HEALING THE INNER CHILD

Venturing into the territory of suffering

A Collection of Articles
8/7/2013



1

Contents

1. Identify Your Negative Core Beliefs 2
2. The Wounded Inner Child 5
3. Healing the Inner Child: Venturing into the territory of suffering 8
4. Healing the Child Within (Thich Nhat Hanh) 14
5. Re-Parenting Your Inner Child 21
6. Re-Parenting the Wounded Child 25
7. Growing Your Self-Awareness 29
8. Getting to Know Your Inner Child and Her or His Inner Protector Characters 31
9. Bottom Line Issues 37



2

Identify Your Negative Core Beliefs
http://www.core-beliefs-balance.com/

A negative core belief is a belief you hold (about yourself) that is essentially, "Deep down
inside I am not good enough because...." There are hundreds of different "because"
endings.
There are even several groups of because endings and issues, with dozens of beliefs in each
group. None of them are accurate. Most are not true, but telling you this, at this stage won't help
much.
General negative core beliefs or feelings about myself:
not good enough (incompetent)
not good enough (unlovable)
unwanted, different
defective, imperfect, bad
powerless, one-below
in danger, not safe
dont know, wrong
Life Issue related to all core beliefs:
Success
Love
Belonging
Self-worth
Control
Security
Reality, reason
There are couple of hundred examples of negative Core Beliefs, but to balance your own specific
negative belief with a positive one you need first to discover what your specific "because" or
issue is about. Yours will be different from people around you. There are no common or one-
size-fits-all negative core beliefs.
Negative Core Beliefs develop as a small child tries to work out a "because" to help them cope
with something they don't understand or are troubled by in their daily life. It might be neglect,
injustice, dishonest parenting, parental addictions, serious abuse, or just feelings of vulnerability,
fear, or shame.

3

Whatever it is the child feels the need for:
1. A "because" that will help them make sense of and accept what is happening to
them
2. A "because" that will help them "fit in" better in their family or at school
The trouble is that the only "because" that seems to work (at that time) is a belief "Because I am
not good enough I am ... (Negative core belief) ... so it must be my fault, not theirs."
If believing this helps the child "fit in" and "make sense" of things that are happening then this
"because belief" appears to be working. So it gets reinforced every day and the more it seems to
work the more it seems as though it must be "true".
In a functional family environment a child would not have needed to take on such negative
beliefs. So in a way you could describe a negative because belief as "the negative belief you
needed when you shouldn't have needed a negative belief".
How and why your emotionally younger systems react when a core belief is triggered
We are desperately chasing after reminders of things we want to forget from our childhood. We
may be almost as busy today, avoiding the gifts we missed out on as children (This process is
often identified as a repetitive pattern of negative self-defeating behaviour).
Almost every unbalanced or negative belief we have about ourselves seems to be connected in
some way with our deepest thoughts or feelings about being:
not good enough (incompetent)
not good enough (unlovable)
unwanted, different
defective, imperfect, bad
powerless, one-below
in danger, not safe
dont know, wrong
Within those broad belief patterns, however, are many different variations. Whatever your
unbalanced beliefs are, they help to define your unique and individual core issues and these in
turn control the way your emotionally younger systems react when those issues are triggered. It's
often been said that whatever your most negative core belief about yourself might be, that's the
one your parts and patterns will tend most to "dance around".
How your unbalanced core beliefs bind your reality
While you have powerful unbalanced negative beliefs in place, your sense of reality will be so
tied up, polarised, bound and distorted that you literally cannot see the positive parts within you.
Until you begin the balancing process, you will probably reject, even fight the reality if someone
tries to tell you that you have a positive side. This happens so often that one of the easiest ways
4

to identify a core belief is just to ask yourself what kind of compliment (about you) usually
makes you feel most uncomfortable.
As a result, you will find it easier to collect evidence that seems to prove that your negative
core beliefs are true and harder to see any evidence to the contrary! If one of your beliefs is My
ideas are not worth listening to you will notice every instance where people ignore your advice
(and you will be hurt by that). You may totally miss a situation where someone compliments you
on a worthwhile suggestion or you may hear it but get no joy from the compliment (you may
even devalue it) wondering to yourself. What is he trying to get out of me?
You will miss the truth because you are so busy trying to cope with the lie. The problem you are
trying to get rid of is actually being helped to stay put.
Why is this so? Because your emotionally younger systems tend to use one fixed, automatic,
repetitive polarised pattern to keep you from feeling the pain connected to a negative belief.
Unfortunately, accepting a sincere compliment would also connect you to the same belief so the
same automatic pattern comes in to block both positive and negative messages. To add to the
problem, whatever your unique unbalanced beliefs about yourself might be, they will
unconsciously attract (towards you) the kind of people whose behaviour fits in with your
negative beliefs, as if you had a sign above your head inviting the very people who will trigger
those beliefs to come in and do just that!
At the same time, your beliefs will help you repel or distance from positive people who do not fit
in with your beliefs. And this, in turn, will shape many of the ways those people then react
towards you. In this way, core beliefs control much of your life. They influence major life
decisions including your choice of a career and marriage partner but, unfortunately, not in a
positive way.
The self-fulfilling prophecy
This is aptly described as a self-fulfilling prophecy, suggesting that what you expect or predict
is more likely to happen because of the things you do to prepare yourself for it. This is more
likely whenever your supporting beliefs tell you it is going to happen again.
What is a "trigger" and what is "triggering"?
A trigger can be an event, a specific comment, a specific experience, an action by another
person; it can be a particular sight or sound, a sudden flash of a past memory, a tone of voice.
Triggers (usually or always) ignite your immediate, strong and automatic reaction or bring on
feelings of extreme pain, discomfort, destabilisation, fear, confusion, disappointment or
devastation. Some of your triggers have been with you all of your life, and many have been there
since early childhood. Usually, they will set off the same reaction each time you are reminded of
the original situation.

5

The Wounded Inner Child
http://www.center4selfdiscovery.org/innerchild.html
Each childhood wound that we suffer potentially creates a wounded Inner Child.
Definition of the wounded Inner Child
How the wounded Inner Child comes into our lives
Signs of the existence of the wounded Inner Child
Risks of suppressing the wounded Inner Children
Benefits of healing the wounded Inner Child
Definition of the wounded Inner Child.
The wounded Inner Child is the part of a person that was hurt, terrified, vulnerable, neglected,
and never allowed to express him- or herself.
Every time something traumatic happens to a child, a part of the child splits off energetically and
disconnects from the rest of the ego-self. The disowned part might contain qualities like
honesty, innocence, fearlessness, joyfulness, creativity, and so on.
Years after the traumatic incident, the now-grown-up child may feel vaguely incomplete and
miss the split off qualities. Such a person might end up spending his or her life searching for
these qualities outside of her- or himself, often in romantic partners, parental figures, and so on.
How the wounded Inner Children come into our lives
The wounded Inner Children came into our life because we were:
Forced to adopt specific behaviors and views from our parents.
For example:
- It is quite prestigious to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.
- Real men dont cry.
- Showing emotion is a sign of weakness.
- Assertiveness is not a good quality.

