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“This is a wonderful book—very relevant and needed.”

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.

Co-Founders of Imago Relationship Therapy

YOUR CORE WOUND MAP

Why You’re Still Getting Triggered After All the Work You’ve Done—and What Will Finally Change It

Selected Proposal Sample Chapters & Excerpts

JJ Flizanes

The following are intentionally selected excerpts from the manuscript, presented to demonstrate the book’s central premise, signature Core Wound Map® framework, and approach to rewiring without reproducing the complete chapters.

Sample 1: Chapter 1 — The Power of Your Core Wounds—and Why You Should Care

How Core Wounds Are Formed

From birth until about age seven, your brain operates primarily in delta and theta brainwave states. Theta is a hypnotic state. In this stage of life, your only concerns are survival and connection. You’re not consciously analyzing your surroundings; you’re absorbing everything like a sponge—responding instinctively to the emotional tone and energy of your environment.

Our earliest experiences lay the groundwork for our core beliefs—beliefs about who we are, how we receive love and attention, and what we must do to survive. These beliefs are not conscious choices; they are survival mechanisms formed long before we had the awareness to question them.

Imagine, for example, that you’re a baby crying in a crib. Your parents don’t come right away. Maybe they’re exhausted or distracted. But to your developing brain, it can feel like abandonment. You don’t yet have the awareness to think, Mom must be in the kitchen. All you know is that your needs aren’t being met, and in that moment, your brain makes a connection: I’m not safe. I’m alone. I’ve been abandoned.

That single experience imprints deeply in your subconscious and unconscious mind, forming a belief that shapes how you interpret life going forward. From that point on, abandonment becomes a lens through which you see the world. Every relationship, every disappointment, every unmet need—filtered through that early wound. And you may not even know it.

Survival always comes first. Love and connection are secondary. When our environment disrupts our sense of safety—and it does for every one of us, in different ways—our subconscious steps in, creating beliefs to help us navigate that disruption.

Now, your wound may not be abandonment. It could be rejection, control, neglect, betrayal, unworthiness, or something else. But the mechanism is the same: your young brain is trying to make sense of a complex world without the ability to observe or reason. It’s just trying to survive, feel safe, and be loved.

And those imprints don’t only come from your parents. They can come from siblings, grandparents, teachers, neighbors, television, or any emotionally charged experience that shaped your sense of safety and belonging.

Over time, these unconscious beliefs become the lens through which we see ourselves, our relationships, and the choices we make. And unless we become aware of them, they continue running in the background, shaping our reality without us even realizing it.

These beliefs create core wounds, which become deep emotional imprints and the root of our recurring triggers, patterns, and limiting beliefs—the thing that keeps us stuck, even when we consciously want to change. They influence our relationships, decisions, and emotional responses until we bring awareness to them, heal them, and rewire the patterns they created.

When I Uncovered My Own Core Wound

Once I experienced uncovering my core wound beliefs, everything shifted and made sense. I saw it immediately as a “diagnosis” because it explained why I had the patterns I did throughout my life in most, if not all, relationships.

It also made me realize why I couldn’t change some of my behaviors in my marriage—I believed my actions were purely based on my current situation, not part of a deeper pattern. My brain rationalized everything as separate, disconnected from my past.

Logically, I knew what I was doing wasn’t working. I could see the cycle playing out, but I still couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I understood it, the pattern kept repeating, like an automatic response I couldn’t override—until I finally recognized where it was coming from.

That is the power of identifying the wound underneath the behavior.

Why You Need a Core Wound Map

Most people know something’s off. They may not have the language for it, but they can feel it. They know they don’t feel well. They’ve experienced trauma, pain, and disappointment. They’re not happy, not fulfilled, not fully alive.

There’s this sense of heaviness—like something inside is blocked, clouded, or just not flowing. Life feels harder than it should. They’re tired, weighed down, burdened.

So, what do we do? We look for help. We turn to whatever seems to be working for everyone else: therapy, Reiki, tapping, meditation, journaling. And while each of these methods has value, each one is designed to address different layers of healing.

The problem is, without a map, we don’t know which one is right for our wounds.

We’re essentially trying to fix a problem without understanding the exact nature of what’s broken. We apply techniques and hope for results, but we don’t actually know what we’re working on—or whether that modality even fits the root of our pain.

There’s a deeper reason why you don’t feel good. There’s a deeper reason why you keep repeating patterns, why things don’t work out the way you planned, why you feel frustrated or confused by your own reactions.

