Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Care and Feeding of Your Inner Child


The mention of Inner Child healing work is enough to make grown men…and women, cry.  Literally.
What is it about this subject matter that produces an instant dread in people and keeps a major segment of adults from investigating what’s in their past that might be affecting their future?
In popular and analytical psychology, the “inner child “is our childlike aspect that includes all that we learned and experienced before puberty. John Bradshaw, a U.S. educator, psychologist and self-help movement leader famously used “inner child” to point to unresolved childhood experiences and the lingering effects of this dysfunction.  In this way, “inner child” refers to the sum of mental-emotional memories stored in the sub-conscious from conception through pre-puberty.
The Twelve-Step recovery program considers healing the inner child to be one of the essential stages in recovery from addiction, abuse, trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Carl Jung is often referenced as the originator of the concept in his Divine Child archetype and has led to the characterization of it being a sub-personality that lives within each psyche.
There are three ways that therapists can understand and define the inner child:
1)      The Magical Child: Playful, fun, spontaneous, full or wonder and magic. This is the part of the child who has never been wounded or damaged.

2)      The Adapted Child: In order to survive, a child trying to be a grown-up. Adaptive behaviors, sub personalities, are aspects. “Good Girl” and “Bad Girl” may both be adapted children. It’s the way we learned to survive and receive approval as children.

3)      The Wounded Child: A metaphor for the wounded parts of our childhood which have not completed the developmental tasks of that period. The memories of a particular time of childhood may be suppressed due to emotional pain, but that “child” lives on within the subconscious, waiting to be cared for and nurtured, waiting to get its needs met. But not every child archetype is that of the Wounded Child, you may have aspects of the Adapted Child and hopefully some of the Magical Child.
David Quigley, creator of Alchemical Hypnotherapy described this modality as follows:  The metaphor of the Inner Child is a tool through which we can identify and heal those wounded places within ourselves where early needs have been unmet and feelings denied. It provides us with the opportunity to re-live our childhoods in a new way that meets these needs of those repressed parts of ourselves and restore us to wholeness.
It is in the Wounded Child syndrome that the pieces that are waiting to be cared for and nurtured often show up in our adult lives. Look at a typical day at the office and you’ll see many “children” running around trying to be seen, heard and praised, sometimes rather loudly. Going back and rescuing the child is a wonderful, healing experience and can make a dramatic difference in your life. Through the use of Alchemical Hypnosis, it is possible to revisit the childhood events, clear the trauma, change the events and rescue the child, facilitating integration to take place.
If you are having  issues , most likely they are linked to a childhood dysfunction. Contact me for a session in Alchemical Hypnotherapy and begin the clearing process. People who have been my clients claim more work is done in a 2-3 hour session than they have accomplished through years of therapy. After experiencing multiple inner child healing modalities, this is the most expedient and successful one I have found. The process works, don’t put it off any longer!!
Join in this upcoming workshop to learn excellent tools for finding and nurturing your child.
Care and Feeding of Your Inner Child
Saturday September 21st 10:00-12:00 Cost $20
Phoenix and Dragon Bookstore 404-255-5207 to secure your spot
We all have issues from the past that still seem to plague us in the present. Often these date back to something that occurred in our childhood. The mere act of growing up was enough for many of us to deny the joy of our Inner Child. Most of us don’t know where to begin to look for answers or to recapture that feeling of wonderment. For many this can take a life-time of therapy, but Spiritual Counselor, Hypnotherapist and Channel Becky Arrington has developed innovative techniques to help the healing begin in an experiential workshop.  
       ·         Understand patterns of behavior you have created over and over since childhood.
       ·         Communicate with your Inner Child through exercises that allow you to access            your  Subconscious and Higher Self
          ·         Travel back in time to find and integrate your Child through a guided meditation that will begin the healing process.
·         Ideas of how to nurture your child in the future…have fun!!
This workshop is highly interactive, fun and nurturing, giving you concrete tools to continue the healing process once you return home. Exploring the past does not have to be an emotional roller coaster, especially when using these tools that help you get above pain of the past. So leave the tissues behind, but don’t forget your teddy bear!

Suggested materials: Journaling supplies, stuffed animal