Forced to live up to our parents expectations.
Denied the right to express our true feelings.
Denied acknowledgment of our true self so that we can be accepted and loved.
Made to feel responsible for our parents failures (marriage, career, and so on).
Unconsciously acting as spouses to our unhappy and emotionally wounded parents.
6

Signs of the existence of the wounded Inner Child
Constant lack of trust in others and in life.
Constant feeling of shame and doubt.
Fear of intimacy.
Experiences of old childhood feelings with strong intensity.
Seeking to please our parents and others at the cost of our own needs.
Having problems with authority and hierarchy.
Constant needs to judge, criticize, condemn and blame ourselves and others for our
problems.
Holding onto anger, resentment, jealousy, fear, shame, and guilt.
Constant feeling of loneliness, isolation and separation from everyone.
Having a strong attitude of what is in this for me? in everything we do.
Showing strong reaction to certain situations that usually do not bother others.
Feeling like husbands to our wounded mothers or wives to our wounded fathers.
Feeling responsible for our parents and our siblings misery.
Risks of suppressing the wounded Inner Child
When we suppress our wounded Inner Children, we risk:
Re-enacting what happened in our childhood with others in the present.
Not being able to have fun and to appreciate life.
Not being able to relax and manage stress.
Not being able to feel fully alive.
Taking ourselves too seriously in everything we do.
Becoming workaholics in order to numb our childhood wounds.
Contaminating or possibly ruining our lives with addictive behaviors.
There are some steps we can take toward healing the wounded Inner Child. In order to help heal
our wounded Inner Children, we need to:

Seek effective counseling.
Learn to speak up for ourselves to say what we need.
Learn more about our childhood issues in order to come up with appropriate affirmations
for ourselves.

Here are some affirmations that we can use for our Inner Children:

- It is OK to share with others about my personal accomplishments.
- It is OK to accept compliments from others.
- It is OK to be honest about my feelings.
- It is OK to make mistakes I can laugh at myself and move on.
- It is OK to be selfish and do things that I really want to do.
- It is OK to let others serve me.

7

We can tell our Inner Children that:
- You can argue or disagree with Mom and Dad and still be a good child.
- I accept and love you just the way you are!
- I am so proud of you no matter what you do!
- You can trust that I am always there for you!
- I am sorry for making you behave like a grown-up when you were still a child.
- From now on, we will have a lot of fun together.

Discover our hidden negative beliefs (core beliefs) about who we are as a human being.
Here are some of our typical negative beliefs:

- I am not lovable
- I am a bad person
- I am too weak to protect myself
- I am a failure
- I cannot trust anyone
- I am not trustworthy
- I deserve to die
- I am permanently damaged
Learn to breathe and allow ourselves to feel and experience all emotions.
Learn to know that as children, we are not responsible for our parents failures or misery.
Learn to take responsibility for our own feelings and emotions. Stop blaming others.
Find time to be alone in time of a major incident. Take a walk in nature in order to feel
calm and nurtured.
Listen and talk to our Inner Children in order to provide them comfort and
encouragement.
Benefits of healing the wounded Inner Child
Feel whole and complete
True freedom from the past to be anything one wishes to be
New sense of freedom to express oneself
Live life joyfully and ability to stay in the present moment
Restore the natural sense of wonder, playfulness, spontaneity, optimism and resilience
8

HEALING THE INNER CHILD:
Venturing into the Territory of Suffering
http://www.themindfulword.org/2011/wounded-inner-child-mindfulness/

Dealing with suffering is like handling a poisonous snake. We have to learn about the snake,
and we ourselves have to grow stronger and more stable in order to handle it without hurting
ourselves. At the end of this process, we will be ready to confront the snake. If we never confront
it, one day it will surprise us and we will die of a snake bite. The pain we carry in the deep levels
of our consciousness is similar. When it grows big and confronts us, theres nothing we can do if
we havent practiced becoming strong and stable in mindfulness. We should only invite our
suffering up when were ready. Then, when it comes we can handle it. To transform our
suffering, we dont struggle with it or try to get rid of it. We simply bathe it in the light of our
mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh, Reconciliation.
To heal the inner child we first have to develop and nurture our mindfulness so we can wake up
to the reality of our suffering, which we would rather avoid. There are clear warning signals of
9

deeper suffering if we choose to pay attention: We get caught up in our dramas and find
ourselves telling and retelling our stories to whomever will listen. We engage in competition
my suffering is bigger than yours. And we court our suffering, keeping it alive.
The courtship of suffering is an ugly romance, for we enter into a co-dependent relationship,
which has to be called by its true name: addiction. Physiologically and emotionally we become
so tightly tied into our suffering that we cannot be without it even though its destroying our
well-being. We grasp at brief insightsyes, this is sufferingbut only when they appear on the
surface of our awareness. Yet the hidden suffering has a way of gathering momentum and energy
until it finally surfaces in its entirety: the small snake has become a monster. The addiction to
suffering is now embedded in our mental state. We respond to any glimpse of suffering with
such destructive emotion that we reinforce the causes and conditions that created the suffering in
the first place. And so we continue shooting ourselves in the footover and over again.
Our suffering, caused by emotional, physical and sexual abuse, becomes an organizing template
in our mind. We then create an abusive relationship with that templates qualities: addiction, fear
and codependency. To stop the cycle of harm we first need an OMG moment: Oh my god, this is
what I have been doing all my life. How do I stop it? It is awesome to penetrate the darkness and
realize that the abuse we suffered as a child has created an abusive relationship with our adult
self. Mindfulness practice can bring the abusive relationship to a halt. This OMG moment
propels us to get to work, to go below the surface and investigate the causes of our suffering.
And so we learn the practices, tools and concentrations that support us on our journey toward
understanding our suffering and resolving it. We break the cycle through retraining and
mindfulness practice. Our journey to wellness requires us to practice mindfulness daily and take
refuge in wise support.
The wounded inner child
Abuse during childhood creates within us a lost, frightened and frozen child. If we are unable to
reach this wounded child then we may never heal ourselves. We prefer not to remember the
sufferings of childhood, so we bury our memories and hide from them. We run away from seeing
deeply into the causes of our suffering. Whenever the memories arise, however fleetingly, we
think we cannot handle them and we deflect them into the deepest realms of our unconscious
mind. We are terrified of further suffering. As a result, the wounded child may not be seen for a
long time. Yet we have to find a way to reach her and make her safe. We have to get past the fear
and address the suffering, because that is the way to awakening.
No matter what kind of happy pretend face we present as an adult, there is also a frightened little
boy or girl inside us. This suffering child colors everything we do, generating our fears,
insecurities and self-loathing, damaging our relationships and our life. That wounded child is
you, is me, and we must extend a hand to him so we can understand, defuse and transform the
energy of his suffering. Mindfulness is the way through to the inner child. We have to embrace
him exactly where he iscaught by the past, fearful, and angry at being neglected for so long.
Moreover, we have to be very skillful.
10

We must touch the seeds of childhood suffering from an adult state of mindfulness and
awareness, making it safe for that child to come out from behind closed doors. As adults, we can
no longer run away. We must have the courage to bring healing to our hurt inner child and
thereby transform ourselves. And the steps we take are not only to heal ourselveswe somehow
connect to all wounded children, those of our ancestors and descendants and everyone else in the
world. Because once we cultivate the seeds of mindful healing in ourselves, the energy of these
seeds extends into all that we connect with, in a quantum leap through time and space from our
cellular memories to everyone elses. With awareness, we take our inner child into our daily life:
we go on picnics, take walks, sit at the dining-room table, do the dishes together. Were patient,
realizing that were on a splendid adventure to end a cycle of suffering that may have persisted
over generations. Thus we are healing and transforming ingrained patterns transmitted to us from
our ancestors and through us to our descendants, patterns that built up over time like corrosive
rust and amplified the fears and suffering of the wounded inner child.
Thich Nhat Hanh addressed the issue of child abuse in a question and answer session held in the
Lower Hamlet of Plum Village in France on Oct. 17, 1998. Very gently, he spoke about the
ignorance and pain of the abuser as well as the pain of the abused, explaining that the basis of
recovery is understanding, not blame, guilt or shame. First, he said, we need to understand that
the abuser must have lived in ignorance and deprivation, without support, guidance or a wise
teacher; the overwhelming power of ignorance drove him or her to do wrong. If the abused
person can begin to understand just a little bit, then anger, shame and outrage can transform into
droplets of compassion, and through mindfulness practice, suffering can diminish. When
forgiveness and understanding are present, suffering decreases.
Thich Nhat Hanh then recommended that the abused person practice mindfulness, to transform
himself or herself into a Bodhisattva and engender the compassion to help all children who need
protection. Those who have experienced abuse and recovered from it can use their understanding
to promote measures that protect children and help eradicate the ignorance that generates abuse.
Write to your inner child
There are many techniques and methodologies of therapy that address issues of the wounded
inner child. The first one I am going to describe is simple, and anyone can do it. Its a first step,
and I recommend practicing it under the guidance of a therapist, shaman or spiritual teacher.
Youre going to start a diary or logbook for you and the inner child to write to each other. The
adult you will write using the hand that you normally write with. Begin by saying hello to
Little John, to Little Allison. Then say how sorry you are for having been away and neglectful,
that you are grown-up, now, and strong, and that you are going to make it safe for Little John, for
Little Allison, who will now be safe, loved and cherished. Write in your own words in this way.
Then, with your other hand, the one you do not usually write with, allow the inner child to
express himself. Do not edit. Just write down whatever comes out. Angry, blaming and abusive
words may come out, and its your job as the adult you not to be shocked or defensive but to
provide constant reassurance, love and guidance. Bring to this communication all the love,
compassion and wisdom you can muster. These are the seeds of mindfulness that you
consciously bring to support the wounded child inside you. The energy of these seeds works on
11