The Power of the Map

When you uncover and build Your Core Wound Map®, everything changes. You finally see the architecture of your inner world—how your earliest wounds shaped your beliefs, how those beliefs created your patterns, and how those patterns became the life you’re living now.

With that map in hand, you gain something most people never have: a personalized blueprint for emotional healing.

Now you can make conscious decisions about which tools, therapies, and modalities are most effective for you. You can begin to understand why something works—or doesn’t.

You’ll know when you’re actually healing—when your nervous system feels calmer, when your thoughts shift, when your body releases tension, when your relationships start to feel different. You’ll recognize when new neural pathways have been created—when your mind naturally takes a different route instead of looping back into old pain.

Without a Map

Without a map, you wander. You try things that help for a moment, but the relief fades. You may even feel like you’re broken because you’ve done “all the work” and still don’t feel better. But it’s not you—it’s the approach.

Without clarity on the wound, you can’t choose the right “medicine.”

A map doesn’t just show you where you’ve been—it shows you where to go next. It gives you direction, precision, and power.

And that’s what this book is designed to help you build.

Sample 2: Chapter 14 — The Core Wound Map — Part 1 (Selected Excerpt)

The Core Wound Mapping Process is a structured way to bring awareness to subconscious wounds, recognize how they shape our lives, and create an intentional path toward healing. This method takes something overwhelming—our deepest emotional wounds—and organizes it into a framework that allows for clarity, self-responsibility, and transformation.

The foundation of this map comes from an exercise in Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, rooted in Imago Therapy. My own profound experience with it led me to incorporate it into my work with clients and share it at events. However, over time, I realized that not everyone had the same response as I did.

One of the frameworks I use for understanding and interpretation is astrology. My moon sign—representing how I process emotions—is in Sagittarius, the sign of truth-seeking. This means that for me, awareness alone can often be enough to spark transformation.

Which is why when I learned about my core wounds and could see the patterns over time, I was motivated to instantly change my response. I fully expected that to be the case with everyone I shared the exercise with and was sad when it was not.

I love connecting dots and I do love knowing why—even though sometimes that can be irrelevant and a trap.

So, when I started to see the patterns in the data from the core wound exercise in others, I extracted it into a map to make it more user friendly on a daily basis.

In each new group, I would go deeper and ask better questions. My goal is always simplicity and a faster path to clarity.

I’m going to walk you through what a Core Wound Map consists of and the kind of insight it provides. Most of the deep data collection happens within my Roadmap to Emotional Healing course and Rewiring Your Core Wound Patterns program, but this book can help you find some clues to what your core wounds might be and the patterns they created.

If you’ve worked with your core wounds before in therapy, use whatever information you already have to start creating a rough draft of your own map. Keep in mind, there may be missing pieces, and this book is meant to give you an overview—not a fully detailed, personalized map.

Most importantly, don’t get caught up in trying to get it “right.” Just use this structure as a guide to fill in the blanks with what you already know about yourself. This process is about discovery, not perfection, and anything you uncover along the way can only help you move forward.

Finding the Clues to Your Core Wounds

My job in this book, to the best of my ability, is to help find some clues to what your core wounds might be and the patterns they created.

While this book cannot replace the work I do with groups or individuals to uncover your wounds more accurately, I can share with you several core wound words to see which ones pop out that would describe your childhood or relationship with your caregivers.

Before we dive into identifying your core wounds, I want you to prepare yourself for what might come up.

This process isn’t just about listing words on a page—it’s about activating old wounds that may still be lingering beneath the surface. You may feel emotions rise that you haven’t felt in a long time, or even ones you didn’t realize were there. That’s part of the work.

I encourage you to allow space and time for whatever comes up. Be gentle with yourself. Breathe. Cry if you need to. Pause when necessary. There is no rush.

You are not here to judge what you feel—you are here to observe it, to hold space for it, and to acknowledge that it’s valid and allow it.

This is exactly why we didn’t start creating the Map in Chapter 1. Before getting here, you needed to understand your emotions, practice becoming the observer, connect with your inner child, and learn to feel what you may have spent years avoiding.

Now we can begin identifying possible core wounds—not just yours, but also those of your siblings and caregivers—and map these wounds out so you can see the patterns they’ve created in your life and, more importantly, what to do about them.

But as you do this, remember everything you’ve learned up to this point. Don’t get stuck in your head, intellectualizing your pain instead of feeling it.

Healing happens when we bring both awareness and compassion to the experience.

So, as we begin, remind yourself: this is not about blame. This is about understanding, and ultimately, about setting yourself free.

