Childhood and Healing By Dr. H.

Balala It is tempting to look at childhood as my or mine but just like life or love, none is local or unique to the person. The only distinguishing factor (not unique) is the self that individuates and accordingly interprets facts and occurrences according to ones perceptions and local circumstances, past, knowledge, beliefs or culture. As psychological problems shoot through the roof, childhood, parenting and family issues are emerging as the bedrock of diagnosed dysfunction. Many adults are identified as disgruntled 5 year olds stuck in belligerent behavioural patterns of having to prove themselves to or win the love of their parents or peers; which, in the adult, is transferred to ones partner, boss or friend/s. Often, a childhood ridden with bullying, abuse or domination gets translated into an adulthood hidden in isolation, insecurity, domination, insatiable attainment, self-destructive escapism or other escapism. We, as individuals or the collective, spend years trying to remedy the damage imprinted onto the psyche during the tender years of childhood when one is psychologically permeable and easily affected. What happens or happened is fact and transient. However, a memory, trait or habit arising from the fact, once imprinted onto the psyche, though it may

be forgotten and forgiven, may not be easily erased. Increasingly, childhood is leaving human beings with scars that they live the rest of their lives compensating for; trapped in a cycle of overcoming and becoming. In exceptional cases, no effect is produced as a result of negative childhood occurrences but in most cases, the effects are evidenced throughout ones life. The question then is, how does one deal with ones self, in entirety; including the facets of ones self that are dysfunctional that if not dealt with eventually expand enough (or explode) to grab ones attention so as to be dealt with? There are several approaches that have been/are being taken; 1) Admission of a problem and remedial treatment; 2) Denial; 3) Blame and projection onto others; 4) Withdrawal and assumed victimhood. None, I feel, solves the problem; all perpetuate and expand ones problematic state by focusing and shining the spotlight on the problem, feelings of rage, blame, victimhood or cycles of retaliation against the perceived inflictor of past pain (which is continuously projected into the present). Moreover, attention is often focused on the symptoms/effect and not the cause. Understanding and dissolving the (psychological) cause is key.

So, one asks, HOW do we dissolve the cause?

Understanding the problem is a good place to start not through analysis but rather an appreciation of what the problem actually is, undisguised by words or compensatory mannerisms. Understanding the problem, unassumingly, is imperative for in the understanding the solution reveals itself. Without understanding, the very mind that created the problem now attempts to solve the problem and in so doing either creates anew, re-creates or multiplies the problem. The problem itself holds the key to the solution. Understanding the problem lies in being one with the problem, that is, seeing ones self reflected in and through the problem. The solution then unfolds within ones self to return the fractured psyche to wholeness. By wholeness I simply mean that one is no longer conflicted and afflicted by the problem. The psychological fragmentation that creates a problem is once more incorporated into the fold of ones being. Every problem is a contradiction in self; that is, the self in conflict with a fragment of its self, created by the mind. The mind creates and sustains the fragmentation, which in turn creates and sustains conflict. Conflict inevitably creates pain and problems that the mind then sets out to remedy and solve but given that the mind is the creator and sustainer of the fragmented self which only creates more problems and pain, the drama goes on and on without end. A vicious cycle ad infinitum. Of this J. Krishnamurti spoke of and explained succinctly. Problems, conflicts, afflictions of any kind, big or small, cause a

split or rending of ones energy. Healing, whatever form it takes, restores oneness to the energy of the being hence one becomes whole (w-hol-e/holy) again. In the return to wholeness healing takes place within; and healing is essential if one is to live in harmony within and thus with all else. For if one is not at peace with ones self, no external peace can be experienced either. Healing is essential if one is to be a child-at-heart again. Healing is essential if one is no longer to feel hurt every time ones childhood is revisited through memories of the past. Healing is essential if one is to love again, and be open to being loved. Only when one realizes this mind-perpetuated creation of the self and the inherent contradictions, conflict and pain/problems, can one begin to be aware of and observe the dysfunction inherent in the mind and the created self. In this awareness and observation, a transformation occurs within that transforms all without.