the energy of the traumatized inner child to reduce his pain and suffering. Talk to him through
this writing, with total love and acute mindfulness. Then read your diary entries out loud, placing
yourself first in your adult shoes and then in your inner childs shoes; this is a way for both of
you to be heard. On a daily basis, register how deeply your understanding and love is getting
through to the child, for he is listening carefully to every word and knows that you are now
listening to him. As the adult brings awareness, love and healing to the child, the adult and the
child will draw closer to each other.
Details of trauma may be revealed that you had forgotten about, which is why you need the help
and guidance of a trusted therapist, shaman or spiritual teacher who will support you in being a
wise and loving parent to your wounded child. In time, you will notice changes in the way your
child expresses herself, as she becomes trusting and starts to grow, eventually merging fully with
you as an adult (You will also learn to write very well with your other hand!).
In your letters, tell your inner child about yourself and your life, take her on outings, give her
treats and lavish on that child all the care, attention and love you feel you did not receive when
you were a child. The suffering will diminish and you will experience a transformation; your
relationships with co-workers, friends and family will start to change, and your fears of the past
and anxieties about the future will not have the same force. When you notice improvements tell
your inner child, Thank you for being with me. It makes me so happy, as being with her on the
healing journey brings happiness.
At times you may cry, you may feel joy and also despairwhich is why you need guidance and
support as you begin the journey of reclaiming yourself. You need that wise, spiritual friend and
teacher to keep you steady and mindful. I know, because I went through it. I am happy to say the
process worked for me; I experienced the painfully slow establishment of trust, then the
exhilarating joy of safety and integration, until finally my inner child and the adult me were the
same person, and I felt a freshness and vitality that I treasure. Ultimately there is only one pair of
shoes!
Our journey is a deep and beautiful process because we are no longer running away from
afflictions that have rendered us dysfunctional. We bring mindfulness, concentration and insight
to our inner child and envelop him in the refreshing energy of transformation. We work
diligently to nurture seeds of happiness, joy and safety in the consciousness of the inner child
the same seeds that are in us, our ancestors and our descendants. When despair and fear arise
from the child we have the presence of mind to listen deeply and surround the fear with the
stronger energy field of mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book Reconciliation, tells us: The
capacity to be awarethat is, to be a human being who is mindfulis what will save us.
Buddhist teachings contain a multitude of tools, concentrations and practices that can nurture this
process: The Five Remembrances, Five Year Old Child Meditation, Sutra on Mindful Breathing,
Deep Relaxation, Touching the Earth, and Removing the Object are just a few. Meditation gives
us a way to stop the fears of the past and anxieties about the future from crowding and
overwhelming the mind. At his practice center in Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh has provided a
much loved practice gatha for the meditation community that begins I have arrived, I am
home. The gatha is used with walking meditation, connected to in-breath and out-breath, and
12

provides an essential tool to deal with the many mental formations that flood our waking
consciousness with fear, pain and suffering. With daily, diligent practice we can examine these
same mental formations, but from a place centered in mindfulness. This simple gatha has become
the dharma seal of Plum Village.
I. Inner child has arrived meditation
The original Vietnamese gatha translates not as I have arrived, I am home but Your child has
arrived, your child is home. This is so beautiful to say to yourself as you breathe in and out
whenever you do walking meditation, for each step encourages your wounded child to be well
and to come home to you. When you walk to your car or to your office, by a river or in a park,
you can recite to yourself:
In-breath: My inner child has arrived.
Out-breath: My inner child is home.
Through the practice of being present, you will use your conscious breath and concentration to
heal, simply by welcoming your wounded inner child home. You are capable of arriving in every
moment, whether its in sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindful eating, taking a shower
or doing laundry. Its necessary to cultivate the internal energy of mindfulness before stopping
and looking deeply into what caused the trauma. The practice of being in the moment nurtures
that strength, and it provides the clarity and lucidity needed to put to rest the ghosts of the past
and the ghosts of future anxiety.
In-breath: My inner child has arrived.
Out-breath: My inner child is home.
II Love meditation for the inner child
Another tool adapts the Four Brahmaviharas meditation to focus on the injured inner child and is
based on the Buddhas teachings on love. This meditation nurtures the inner child wonderfully
and at the same time nurtures the adult you. Prepare for meditation by sitting comfortably with
the spine erect. Bring your concentration to the in-breath and the out-breath. After ten or twenty
breaths, whenever you feel calm and stable, bring each of the componentslove, compassion,
joy, equanimityinto yourself, the adult you. The next sequence provides a concentration to
water the seeds of Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity within your inner child.
In-breath: I bring Love
Out-breath: to my inner child.
You can say a loving name for your inner child if you wish. Say silently, Dear Mary or
Darling Joseph. Feel the energy of love fill you from top to toe and register with the energy for
several breaths. Then continue in the same way with:
In-breath: I bring compassion
Out-breath: to my inner child.
13

In-breath: I bring joy
Out-breath: to my inner child.
In-breath: I bring equanimity
Out-breath: to my inner child
Conclude the meditation by once more bringing love, compassion, joy and equanimity to the
adult you. The concentration on these four qualities is an incredibly powerful instrument for
healing. I dont have words to adequately describe the impact but Thich Nhat Hanh does:
The Buddha says if we gather together all the virtuous actions we have realized in this world,
they are not equal to practicing love meditations If we collect together all the light from the
stars, it will not be as bright as the light of the moon. In the same way, practicing love meditation
is greater than all other virtuous actions combined.
There are many other methods of meditation and practice that could be documented here. I have
included some that I used to good effect in my process of healing. These practices accompanied
the shamanic healing conducted in an altered state of consciousness (see Healing Journeys in
Portals and Passagesforthcoming). One important factor was that once understanding dawned
in my consciousness I became determined to heal. I took specific steps and relied on wise
teachers, medicine women and steady friends to help me along the path of healing and
transformation. I must emphasize that this is not a journey that can be taken alone, so do ensure
that you have support from your sangha and good guidance from a therapist, shaman or spiritual
teacher.



14

Healing the Child Within
http://www.mindful.org/in-body-and-mind/coping-with-difficulty/healing-the-child-within
The cry we hear from deep in our hearts, says Thich Nhat Hanh, comes from
the wounded child within. Healing this inner childs pain will transform
negative emotions.

