5 Childhood Experiences that Can Build a Heartwall

Anytime we feel like our heart will break or that we can't get through something... we have the potential to build a Heartwall.

Essentially, the Heartwall is a layer of protection that we build up around our hearts to keep ourselves safe. In those moments where we feel unsafe, unloved or heartbroken, we pull in our unhealed emotions and begin to build this layer of protection around our hearts to keep us from feeling the pain. 

A lot of us (especially empaths) build them as children to protect ourselves from our emotions and the overwhelming feelings that come from not knowing how to deal with them. 

And then year by year, experience by experience we build this layer of protection thicker and thicker around our hearts, numbing us out to our feelings (along with the good emotions) and putting a barrier up in our relationships making it hard to find authentic connection and feel loved. 

There are 5 Major Childhood Experiences that set us up to build a Heartwall.

Take a moment and tune into them and see if they've been playing out in your own life...

#1 NOT FEELING LOVED BY YOUR PARENTS

As an empathic child, you knew how your parents felt about you and because your heart was so open being an empath, you naturally wanted connection as a child. When you were connected, you felt safe, loved & worthy. It gave you this feeling of support and stability in the world.

But if your parents were unable to love you, made you feel ashamed of needing love or didn't love you in the way you needed, then you may have felt the pain of that disconnection to them and started building a wall around your heart to protect yourself from that pain. 

#2 LOSS OF SOMEONE YOU LOVED

Another way you can feel the need to protect your heart is you lost someone you loved. They may have passed on, stepped out of your life or there could have been an experience that made them pull back from you. 

In these moments, you may feel that sense of grief or abandonment and if you didn't have support or know how to ask for support, your heart could have felt overwhelmed and in need of protection.

#3 EMOTIONAL OVERWHELM

This is one that empaths talk about all the time in terms of "feeling overwhelmed by the emotions of others" but truthfully, you don't feel overwhelmed unless you've already been overwhelmed somewhere else in your life and usually that is childhood. 

Overwhelm can look like trauma, stressful situations in your family or for not knowing how to understand and manage your own emotions. In these instances, you begin to numb out or shut down in order to manage every day life.

#4 CRITCISM OR JUDGMENT

If you grew up with overly critical parents or even your own overly critical inner voice, you can feel this constant pressure to get things "right" or "perfect" which makes you feel like no matter how hard you try, you will never be enough. 

It tears into your self confidence, self worth and your self esteem in such profound ways that you can begin to build that protection around your heart so that in case of failure.... you don't care as much because you are numbed out and disconnected from other people. It's a way to lessen the pain.

#5 YOUR FEELINGS WERE NOT CARED ABOUT

When empaths grow up in homes without other empaths or empathic parents who are shut down, they feel misunderstood and unloved. It may be that you had a parent who little or no emotional maturity, they could have been overwhelmed themselves and unable to support you in yours or they simply didn't value emotions. 

It can create this feeling in you that you are "different" or "wrong" and make you constantly questions yourself and how you feel. It can lead to learning how to shut down your own emotions in order to make "logical" decisions... which in turn also shuts down your intuition and heart itself. This my friend is where so much anxiety and depression come from. Not allowing your emotions to be valuable in your life as messengers. 

In all of these instances, what you do is create a layer of protection around the heart to protect you from the feelings and experiences you don't know how to change or can't change. It's purely a survival mechanism for getting through. 

But layer by layer, that wall goes up and you numb out from your feelings, you disconnect from other people & you impact your health, happiness and even your abundance. 

Because let's face it... if you can't feel the negative emotions, you can't feel the positive, which means life just kinda becomes this shadow of a thing. You don't know what brings you joy, you can't feel loved by others in the ways you need & you are constantly working (conscious or not!) to suppress the way you truly feel.

When we heal this Heartwall in sessions, we muscle test and let your subconscious identify all of the experiences that created it and we release them. Layer by layer, the wall comes down and you open back up to the joy & goodness that truly exists in life. Your relationships become stronger, your heart opens up & you feel like yourself again. 

Usually it takes about 3-4 sessions depending on how big your heartwall is and that can be done in either a 30 min or 60 min session, depending on how whether you want to work on other things or not. 

But let me tell you, it changed my own life. 

I used to know I should feel happy in certain moments of my life but I just couldn't access it. It was like a shadow of a feeling and layer by layer, I remembered in my heart and body what it felt like to be open and connected to the world and others in beautiful ways. 

If you have questions, please email me, I'm happy to answer them [email protected].

Or you can schedule sessions HERE to get started on healing your own heart and releasing the barriers keeping you from a life of love and connection.