Functional Adulthood as a Spiritual Practice

1. Functional Adulthood as a Spiritual Practice The Wounded Child Ego State At The Meadows, we teach about the ego states as they were laid out by Senior Fellow Pia Mellody in her work on the Model of Developmental Immaturity. She explains that how our thinking and beliefs can be distorted in the wounded child ego state.

2. Sometimes, when we find ourselves in our wounded child ego state, we feel like we’re not as good as other people and we feel bad about ourselves. We also tend to feel very vulnerable. We’re not able to protect ourselves when someone is critical or just not being present with us. We take it personally. We tend to have difficulty staying present because we give into our distorted thinking and we feel uncomfortable being in our bodies. We tend to not really do good self-care when we’re in that place. We operate in extremes. We feel out of control. It’s very difficult and painful to be in that state, so we learn how to avoid or discharge some of those negative feelings in a variety of ways. We do it by being judgmental of others and comparing ourselves with others. If we can see what’s wrong with someone else, it makes us feel better about ourselves. Content Source