Drawing by Tighe Moore, age 7
In each of us, there is a young, suffering child. We have all had times of difficulty as children
and many of us have experienced trauma. To protect and defend ourselves against future
suffering, we often try to forget those painful times. Every time were in touch with the
experience of suffering, we believe we cant bear it, and we stuff our feelings and memories deep
down in our unconscious mind. It may be that we havent dared to face this child for many
decades.
But just because we may have ignored the child doesnt mean she or he isnt there. The wounded
child is always there, trying to get our attention. The child says, Im here. Im here. You cant
avoid me. You cant run away from me. We want to end our suffering by sending the child to a
deep place inside, and staying as far away as possible. But running away doesnt end our
suffering; it only prolongs it.
15

The wounded child asks for care and love, but we do the opposite. We run away because were
afraid of suffering. The block of pain and sorrow in us feels overwhelming. Even if we have
time, we dont come home to ourselves. We try to keep ourselves constantly entertained
watching television or movies, socializing, or using alcohol or drugsbecause we dont want to
experience that suffering all over again.
The wounded child is there and we dont even know she is there. The wounded child in us is a
reality, but we cant see her. That inability to see is a kind of ignorance. This child has been
severely wounded. She or he really needs us to return. Instead we turn away.
Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. Its like a drop of ink diffused in a
glass of water. That ignorance stops us from seeing reality; it pushes us to do foolish things that
make us suffer even more and wound again the already-wounded child in us.
The wounded child is also in each cell of our body. There is no cell of our body that does not
have that wounded child in it. We dont have to look far into the past for that child. We only
have to look deeply and we can be in touch with him. The suffering of that wounded child is
lying inside us right now in the present moment.
But just as the suffering is present in every cell of our body, so are the seeds of awakened
understanding and happiness handed down to us from our ancestors. We just have to use them.
We have a lamp inside us, the lamp of mindfulness, which we can light anytime. The oil of that
lamp is our breathing, our steps, and our peaceful smile. We have to light up that lamp of
mindfulness so the light will shine out and the darkness will dissipate and cease. Our practice is
to light up the lamp.
When we become aware that weve forgotten the wounded child in ourselves, we feel great
compassion for that child and we begin to generate the energy of mindfulness. The practices of
mindful walking, mindful sitting, and mindful breathing are our foundation. With our mindful
breath and mindful steps, we can produce the energy of mindfulness and return to the awakened
wisdom lying in each cell of our body. That energy will embrace us and heal us, and will heal the
wounded child in us.
Listening
When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else. But
we must also listen to the wounded child inside us. Sometimes the wounded child in us needs all
our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for
your attention. If you are mindful, you will hear his or her voice calling for help. At that moment,
instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the
wounded child. You can talk directly to the child with the language of love, saying, In the past,
I left you alone. I went away from you. Now, I am very sorry. I am going to embrace you. You
16

can say, Darling, I am here for you. I will take good care of you. I know you suffer so much. I
have been so busy. I have neglected you, and now I have learned a way to come back to you. If
necessary, you have to cry together with that child. Whenever you need to, you can sit and
breathe with the child. Breathing in, I go back to my wounded child; breathing out, I take good
care of my wounded child.
You have to talk to your child several times a day. Only then can healing take place. Embracing
your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him
unattended. The little child has been left alone for so long. That is why you need to begin this
practice right away. If you dont do it now, when will you do it?
If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing
will take place. When you climb a beautiful mountain, invite your child within to climb with
you. When you contemplate the sunset, invite her to enjoy it with you. If you do that for a few
weeks or a few months, the wounded child in you will experience healing.
With practice, we can see that our wounded child is not only us. Our wounded child may
represent several generations. Our mother may have suffered throughout her life. Our father may
have suffered. Perhaps our parents werent able to look after the wounded child in themselves.
So when were embracing the wounded child in us, were embracing all the wounded children of
our past generations. This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless
generations of ancestors and descendants.
Our ancestors may not have known how to care for their wounded child within, so they
transmitted their wounded child to us. Our practice is to end this cycle. If we can heal our
wounded child, we will not only liberate ourselves, but we will also help liberate whoever has
hurt or abused us. The abuser may also have been the victim of abuse. There are people who
have practiced with their inner child for a long time who have had a lessening of their suffering
and have experienced transformation. Their relationships with their family and friends have
become much easier.
We suffer because we have not been touched by compassion and understanding. If we generate
the energy of mindfulness, understanding, and compassion for our wounded child, we will suffer
much less. When we generate mindfulness, compassion and understanding become possible, and
we can allow people to love us. Before, we may have been suspicious of everything and
everyone. Compassion helps us relate to others and restore communication.
The people around us, our family and friends, may also have a severely wounded child inside. If
weve managed to help ourselves, we can also help them. When weve healed ourselves, our
relationships with others become much easier. Theres more peace and more love in us.
17

Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your
perceptions need you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to
acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things. Practice mindful walking and mindful
breathing. Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love.
The Energy of Mindfulness
The energy of mindfulness is the salve that will recognize and heal the child within. But how do
we cultivate this energy?
We can divide consciousness into two parts. One part is mind consciousness and the other is
store consciousness. Mind consciousness is our active awareness. Western psychology calls it
the conscious mind. To cultivate the energy of mindfulness, we try to engage our active
awareness in all our activities and be truly present with whatever we are doing. We want to be
mindful as we drink our tea or drive through the city. When we walk, we want to be aware that
we are walking. When we breathe, we want to be aware that we are breathing.
Store consciousness, also called root consciousness, is the base of our consciousness. In Western
psychology its called the unconscious mind. Its where all our past experiences are stored.
Store consciousness has the capacity to learn and to process information.
Often our mind is not there with our body. Sometimes we go through our daily activities without
mind consciousness being involved at all. We can do many things by means of store
consciousness alone, and mind consciousness can be thinking of a thousand other things. For
example, when we drive our car through the city, mind consciousness may not be thinking about
driving at all, but we can still reach our destination without getting lost or having an accident.
That is store consciousness operating on its own.
Consciousness is like a house in which the basement is our store consciousness and the living
room is our mind consciousness. Mental formations like anger, sorrow, or joy, rest in the store
consciousness in the form of seeds. We have a seed of anger, despair, discrimination, fear; a seed
of mindfulness, compassion; a seed of understanding, and so on. Store consciousness is made of
the totality of the seeds, and it is also the soil that preserves and maintains all the seeds. The
seeds stay there until we hear, see, read, or think of something that touches a seed and makes us
feel the anger, joy, or sorrow. This is a seed coming up and manifesting on the level of mind
consciousness, in our living room. Now we no longer call it a seed, but a mental formation.
When someone touches the seed of anger by saying something or doing something that upsets us,
that seed of anger will come up and manifest in mind consciousness as the mental formation of
anger. The word formation is a term for something thats created by many conditions coming
together. A marker pen is a formation; my hand, a flower, a table, a house, are all formations. A
house is a physical formation. My hand is a physiological formation. My anger is a mental
18

formation. Varieties of seeds can manifest as mental formations. Anger is just one of them. In
store consciousness, anger is called a seed. In mind consciousness, its called a mental formation.
Whenever a seed, say the seed of anger, comes up into our living room and manifests as a mental
formation, the first thing we can do is to touch the seed of mindfulness and invite it to come up
too. Now we have two mental formations in the living room. This is mindfulness of anger.
Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. When we breathe mindfully, that is
mindfulness of breathing. When we walk mindfully, that is mindfulness of walking. When we
eat mindfully, thats mindfulness of eating. So in this case, mindfulness is mindfulness of anger.
Mindfulness recognizes and embraces anger.
Our practice is based on the insight of nondualityanger is not an enemy. Both mindfulness and
anger are ourselves. Mindfulness is there not to suppress or fight against anger, but to recognize
and take care of itlike a big brother helping a younger brother. So the energy of anger is
recognized and embraced tenderly by the energy of mindfulness.
Every time we need the energy of mindfulness, we just touch that seed with our mindful
breathing or mindful walking, smiling, and then we have the energy ready to do the work of
recognizing, embracing, and later on looking deeply and transforming. Whatever were doing,
whether its cooking, sweeping, washing, walking, or being aware of our breathing, we can
continue to generate the energy of mindfulness, and the seed of mindfulness in us will become
strong. Within the seed of mindfulness is the seed of concentration. With these two energies, we
can liberate ourselves from afflictions.
The Mind Needs Good Circulation
We know there are toxins in our body. If our blood doesnt circulate well, these toxins
accumulate. In order to remain healthy, our body works to expel the toxins. When the blood
circulates well, the kidneys and the liver can do their job to dispel toxins. We can use massage to
help the blood circulate better.
Our consciousness, too, may be in a state of bad circulation. We may have a block of suffering,
pain, sorrow, or despair in us; its like a toxin in our consciousness. We call this an internal
formation or internal knot. Embracing our pain and sorrow with the energy of mindfulness is the
practice of massaging our consciousness. When the blood doesnt circulate well, our organs cant
function properly, and we get sick. When our psyche doesnt circulate well, our mind will
become sick. Mindfulness stimulates and accelerates circulation throughout blocks of pain.
Occupying the Living Room
Our blocks of pain, sorrow, anger, and despair always want to come up into our mind
consciousness, into our living room, because theyve grown big and need our attention. They
19

