The Rescue of the Inner Child
by Linda Baker, R.N.
I am a registered nurse and have worked in the field of mental health for the last eighteen years. I concentrated my efforts on understanding and healing emotional "illness" and my training provided guidelines for how this was to be accomplished. I began to deviate from the traditional system when, nine years ago, my husband and I brought our first foster child home. Even though he was six-foot-two and sixteen years old, he soon made a spontaneous regression into early childhood and we did extensive reparenting with him. This was not planned, it just happened and the effects were amazing. For the first time I was really able to see how the programming of childhood affects us and can control how we are and how changing this programming can free us to discover our true selves. As we continued our work with foster children I became increasingly excited about the potential of the reparenting process. The biggest drawback was the process was difficult and lengthy.
With Alchemical Hypnotherapy I've discovered a new way to help my clients relive their childhoods and reparent themselves, with a considerable saving of time and energy. In this article, I'm presenting the "rescue of the inner child" and will explain how this can be valuable in our lives. This is a shortened version of a session dealing with inner child rescue and presented here with the permission of the client.
This client was a young man who came to me with these issues, "I don't like myself. I don't feel worthy enough for anyone to care about me. I don't feel that life is worth living." Typically, he expressed fear of looking inside and contacting his inner child. Since, often times, the pain of childhood is blocked out by locking the child away it can be scary to imagine letting him or her out again. To help ease these fears I let him know that (1) protecting this pain only gives it greater power in our lives; (2) in the process of Alchemical Hypnotherapy feeling the pain is only a part of the process. The healing of the pain to regain inner strength and freedom is the more powerful part of the process.
This client had several traumatic experiences come up during his sessions. I have chosen this particular scene to illustrate the process.
Client: I see a room. It's a room in my old house. I'm sitting on the floor cutting and pasting something out of paper.
Therapist: About how old are you?
Client: I'm seven. It's after the divorce.
Therapist: Allow yourself to be this little seven year-old boy and see what happens.
Client: The door is opening. It's my mother. She just got home from work and she's mad at me. She's screaming at me.
Therapist: Let's hear what she's saying. Let her talk directly to this little boy.
Client: You're always making a mess! You never do anything right! I'm tired of cleaning up this house! I wish you would just go to your room and leave me alone!
Therapist: What would you like to say to her?
Client: Nothing. I'm too scared. She might hit me.
Therapist: Maybe you'd like to bring your adult self down here with you. What would your adult self like to say to your mother?
Client: "That's no way to treat a little boy just because you're tired! You're his mother! He needs to be loved! You're not fit to be his mother! Leave him alone! "(Screams) I just want to take him out of this house (tears).
Therapist: Where would you like to go with him?
Client: We're sitting in a field by a pond!
Therapist: (Giving the client a soft pillow) Here's your little child. Maybe you'd like to tell him that he is a good little boy and deserves to be loved and cared for and to play and have fun.
Client: I love you (tears), you're a good boy and you deserve to be loved even if you make a mess. You deserve to have someone to love you and play with you.
Therapist: What does your little child say?
Client: I want you to love and protect me. (Adult client says:) I love you and I will take care of you.
Therapist: Now each day you can spend a few minutes with your little child letting him know that he is loved and cared for.
Here the client has accessed an incident that contributed to his feelings of low self-worth and not being lovable. He felt the pain and went on to heal the incident by releasing stored anger (buried under guilt and depression). On the subconscious level he realized that his mother could not meet his needs and that he could love his own inner child. He could then give his child the appropriate message for growth, changing it from the "You are not loved, or even lovable" into "You are lovable, and I love you!".
This client had been angry and resentful of any children he saw playing. He was in a state of depression where he could not allow himself to have fun (because of the guilt, and fear of not being loved), and thus saw life as not being worth living. Changing the message his child receives to "You are lovable and you deserve to play and be loved," has affected his life in two major ways; (1) he is now able to take time and have fun, allowing himself to feel good about it; and (2) he is now able to relate to children in a positive manner devoid of the hostility of the past, allowing them to have fun too.
Other clients who don't feel equipped to nurture their own inner child can discover inner parents within the subconscious to assist them in the joyful process of nurturing the inner child, and to be a loving parent to the adult self as well.
After my many years of working in the field of mental health and seeing the frustration of so many due to not being able to let go of past patterns and feelings, I am delighted and excited to be involved with Alchemical Hypnotherapy. As director of the Alchemical Hypnotherapy Association, I help sponsor and teach trainings in Alchemical Hypnotherapy in Seattle, Washington and enjoy a busy private practice.
Linda Baker, R.N. is a registered nurse and an Alchemical Hypnotherapist, who teaches hypnosis and has a private practice in Seattle, WA.
The Child in the Garden "MP3 Download" $9.95 - No shipping charge & No Wait!
Tape 1: Side B starts with a progressive body relaxation and leads into a garden. The music by Kit Walker is serious and deep, evoking a feeling of being in a sacred place. I entered the garden to meet my inner child, and as I established contact with my child self, the music became infused with nature sounds, appropriate for this special meeting. I took my child in my arms, and felt a shift on a deep level: the child felt happier, and the adult-child dialogue followed in which each told the other of their respective needs. The music became joyful as a dance ensued, the adult and the child celebrating their union in what each can offer the other. I experienced the satisfaction of a feeling of wholeness.
Journey also available on Cassette Audiotape and CD
$14.95 for Cassette Audiotape ($5.00 Shipping charge added to orders - delivery within 5 to 7 days)
$17.95 for Audio CD ($5.00 Shipping charge added to orders - delivery within 5 to 7 days)
