How To Heal The Emotional Wounds From Your Past - Vienna Pharaon

Vienna Pharaon is a licensed marriage and family therapist and an author. Learning to understand yourself can be the most powerful form of self-care. It helps you fix bad habits and improve your relationships with others. But how do you actually begin to understand who you are, and how do you start the process of becoming unstuck? Expect to learn how to reconcile what you needed as a child emotionally but never actually got, where your patterns in life come from, why people have so much resistance around opening up about their past and their family, how to avoid getting stuck wallowing in your history, Vienna’s favourite questions people should ask of themselves, how you can unwind your patterns and much more... - 00:00 The Unresolved Past 06:23 Why We Resist Opening Up About Our Past 11:22 The Bravery of Confronting Your Mistakes 14:53 Vienna’s Most Common Clientele 17:19 Reluctance to Being Up Issues With Parents 22:41 How Often You Need to Speak to People From Your Past 27:03 What If You Don’t Remember Much of Childhood? 30:44 Convincing Men to Be Vulnerable 33:23 What Do We Outsource Our Worth to? 37:55 Feeling a Sense of Authentic Belonging 42:30 Why You Don’t Feel Like a Priority to Others 45:20 How to Heal the Wound of Safety 55:20 Uncomfortable Questions to Ask Yourself 59:06 What Does Origin Healing Look Like? 1:06:14 Fixing Conflict, Communication & Boundaries 1:08:56 A Healthy Use of Boundaries 1:13:42 Can We Actually Correct Our Programming? 1:18:07 Giving Yourself More Compassion 1:19:20 Where to Find Vienna - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostVienna Pharaonguest

May 29, 20241h 20mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Healing Hidden Childhood Wounds To Transform Adult Relationships And Self-Worth

Vienna Pharaon explains how unresolved experiences from our family of origin silently drive recurring problems in adult life, from relationship conflict to perfectionism and emotional disconnection. She outlines five core “wounds” — worthiness, belonging, prioritization, trust, and safety — and shows how subtle moments, not just obvious traumas, can reshape our sense of self and others. The conversation explores why people resist revisiting their past, how healing doesn’t mean losing your edge, and why witnessing and grieving are central to change. Pharaon closes with practical guidance on boundaries, communication, and cultivating self-compassion so we can move from automatic self-protection to healthier, relationally protective choices.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Unresolved childhood experiences silently drive many stubborn adult patterns.

Persistent issues in relationships, dating, or self-sabotage often trace back to unprocessed pain in our family system — not just big traumas, but also subtle moments that reshaped our beliefs about worth, love, and safety.

The five core wounds offer a practical map for self-inquiry.

Worthiness, belonging, prioritization, trust, and safety are the main areas where early experiences tend to injure us; identifying which wounds are most activated in you clarifies why you react the way you do and where to focus healing work.

You don’t need your parents’ participation or approval to heal.

While many long for their parents to acknowledge past hurts, Pharaon emphasizes that healing primarily requires being accurately witnessed by someone safe (including a therapist or partner), not necessarily by the person who caused the pain.

Curiosity must replace shame if you want real change.

When you notice a behavior you dislike (e.g., needing to be right, people-pleasing), asking, “What is this trying to protect me from?” reveals the protective logic behind it and opens the door to compassion and responsibility instead of self-attack.

Boundaries can be too weak or too rigid — both are protective.

Porous boundaries sacrifice self-protection for connection, while rigid boundaries sacrifice connection for safety; healing involves discerning where to firm up or soften boundaries so both you and the relationship are protected.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

The past is not the past if it's unresolved.

— Vienna Pharaon

You are disempowered when you do not address this, period.

— Vienna Pharaon

Our gifts and our wounds are next-door neighbors.

— Vienna Pharaon (quoting Dr. Alexandra Solomon)

There is nothing braver about denying the things that affect you.

— Chris Williamson

You can't heal from a self-critical place. You can only heal from a self-compassionate place.

— Vienna Pharaon

How unresolved family-of-origin dynamics create repeating adult patternsDefinition and impact of the five core emotional woundsResistance to exploring the past, trauma vs. 'wounds', and wound comparisonThe role of witnessing, grieving, and somatic awareness in healingBoundaries, conflict, and communication as expressions of old adaptationsDifferences between safety and trust wounds and how they show upDeveloping self-compassion and realistic expectations for long-term change

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