want to emerge, but we dont want these uninvited guests to come up because theyre painful to
look at. So we try to block their way. We want them to stay asleep down in the basement. We
dont want to face them, so our habit is to fill the living room with other guests. Whenever we
have ten or fifteen minutes of free time, we do anything we can to keep our living room
occupied. We call a friend. We pick up a book. We turn on the television. We go for a drive. We
hope that if the living room is occupied, these unpleasant mental formations will not come up.
But all mental formations need to circulate. If we dont let them come up, it creates bad
circulation in our psyche, and symptoms of mental illness and depression begin to manifest in
our mind and body.
Sometimes when we have a headache, we take aspirin, but our headache doesnt go away.
Sometimes this kind of headache can be a symptom of mental illness. Perhaps we have allergies.
We think its a physical problem, but allergies can also be a symptom of mental illness. We are
advised by doctors to take drugs, but sometimes these will continue to suppress our internal
formations, making our sickness worse.
Dismantling Barriers
If we can learn not to fear our knots of suffering, we slowly begin to let them circulate up into
our living room. We begin to learn how to embrace them and transform them with the energy of
mindfulness. When we dismantle the barrier between the basement and the living room, blocks
of pain will come up and we will have to suffer a bit. Our inner child may have a lot of fear and
anger stored up from being down in the basement for so long. There is no way to avoid it.
That is why the practice of mindfulness is so important. If mindfulness is not there, it is very
unpleasant to have these seeds come up. But if we know how to generate the energy of
mindfulness, its very healing to invite them up every day and embrace them. Mindfulness is a
strong source of energy that can recognize, embrace, and take care of these negative energies.
Perhaps these seeds dont want to come up at first, perhaps theres too much fear and distrust, so
we may have to coax them a bit. After being embraced for some time, a strong emotion will
return to the basement and become a seed again, but weaker than before.
Every time you give your internal formations a bath of mindfulness, the blocks of pain in you
become lighter. So give your anger, your despair, your fear, a bath of mindfulness every day.
After several days or weeks of bringing them up daily and helping them go back down again,
you create good circulation in your psyche.
The Function of Mindfulness
The first function of mindfulness is to recognize and not to fight. We can stop at any time and
become aware of the child within us. When we recognize the wounded child for the first time, all
20

we need to do is be aware of him or her and say hello. Thats all. Perhaps this child is sad. If we
notice this we can just breathe in and say to ourselves, Breathing in, I know that sorrow has
manifested in me. Hello, my sorrow. Breathing out, I will take good care of you.
Once we have recognized our inner child, the second function of mindfulness is to embrace him
or her. This is a very pleasant practice. Instead of fighting our emotions, we are taking good care
of ourselves. Mindfulness brings with her an allyconcentration. The first few minutes of
recognizing and embracing our inner child with tenderness will bring some relief. The difficult
emotions will still be there, but we wont suffer as much anymore.
After recognizing and embracing our inner child, the third function of mindfulness is to soothe
and relieve our difficult emotions. Just by holding this child gently, we are soothing our difficult
emotions and we can begin to feel at ease. When we embrace our strong emotions with
mindfulness and concentration, well be able to see the roots of these mental formations. Well
know where our suffering has come from. When we see the roots of things, our suffering will
lessen. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and relieves.
The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration as well as the energy of insight.
Concentration helps us focus on just one thing. With concentration, the energy of looking
becomes more powerful and insight is possible. Insight always has the power of liberating us. If
mindfulness is there, and we know how to keep mindfulness alive, concentration will be there
too. And if we know how to keep concentration alive, insight will also come. The energy of
mindfulness enables us to look deeply and gain the insight we need so that transformation is
possible.
Adapted from Reconciliation: Healing The Inner Child (2010) by Thich Nhat Hanh, with
permission from Parallax Press, Berkeley, California. www.parallax.org


21

Re-parenting your Inner Child
http://boundariesofthesoul.com/2013/05/23/re-parenting-your-inner-child/
We have seen clearly in my previous set of posts how an inner critic is formed
from the defense mechanisms used by the wounded, criticized child and how
these can be taken forward into adulthood. Part of the process of dealing with
the inner critic and the chaos it causes is to re-parent our inner child, showing it
that it no-longer needs those mechanisms and the protection offered by its family
of critics.
Try this: Before leaving home one morning, you took an extra effort in getting your living room
cleaned, but when you return in the evening, you find it in a mess. What will your response be?
Sigh and clean up again
Shrug your shoulder and leave it as it is or get upset and cry
Shut out the person responsible
Get frustrated but keep quiet
Get angry and yell at the person
Take it in your stride, let it go and maybe clean up later

Your response to the above situation is a reflection of your inner, self-set pattern of behavior.
This behavioral pattern has been formed and reformed over the years, starting from your birth,
through reinforcement and suppression, mostly by parents or other significant people, and has
now become a part of your personality and self-beliefs. Sometimes, the personality type and self-
beliefs of a person may hinder healthy development and lifestyle of the person. How a child is
treated affects what he/she thinks and does as an adult. Faulty upbringing need not necessarily be
a result of abuse, intentional neglect or wrongdoing of parents. It may be unknowingly done and
might not seem of much importance. Yet, certain instances, maybe in the form of discipline,
control or conduct of significant adults (especially parents), in a childs life, greatly influence
his/her personality, his/her view of the world and relationships with self and others, as an adult.

However, this becomes a very prominent issue when a person has been a victim of child abuse in
any form, or has been a part of a dysfunctional family. In most cases though, the way parents
treat a child is largely dependent on how they were treated as children. Even in cases where the
parenting techniques are wrong, the same parental pattern goes on for generations until someone
22

realizes their mistake. But just knowing the problem is never enough. A solution and remedy has
to be found and used. One way of doing this is by reparenting.

What is Reparenting?
Reparenting deals with three aspects of an individual. They are: Adult, Inner Child, and Parent.
The Adult is the individual, the Inner Child is the childhood stage at which the individual was
wronged and the Parent is a therapist (or the individual) who gives the right response the child
should have received. Thus, reparenting is nothing but going back to the stage in which the adult
was wronged and satisfying or making peace with the inner child hidden inside by giving the
response and fulfilling the needs that were required at that time by self-counseling or therapy.
Reparenting the Inner Child
The feelings and beliefs that the inner child carries have two different causes. One is the inner
critic attacks in the adults present life and the second is the things that happened in childhood,
usually criticism from parents and care-givers. The pain that the critic causes in the present is
bad enough but it also aggravates the inner child and makes that pain worse, ultimately
strengthening the inner critic. To start the reparenting process, it is important to access and work
with the inner child and treat it with empathy and compassion, feel its pain and witness the
situations that caused it pain. Your inner child has been hidden for a long time, so you have to
bear in mind that your inner child may not know how to express certain feelings. They may
believe that theyre not allowed to express their feelings, or that their feelings are unimportant.
They believe that they are unimportant and also believe the lies that they were told. All these
things you have to keep in mind, and slowly encourage them to express the way they feel/think.
According to John Bradshaw, author of Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your
Inner Child, the process of healing your wounded inner child is one of grief. And it involves
these seven steps (in Bradshaws words):
1. Trust
For your wounded inner child to come out of hiding, he must be able to trust that you will be
there for him. Your inner child also needs a supportive, non-shaming ally to validate his
abandonment, neglect, abuse, and enmeshment. Those are the first essential elements in original
pain work.
2. Validation
23