Extracting Your Top Three Core Wounds

Now, notice any recurring patterns from the caregivers and family members involved in your childhood.

If a wound—such as abandonment, rejection, or betrayal—appears multiple times in relation to different people—mother, father, caregivers, siblings, or others—we prioritize that as a top core wound.

These core wounds are the root system of our subconscious beliefs. You didn’t choose them; they were imprinted through your early experiences.

Once identified, these wounds become the foundation for mapping your emotional and behavioral patterns.

Look across everything you’ve written and extract the three wounds that appear most often or have the strongest emotional charge.

List them as your top three.

My Top 3 Core Wounds

These three wounds become the starting point for your Core Wound Map.

Step 2: Understanding the Trigger & Emotional Circuit

Once you have identified your core wounds, the next step is recognizing how they get triggered in your daily life. This is where we break down the circuit of reaction that happens when a wound is activated.

The wound itself is subconscious, so by the time you realize you've been triggered, you're already in a reactive state. The goal is to become the observer—to notice the pattern as it’s happening and learn how to interrupt it and make a new choice.

This pattern won’t shift overnight because your brain has well-established neural pathways that reinforce it—pathways that have been strengthened through repetition and are likely activated frequently. Changing these automatic responses takes time, awareness, and specific intentional effort.

Example of the Trigger Circuit in Action

Let’s say someone’s top three wounds are rejection, abandonment, and isolation:

A friend doesn’t respond to their text right away (trigger).

Their brain interprets this as rejection or abandonment, activating a deeply ingrained belief system.

Emotionally, they feel sad, angry, or hopeless

Behaviorally, they either withdraw (abandon themselves before someone else can), get defensive, or seek validation.

This cycle repeats itself over and over until we bring conscious awareness to it.

The circuit consists of these three steps:

Trigger Event: Something happens that your brain perceives as a repeat of the wound.

Emotional Response: Your body reacts immediately—often with anger, sadness, hopelessness, fear, or shame.

Behavioral Reaction: Your knee-jerk response kicks in, whether it’s withdrawing, defending, people-pleasing, lashing out, or shutting down.

The Power of the Microsecond: Choosing a New Response

One of the most critical aspects of healing is understanding that moment—the microsecond between feeling triggered and reacting. That tiny space between stimulus and response is where transformation happens.

When we get triggered, our lower brain (the limbic system) takes over, and we react automatically, reinforcing old wounds and patterns. But if we can pause, even for a second, we can shift out of the automatic response and into conscious choice.

How to Interrupt the Trigger Cycle with Mirroring

Instead of immediately reacting, you can say:

“Let me see if I got that right… Are you saying that…?”

“I want to understand—can you say that again?”

Mirroring does two things:

It shifts YOU out of reactivity by moving the brain’s processing from the emotional center (amygdala) to the rational, decision-making prefrontal cortex.

It allows THEM to regulate their emotions—because feeling heard is often enough to soften defensiveness.

Even if someone is projecting, blaming, or reacting from their own wounds, mirroring creates a shift in energy. It helps you observe the situation instead of becoming part of the emotional chaos.

The first step in working with this part of your map is accepting that you can’t control when a trigger comes up—but you can start recognizing the pattern as it happens and shift from reacting to observing. You won’t get it “right” every time, especially in the beginning, so be patient and gentle with yourself. Keeping your map accessible can be a helpful tool in identifying when you’re caught in a core wound pattern.

The goal here isn’t to eliminate the circuit overnight but to become aware of it, practice noticing when you're in it, and consciously choose a different response. If your default reaction is to avoid when triggered, challenge yourself to rewire that pattern—lean in instead. Ask clarifying questions, express your thoughts or emotions, or simply sit with the discomfort rather than running away. Change happens in the moments when we choose something different.

You can’t control how fast a trigger hits, but in the moments that follow, you do have the power to create a conscious pause—just enough space to choose what story you tell yourself and how you respond.

Sample 3: From Chapters 15 & 16 — Reinforcing and Rewiring Core Wound Patterns

If the wounds we experienced in childhood were just about the past, changing these patterns would be so much easier. But the beliefs we formed—about how our caregivers treated us, our worth, and our place in the world—became deeply ingrained in how we treat ourselves.

In my book Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life, I break down how we create the blueprint that teaches others how to treat us. If I don’t love and respect myself, why would I expect anyone else to? People follow your lead—they observe how you care for yourself, the boundaries you set, and they respond accordingly.

