child remains wounded, hidden, secret and un-protected, the adult may suffer from a variety of problems: low self-esteem, shyness, depression, anxiety, lack of creativity, numbness of feeling, a lack of zest for life.