If youre still inclined to minimize and/or rationalize the ways in which you were shamed,
ignored, or used to nurture your parents, you need now to accept the fact that these things truly
wounded your soul. Your parents werent bad, they were just wounded kids themselves.
3. Shock
If this is all shocking to you, thats great, because shock is the beginning of grief. After shock
comes depression and then denial.
4. Anger.
Its okay to be angry, even if what was done to you was unintentional. In fact, you HAVE to be
angry if you want to heal your wounded inner child. I dont mean you need to scream and holler
(although you might). Its just okay to be mad about a dirty deal. I know [my parents] did the
best that two wounded adult children could do. But Im also aware that I was deeply wounded
spiritually and that it has had life-damaging consequences for me. What that means is that I hold
us all responsible to stop what were doing to ourselves and to others. I will not tolerate the
outright dysfunction and abuse that dominated my family system.
5. Sadness
After anger comes hurt and sadness. If we were victimized, we must grieve that betrayal. We
must also grieve what might have beenour dreams and aspirations. We must grieve our
unfulfilled developmental needs.
6. Remorse
When we grieve for someone who has died, remorse is sometimes more relevant; for instance,
perhaps we wish we had spent more time with the deceased person. But in grieving childhood
abandonment, you must help your wounded inner child see that there was nothing he could have
done differently. His pain is about what happened to him; it is not about him.
7. Loneliness
The deepest core feelings of grief are toxic shame and loneliness. We were shamed by [our
parents'] abandoning us. We feel we are bad, as if were contaminated. And that shame leads to
loneliness. Since our inner child feels flawed and defective, he has to cover up his true self with
his adapted false self. He then comes to identify himself by his false self. His true self remains
24

alone and isolated. Staying with this last layer of painful feelings is the hardest part of the grief
process. The only way out is through, we say in therapy. Its hard to stay at that level of shame
and loneliness; but as we embrace these feelings, we come out the other side. We encounter the
self that has been in hiding. You see, because we hid it from others, we hid it from ourselves. In
embracing our shame and loneliness, we begin to touch our truest self.

Dr. Nicholas J enner is a Counseling psychologist in private practice working with individuals,
couples, groups and companies globally.


25

Reparenting the Wounded Child
http://serenityonlinetherapy.com/reparent_the_wounded_child.htm

Many clients tell me during intake, I think I have a split personality. I am fine one minute, but
then in the blink of an eye I can get really crazy. After completing the intake questions, I
usually end up saying, You dont have a split personality. You have an Adult and a Wounded
Child. I then go on to explain that the Adult is a metaphor for the part of the brain that is
rational, lives in the present moment, and sees things as they are, right here, right now, while the
Wounded Child (WC) is a metaphor for the part of the brain that contains unhealed emotional
wounds and traumas, usually from childhood. The important thing to understand is that these
unhealed wounds, which I call the WC, can be jabbed, poked, and brushed up against by
current events resulting in an intense knee jerk reaction just as if someone accidently bumped
into your badly injured knee.
Unhealed childhood wounds can fester in the background until a stimulus in the present
moment brushes up against them, releasing a flood of repressed emotional pain that can
instantly turn your rational Adult into an intensely emotional and irrational WC. For example, if
you were verbally abused and relentlessly criticized as a child by a parent or bully and then 20
years later your spouse says Honey, I think you hung the picture off center a bit, which
reminds your WC of being painfully criticized in childhood, you can instantly become flooded
26

with emotional pain, and then erupt into intense anger, fear, or shame, which seems to come out
of nowhere, but it doesnt. It comes from your WC.
So, how and why does this happen?
Well, theres a part of your brain called the brain stem, which is responsible for keeping the car
running respiration, heartbeat, etc. but also for the fight-or-flight reaction, a helpful system
that protects us by quickly recognizing danger and then immediately shifting our bodies into
overdrive to deal with it. The brain stem does this in conjunction with the amygdala, another part
of the brain that, when triggered, becomes supercharged to race through our memory files to
identify the current threat based on our memories of past painful events. Interestingly, the brain
stem fight-or-flight mode is hundreds of millions of years old even lizards have a brain stem
so it is entirely a knee jerk reaction. It is incapable of recognizing obvious facts such as that I am
now a powerful adult, not a powerless child, or that the cologne I now smell is worn by my
loving spouse, not by the person who abused me wearing the same cologne when I was six. The
brain stem/amygdala fight-or-flight reaction is automatic. It searches for anything that in any
way reminds it of painful situations in the past, and then immediately goes into fight or flight
mode, which is a very intense emotional state that changes the way our brain and body work for
a short period of time in order to deal with the perceived threat. So, we need this fight or flight
system for survival, but sometimes it causes problems, particularly if we were significantly
wounded in childhood, because it cant separate past pain from present reality.
If you were traumatized as a child and did not receive adult help to heal the wounds, then most
likely you are carrying around repressed or suppressed memories and festering wounds that can
be triggered at any moment by current stimuli, which then hurl you into fight or flight mode and
literally take you back to the emotional, body, and thinking states of when the trauma occurred.
Thus, in essence, you become that little child again, but in an adult body and in a current
situation that most likely is significantly different from the one in which you were hurt. In fact,
you literally go into a trance state - a WC trance - during which you feel small and powerless,
and since it feels so real, it can significantly distort your normal Adult perception of what is
actually happening in the present moment. Using the example above, the WC feels like the
spouses comment that the picture is not centered will immediately lead to intense emotional
pain and even abuse, hence the fight-or-flight knee jerk reaction of fear and anger, when in
reality the spouse is simply trying to help hang a picture correctly on a wall. There is no threat,
and yet the WC's mind and body are screaming that there is, hence, the over-reaction.
Since WC reactions tend to be over-reactions seeing threat where there is none you react in
ways that are irrational, which is confusing to you and others. You feel out of control and bad
about yourself for over-reacting, so you condemn yourself (and your WC), which only increases
your sense of shame and isolation. After all, when growing up, the WC longed for love,
acceptance, nurturance, and protection, and it still does. Thus, to heal yourself and become
27

whole, you must bridge the gulf that separates the Adult from the WC, and to do this, your Adult
must embrace your WC, which is called reparenting the WC.
How can you reparent your WC?
Imagine you have a daughter (or maybe you do) who is panicky, angry, or just feeling bad about
herself from being bullied at school. How would you as her parent try to help? Would you call
her a failure and a worthless person and tell her that no one could ever love her? Would you be
harshly impatient with her, rejecting of her, and condemning of her? Would you ignore her needs
and feelings and tell her that she was stupid or selfish for having them? I doubt it, and yet many
of us who were wounded in childhood do exactly that to ourselves. We treat our WC in ways we
would never dream of treating another human being.
Reparenting the WC means learning to love, nurture, protect, and set healthy limits with your
WC. It means learning to own the wounds that encompass your WC and healing them in
exactly the same way you would if you had an upset son under your parental care -
unconditionally loving your child, supporting him, protecting him, and nurturing him to work
through his pain and grow from it, but also setting limits on any unhealthy impulses he may want
to act out, like throwing temper tantrums, verbally abusing others, or beating up on self. If you
want to see an excellent movie about reparenting the WC, then watch The Kid (2000), starring
Bruce Willis.
Here is a common situation: You are driving the car that is your life with the Adult in drivers
seat and the WC in the back seat safely secured with a seatbelt. Suddenly a stimulus (for
example, someone gets angry at you) triggers the WCs pain and then, in an instant, the WC
erupts and climbs into the front seat, throws the Adult aside, and screams Im driving this car
now! Then the WC desperately tries to manage the current situation, which she perceives as
highly threatening, but most likely is not. As a result of this WC trance, she views the situation
completely in black or white terms, blinded by the intense emotions triggered by past reminders
of pain, often resulting in over-reaction and bad decisions. The simple fact is that the WC is too
young to drive. She reacts from the maturity level of an eight-year-olds comprehension of the
world, completely based on past memories of pain rather than on an accurate perception of the
present circumstances.
So, the keys to recovery are:
1) Learning to recognize when the WC trance is triggered and
2) Learning how to calm yourself down and get the Adult back in the drivers seat and
the WC in the back seat where she belongs.
But in this process you must learn how to manage your precious WC in a loving but firm way -
just as any good parent would do.
28