If we want to change our core wound patterns and the results they create, we have to start with us. This step is crucial. It’s about turning the mirror inward and asking: How do I do to myself the very thing I fear others will do to me?

The next section of the map shines a light on how these beliefs are reinforced daily—often by you. The first step in shifting these patterns and creating a new belief system is to start reducing, or even eliminating, the negative messages you tell yourself about your own worth through your actions and behaviors.

From the example map below, we are going to take each core wound and reflect on how we keep it strong in our daily lives.

Here are some examples to get your started: 

Abandonment Wound: Do I abandon myself by not prioritizing my needs? Do I stay in relationships that don’t support me? Do I abandon myself by not attending to self-care and focus more on others?

Ignore Wound: Do I ignore my own inner voice and take no action?  Do I pretend not to have anything to say when asked and keep my mouth shut? Do I avoid participation and assume I am not important to the group/family?

Devalue Wound: Do I over give and have a hard time receiving? Do I play small when I know I have more to offer? Do I undercharge for my services and over deliver? Do I talk about taking next steps but never invest in getting it done?

Understanding the circuit helps to manage your response when you get triggered- something we don’t want to just wait around to experience.  We need to be proactive in rewiring the brain daily and moving from reaction to conscious action.

When you are triggered, follow this:

• Recognizing the wound when it gets triggered

• Observing the emotions and behavioral patterns that follow

• Interrupting the automatic reaction

• Actively choosing a new response that rewires the brain

By taking responsibility for how we keep these wounds active in our own lives, we reclaim our power. Healing isn’t just about understanding your wounds—it’s about changing the way you show up for yourself so that those wounds stop defining your life.

Once we’ve identified the top three core wounds and mapped out how they manifest, the next step is to intentionally stretch into new behaviors that disrupt the old patterns.

Once we’ve mapped out the Core Wound Patterns, the next step is rewiring them. Identifying our wounds is just the first part—true healing comes from actively shifting our behaviors, beliefs, and self-perceptions. This is where the Rewiring Your Core Wound Patterns process comes to focus on the stretching process to create new neural pathways.

Now that we have identified habits and ways you keep your core wounds alive through your own behavior and actions, we want to start making the stretch list to create a new pathway and belief.

• Shifting abandoned to connected and supported

• Shifting ignored to acknowledge, seen and heard

• Shifting devalued to valued

Neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to change, adapt, and rewire itself based on experience, repetition, and intention. It’s how we learn new skills, break old habits, and shift deeply ingrained patterns—including the ones tied to our core wounds.

Your brain isn’t a fixed system; it’s like a path through the woods. The more you walk the same route—meaning the more you think the same thoughts and react the same way—the more ingrained that path becomes. It gets worn down, clear, and automatic. But just like in nature, if you stop using that path and start carving out a new one, the old trail starts to fade, and the new one becomes stronger.

When it comes to rewiring core wounds, we have to apply this same concept. If you've spent years believing you’re unworthy, abandoned, or not enough, those beliefs have well-worn neural pathways in your brain.

They’re automatic responses.

To change them, we need to intentionally create new patterns—new thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors—and repeat them often enough that they become the brain’s new default.

This is why just understanding your wounds isn’t enough.

You have to take action, practice new ways of thinking and responding, and reinforce them over time. That’s how we shift from an unconscious reaction to a conscious choice—and that’s where real transformation happens.

Often, these new actions will challenge you- because it’s new.  Just like going to the gym and beginning a new exercise routine, you aren’t “good” at it yet and it will be uncomfortable.

Do not let these feelings of being uncomfortable slow you down or stop you!

They are not messages telling you something is wrong; they are the brain’s way of keeping you safe- which in this case means keeping you the same.

In order to change this, you must experience it and push through the discomfort so the brain can register that you “didn’t die” on the other side of the experience and what was once uncomfortable and scary will gradually become comfortable and familiar through repetition.

Example of Rewiring in Action

Take a participant in my current group. Her core wounds are neglect, separate, and shame. For years, she neglected herself—no self-care, no boundaries, staying in a relationship that wasn’t serving her. She was stuck, repeating the same cycles over and over.

Less than two months into the program, she is:

• Going to the gym regularly and prioritizing her well-being

• Setting boundaries in her relationship and initiating change- she moved out!

• Feeling seen and supported by herself, instead of neglected

By stretching beyond her old behaviors, she’s disrupting the cycle of neglect. Instead of waiting for someone else to value her, she’s choosing to value herself first—which is ultimately how healing happens.

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