Inner Child Work

Inner child work is in one way detective work.  We have a mystery to solve.  Why have I have I been attracted to the type of people that I have been in relationship with in my life?  Why do I react in certain ways in certain situations?  Where did my behavior patterns come from?  Why do I sometimes feel so: helpless; lonely; desperate; scared; angry; suicidal; etc.

That is the purpose of inner child healing - to stop letting our experiences of the past dictate how we respond to life today.  It cannot be done without revisiting our childhood.  We need to become aware, to raise our consciousness.  To create a new level of consciousness for ourselves that allows us to observe ourselves.

It is necessary to own and honor the child who we were in order to Love the person we are. And the only way to do that is to own that child's experiences, honor that child's feelings, and release the emotional grief energy that we are still carrying around.

We all have an inner critic, a critical parent voice that beats us up with shame, judgment, and fear.  The critical parent voice developed to try to control our emotions and our behaviors because we got the message there was something wrong with us and that our survival would be threatened if we did, said, or felt the "wrong" things.

Recovery involves bringing to consciousness those beliefs and attitudes in our subconscious that are causing our dysfunctional reactions so that we can re-program our ego defenses to allow us to live a healthy, fulfilling life instead of just surviving.  So that we can own our power to make choices for ourselves about our beliefs and values instead of unconsciously reacting to the old tapes.  Recovery is consciousness raising.  It is enlightenment - bringing the dysfunctional attitudes and beliefs out of the darkness of our subconscious into the Light of consciousness.

On an emotional level, the dance of Recovery is owning and honoring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief energy - the pain, rage, terror, and shame that is driving us. 

From Robert Burney,  Inner Child Work