Sadly, if your childhood caretakers were unable to parent you in a way that met most of your
needs, then the only option left for your Adult is to reparent your WC now. No one else can do
this for you. You may try to put others in the role of reparenting your WC a boyfriend, wife,
friend, or therapist - or even continue going back to your biological parents begging them for
what they can't give you, but once you are an adult, no one can do this for you. The only
effective option is for your Adult to learn to reparent your WC. Here is a poem that reflects this
truth:
My Child Within
I found my child within today,
For many years so locked away,
Loving, embracing, needing so much,
If only I could reach in and touch.
I did not know this child of mine,
We were never acquainted at three or nine,
But today I felt the crying inside,
I'm here, I shouted, come reside.
We hugged each other ever so tight,
As feelings emerged of hurt and fright.
It's okay, I sobbed, I love you so!
You are precious to me, I want you to know.
My child, my child, you are safe today,
You will not be abandoned, I'm here to stay.
We laughed, we cried, it was a discovery,
This warm loving child is my recovery.

By Kathleen Algoe

The most important relationship you will change on your path to recovery is your relationship
with yourself. As the poem suggests, if you can develop a loving, nurturing, and protective
relationship with your WC, then healing and growth will naturally follow because this warm,
loving child is your recovery.


29

Growing Your Self-Awareness
http://www.love-your-inner-child.com/self_awareness_process_b.htm
Getting Started
Getting to know the individual protector characters who live and work in your Inner Village
increases your self-awareness. In growing awareness work these characters are known as "inner
protector characters," so self-awareness is an accurate description of what you are doing.
Although you may think at the start that your protector characters are very much like those in the
person next to you, you soon discover just how amazingly individual and unique each one of
them can be.
Becoming aware of them - what they do, think, say, and feel - helps you understand them and
work with them. And the only way to find this out is to arrange to interview them. Actually,
youll need to dialogue with them lots of times and often.
Even a short conversation with each character helps your self-awareness in another way. Very
quickly you will notice something happening as each character realizes:
You recognize it as a separate and individual part of your personality
You are willing to listen to it
You appreciate what it is trying to do for you

As soon as this happens, it starts developing a stronger "sense of character" and in turn it will
explain more about itself, what it does and thinks and feels as it works hard each day trying to
protect you.
There are a number of things you can do at the start to help develop this sense of character,
probably the most important is to give each character its own name and a kind of brief job
description.
As you do this, it is important that you keep track of each character and the best way is to make
notes as soon as possible after each one is interviewed. Otherwise you quickly forget who talked
and their names.
Self-awareness profile sheets (See separate page for sample sheets)
There are three important reasons for using a self-awareness profile sheet:
1. They are the best way to keep track of your inner protector characters as you meet
them.
30

2. They help you group characters according to their different protection patterns. Its not
important to classify their patterns accurately, most profile sheets have a very short shelf-
life perhaps only a few hours and characters can change their patterns quickly. But do try
to keep your sheets up to date. Start a new one as often as you need to.
3. These sheets help you keep track of different pairs of characters, many of whom
operate as polar opposites is. Once you start to realize that most of the characters inside
you work in pairs you are extending your self-awareness to a higher level and increasing
your self-empowerment.
There is another reason though it is not as important. The characters themselves like it when you
write things about them on your sheet. This helps them develop a stronger sense of being "real".

31

Getting to Know Your Inner Child and
Her or His Inner Protector Characters
http://www.love-your-inner-child.com/self_awareness_process_a.htm
One of the best places to start is by getting to know the inner protector characters inside you who
have been looking after your inner child until now. This is what we mean by self-awareness.
SELF-AWARENESS
Basic self-awareness - level one
Basic self-awareness skills develop quite quickly.
Many people find that once they begin they can reach level one almost immediately.
Separating
During these early stages youll notice that you are beginning to separate one inner protector
character from another. When you do this you soon realise that obviously there is another part of
you, the part that is aware of the characters, is observing them and talking about them yet it is not
actually one of them.
Your grown-up part
This is your "aware adult" often referred to as your grown-up part. It is also the part that is doing
the separating and the part out of which your future self-awareness and self -empowerment will
grow.
As you become more aware of your grown-up part you can start creating a safe environment for
self-awareness work and gaining an overall understanding of what self-awareness and self-
empowerment can do for you.
From there you can expect to progress quite quickly to Level two.
Advanced self-awareness - level two
This is one of the most important steps you take in self-awareness. At this stage you discover
how to:
1. Identify some of your own inner protector characters (inner protector characters) as
pairs. Each one is the energetic opposite of its other pair
32

2. Separate yourself from any pair of opposite characters, then sit between them and
adjust their energies to bring them into balance.
From this point on you can start making changes in your life. This can start as soon as you have
learned to work with one or more pairs of opposite selves and feel reasonably confident about
balancing or adjusting opposing energies.
Level Two includes learning basic techniques for talking or dialoguing with your own Inner
Child, increasing your awareness of vulnerability as a natural state, rather than something to be
worried about.
You can also start to appreciate why in the past you needed your old negative based protection
system because when you were vulnerable that was all you had at that time.
As your understanding about your underlying vulnerability increases so will your ability to
protect your own inner child (Remember to use its name when you talk about it not to call it "my
inner child")
To help protect your inner child (name) you will begin work creating a new positive place
located inside you, a place peopled by new and different characters who are better at protecting
your vulnerable inner child than the ones from you have been using until now.
As you compare the differences between the old negative based vulnerability-protection system
and the new more positive ways of dealing with your vulnerability, you will notice that you are
becoming more self-empowered.
Watch what your older characters do when they are on the stage
One of the things you may notice is how much time and energy some of your characters spend
trying to get love, liking, trust, appreciation or any other kind of positive reaction from their
"audience" (that is other people around you). Later on you will discover that this characteristic of
trying to get a positive reaction from other people is a very significant pointer to some of the
deeper issues that restrict self-empowerment.
The more we try to get these things from other people the more we disempower ourselves and
the more we are handing our power over them.
Your self-awareness profile
Meanwhile you will need to keep track of the names and classifications of your own cast of inner
protector characters (inner protector characters) what they are doing for you and how each of
them acts when they are "on stage". The best way is to use a profile sheet as explained below.
33

Keep in mind that some opposites that look as though they have completely disappeared have
actually been exiled, disowned or sent out into the forest. That means they are still around and
they need to be included on your profile sheet.
All this when you look at it together provides you with a clearer picture of what its like in your
inner village at the present time. Meanwhile your self-awareness is growing so you are ready to
move on to level three.
Basic self-empowerment - level three
To increase your self-empowerment you need to be aware of what it is that reduces your
empowerment.
Bringing your exiled characters back
For example you can discover and reconnect with some of your disowned or exiled characters
(selves). Just because they will sent away doesnt mean they were a real problem. Quite often
youll discover that they are in fact the source of your authentic personality and your real
empowerment. Its just that when you were small they got you into trouble and it was necessary
at that time for them to be hidden. Now its time to bring them back again.
You can identify and then balance one of more of your Negative Core beliefs.
You will discover some new and deeper skills such as balancing your personal and impersonal
energies.
Releasing clamps and blockages
As you continue in level three you will find it possible to look more closely at other characters in
your village, including the complex characters, the ones who have two or more different goals,
the dis-empowering characters who still believe they can best protect you by clamping or
blocking you from making the changes you want to make in your life.
Re-discovering your authentic (true) self
As your sense of self-empowerment grows you can reconnect with more and more of those
wonderful, powerful and positive parts of your personality that were exiled early in your life. As
these characters come back into your life their return will bring you great joy and strength,
because they were parts of the authentic person you were really meant to be. You reconnecting
with the healthy, self-empowered and positive sides of your personality. You are becoming the
person you always meant to be.


