Healing childhood wounds with Dr. Deniz Ahmadinia

Healing Childhood Wounds for STRONGER relationships…

We’re talking inner healing and reparenting yourself. I’m sitting down with Dr. Deniz Ahmadinia, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and anxiety disorders. Dr. Deniz shares her personal journey into this work, offering deep wisdom on how we can better understand and heal emotional wounds. If you’ve ever struggled with emotional disconnect or relationships, listen to this one!

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear:

• The profound impact of early attachment relationships on our emotional health and adult lives.
• Why being seen and validated in relationships is essential for emotional healing.
• The ways we disconnect from our bodies and emotions to protect ourselves—and how it holds us back in life and love.
• How our childhood survival strategies can become barriers to authentic living as adults.
• The crucial role of anger in setting boundaries and the surprising links between emotional suppression and physical health.
• Why the healing process is slow and gradual, and how real change happens in small, mindful steps.

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MORE ABOUT THIS INNER HEALING PODCAST EPISODE:

“With trauma we’re shielding younger parts of ourselves that experience pain, and that’s great for when it is unsafe, but when there’s opportunity for us to connect, it makes it incredibly difficult.” – Dr. Deniz

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• How do early attachment relationships affect emotional health and adulthood?
• What is inner child work and why is it important for healing trauma?
• What are some common signs that unresolved trauma is affecting my relationships?
• What are the first steps to reconnecting with my body after years of emotional suppression?
• Why is being seen and validated in relationships essential for emotional well-being?

Have you ever found yourself playing a role to fit in or be accepted? Maybe it’s something you’ve been doing for so long that it feels like second nature—like the only way to keep things peaceful. But what if I told you that constantly hiding your true self, just to maintain harmony, could be damaging more than just your emotional well-being?

This is what Dr. Deniz Ahmadinia shares in a deep conversation about trauma healing, inner child work, and how our earliest attachment relationships set the stage for the way we connect with others as adults. In this episode, Dr. Deniz explores the habits and survival strategies that protect us as children but often keep us disconnected as adults. The truth is, the pain we suppress when we hide our authentic selves doesn’t just disappear—it lingers in our bodies and minds, showing up in unexpected ways, affecting everything from our relationships to our physical health.

What Happens When We Hide Who We Are?

We’ve all been there: holding back a piece of ourselves to avoid conflict, to please someone else, or simply to fit in. It seems harmless at first. But over time, these moments build up, and before we know it, we’ve lost sight of our true selves.

Dr. Deniz shares, “When it’s not safe to be who you are, we get really skilled at presenting a different version of ourselves, all the while holding all of this inside.” Many of us learned from a young age that being ourselves wasn’t always accepted, so we adapted, we survived—but at a cost. This form of self-protection often creates emotional walls that are difficult to break down later in life, leaving us feeling unseen and disconnected, even from those we love.

Trauma healing begins with recognizing these patterns and understanding why we put them in place. Once we’re aware of these habits, we can begin the process of letting go of those masks and stepping into our authentic selves.

The Impact of Early Attachments – Childhood Wounds

So why do we develop these protective behaviors? It often comes back to attachment. Our early relationships with caregivers and family members shape our sense of safety, love, and trust. When those relationships are strained or neglectful, we carry that emotional blueprint into adulthood.

According to Dr. Deniz, “It’s where we get our first sense of ourselves. So those relationships… have these arms that go out into all these different places in our lives—our relationships, our sense of self, our emotion regulation.”

The good news? Trauma healing and inner child work can help us rebuild that sense of safety and trust from within. By recognizing the patterns established in childhood, we can start to rewrite the narrative, creating healthier connections with ourselves and others.

Emotional Suppression and Its Physical Toll

What’s even more surprising is how deeply emotional suppression can affect our physical health. In the interview, Dr. Deniz explains how people-pleasing and caretaking behaviors, which often come from unhealed trauma, can manifest as chronic stress in the body. “There’s a lot of research out there now connecting qualities about people-pleasing and caretaking with things like autoimmune disorders because that emotional suppression actually keeps us in a state of fight or flight.”

Think about that for a moment—your nervous system stuck in overdrive because of emotions you’ve been pushing down for years. This is where somatic healing comes into play. It’s not enough to just “think” your way through trauma. The body holds onto it too, and it’s crucial to engage in practices that help release that stored tension, whether it’s through mindfulness, movement, or other body-based therapies.

Anger as a Tool for Healing

Often, we’re taught that anger is a bad emotion, something to be avoided or repressed. But Dr. Deniz offers a different perspective. Anger, when used constructively, can be a powerful tool for setting boundaries and protecting ourselves.

“Anger is so important because it’s telling us, just like every other emotion carries information—anger is telling us a boundary has been crossed, a need is unmet.” When we suppress anger, we suppress an important message from our bodies. By acknowledging and working with our anger, we can learn to protect ourselves in healthier ways, without needing to disconnect from others or our emotions.

Reconnecting with Yourself and Others

The journey toward trauma healing isn’t easy, but it is possible. It requires patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to reconnect with the parts of ourselves we’ve pushed away. Inner child work is about building that relationship with your younger self—the one who needed love, safety, and care—and offering that to yourself now.

Dr. Deniz reminds us that healing doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it follow a straight line. It’s about creating space to feel, express, and reconnect. And as you begin to reconnect with yourself, you’ll find that your relationships with others become deeper and more meaningful.

So, where do you start? Maybe it’s noticing when you’re playing a role instead of being yourself. Maybe it’s listening to your body when it tells you something feels off. Or maybe it’s tuning into this episode of the Feel Good Nakd Podcast, where Dr. Deniz Ahmadinia offers even more insights into how we can heal from trauma, reconnect with our authentic selves, and build the kind of relationships we truly deserve.

🎧 Listen to the full episode for a deeper dive into these powerful topics. It’s time to take the first step toward a healthier, more connected version of yourself.