34

Parenting your inner child
You will find you are now able to talk freely with your own vulnerable inner child and find out
more about how she or he is feeling.
Remember, when you are talking with other (safe) people about your inner child to use your
inner childs name. It is not appropriate to refer to this wonderful little person as a nameless
character such as "my inner child". Usually your inner child knows what name it prefers, for
example "Little Bill" but be careful not to use any name that parents used when you were in
trouble as a kid or that you didn't like, for example "William".
Once you have identified and balanced at least one or more of your negative core beliefs, and
reconnected to at least one of your exiled characters, you can be confident that you are
progressing well at this level (3) of awareness.
Your inner child settles down
By now your inner child (name) has started to settle down and to tell you he or she feels safer
and more protected and less driven by a sense that he or she alone (with the help of a few of the
old inner self characters) are stuck with the task of protecting themselves from lifes dangers.
This is one of the strongest indicators confirming that you are moving well along in level three.
Creating and inducting new characters
Its time to start using some new processes to create a new and different world a world where
you are able to make the changes that you want on my in your life, a world full of choices and
options and opportunities. Its well-known that one of the best ways to make changes like this is
to harness the immense power of visualization.
The new village at the top of the hill
Rather than spend more time trying to fix things in the old village its better to visualize a new
village high up the hill. Life will be very different from the characters who move to the top of the
hill.
Visualizing a new village high on Awareness Hill is a departure from growing awareness work,
but it seems to work well in Australia.
Visualizing Growing Awareness - Going up on the Hill behind the Village
So, now is the time to create a visual image of a place on Awareness Hill, a place where you can
observe things going on from a position of greater awareness.
There is a point where a person doing this work notices that their attitude to solving their
problems is changing and they are making significant changes in their life. You can visualize this
35

as one of the outcomes that follows once they have a clear picture in their mind of a new village
built higher up on the hill. You might call this call it "Awareness Village".
Grown-up and awareness
Populating your new village with balanced and integrated characters may have little similarity
with that state of awareness referred to in growing awareness work as the grown-up but, once
people create a clear visual image of Awareness Village on their own hill it does seem to help
them get one step closer to that so very difficult to define, explain or visualize "grown-up".
The nature of the grown-up is such that I doubt that it is possible to come up with a visual
metaphor. As far as I know no one has ever visualized a grown-up anyway, nor do they need to.
All we need to know is that a wider range of growth and understanding is possible in the new
village and the view is better too.
Inducting new characters
Another quite amazing and empowering experience, again using visualization, is to create or
induct some totally new characters to help enhance your new inner team working together in
your new Awareness village.
Newly inducted characters such as a Magic Father or Inner Mother, go straight to the new
village. Some of the protector characters from the old village usually the side to make the climb
as well. All is really takes his their agreement to work in balanced and integrated partnerships,
rather than as polar opposites as they did in the old village.
Advanced self-empowerment - Level Four
Level 4 is where you start to make full use of your self-awareness and self-empowerment to
create really significant and positive changes in your life - changes that make a real difference,
and you will be celebrating the sense of exhilaration that comes each time you make one of these
changes.
You will be starting to enjoy the positive energy that comes with your growing sense of self-
empowerment combined with your growing sense of self-awareness.
You will be more aware of the differences between the authentic person that you were meant to
be compared with the adapted person that you had to become to "fit in" with other people and
you will now feel more ready to reconnect with your real and original personality.
Still more work ahead
You will also be more aware of the parts of your life where you are still facing blockages and
barriers.
36

As your awareness grows in level four you will be able to see and talk about protector characters
(inner protector characters) who could still could be disempowering you or blocking you from
making the changes you want to make or who still leave you still feeling disempowered (and
aware that there is still much work ahead of you!)
You will now be more aware of how and why all this is going on inside you.
Often you will find you are able to do this from the aware position without actually having to go
into a dialogue session every time.
You will be more aware of your old fears, pain, guilt, shame and vulnerability and can identify
characters (selves) who still want to take over to help deal in the old way with whatever these
negative feelings are doing to your life.
You will be reasonably comfortable sharing your self-awareness with other advanced group
members.
You will be comfortable about giving and receiving feedback from other advanced group
members.
Your bottom line issues
Everyone has bottom line issues, usually six or more. No one ever gets rid of them; even at level
4 you will find it hard to become fully aware of them. Even when you are aware of them you will
continue to work on them for the rest of your life.
Bottom line or key life issues for most people include:
o self-esteem issues
o boundary issues
o balancing or moderation issues
o reality issues
o power and control issues
o positive self-nurturing issues


37

Bottom Line Issues
http://www.love-your-inner-child.com/bottom_line_issues.htm
Everyone needs to learn about her or his bottom line or life issues and to distinguish these from
what may seem important but which turn out to be only symptoms pointing to the real issues.
Identifying a life issue begins with noticing a group of similar and repetitive problem patterns in
your life. You keep experiencing these same patterns again and again through life. If it's a
bottom line issue it will keep coming up in different ways, in your conversation, how you see
other people, what irritates you in others, what you like in other people, and so on. It will usually
stand out in the kind of work you do and how you like that work, the kind of films you enjoy, or
how you like to relax. Whatever you do, wherever you go there it is . . . again. That's a life issue.
The most powerful "life issues" are related to the problems that worry you most, but they can
also be involved in some of your best solutions.
Signs or symptoms?
When an inner protector character (inner self) is interviewed, it may talk at length about a
particular problem in terms of something that character wants to see changed. But if the problem
the character is talking about is described with a broad label like. Its a personality clash. or
"Its a communication problem," this suggests it is only a symptom of deeper underlying issues.
Typically symptoms (rather than bottom line issues) are often externalized (focused away from
the individual and outwards to another external person or object) as in,
He didnt....
She wont....
You always.
We never....
It always....
They keep doing....

Additional discussion or laddering down to a deeper level may then identify internalized core
beliefs.
I dont....
I cant....
I never....

Those, in turn, point to the deeper internal bottom line, a smaller group of basic issues
(examples below). So, how does this help?
38

Examples of bottom line issues
Compared with hundreds of core beliefs, protector characters (inner protector characters) and
points of vulnerability, there are far fewer bottom line issues, perhaps ten or less. You will notice
a similarity with Maslows hierarchy of needs and Pia Mellody's life issues)
Remember:
I f your grown-up self is not working every day on your bottom line life issues
then your inner child will be busy every day trying to fix them for you. That's
hard work for a kid.
1. Security issues- Safety; Security; Peace; Harmony
2. Self-esteem issues - Belonging; Connected; self-worth; Value; Loyalty, Appreciation;
3. Boundary and identity issues - Identity; Freedom; Autonomy; bonding patterns; self-
protection; avoiding manipulation
4. Reality issues - Truth; Right-wrong; Justice; Fairness; Openness and honesty, facing
or avoiding reality
5. Moderation issues - Integrity; Balance, Wholeness; Growth; avoiding "flips" between
opposite positions
6. Power and control issues - Rules; Standards; Structure; Being organised, tidiness

7. Love issues - Caring; Sharing; Unconditional loving;
8. Self-Nurturing issues - Balancing giving and receiving; self-nurturing

9. Achievement issues - Success; Goals, Results;

10. Awareness issues - Knowledge; Experience; Understanding; Self-awareness; Self-
actualization; Spirit and spirituality
Bottom line issues, though abstract, are best described in familiar terms that encourage empathy.

What are your own bottom line issues?