Section 2 - Changing our automatic responses

Food for thought
Doing this work enables true ‘freedom of thought’ because
we learn to stop repeating the thoughts that create negative life patterns.

The key to changing our automatic responses to our daily life experiences is to discover the reasons for choosing to respond the way we do. This process is called "Inner Child Work". Before beginning, it is recommended to develop a relationship with our inner child, as well as with our guide, and to build a pattern of regular meditation into our daily routine.


Build a relationship with our Inner Child
Start doing things to support and honour self and encourage self-expression. Do the things that we loved to do (or wished we could do) as a child: drawing, colouring, finger-painting, running, playing skip-rope or hopscotch, hula-hooping, writing in a diary, or whatever gave us comfort and/or joy. This will help our inner child to feel acknowledged, respected, safe and secure.


Build a relationship with our Guide
We are accompanied by our guide who is a messenger of God; a divine representative. The guides are our bridge with the Universal Intelligence. They communicate with us in our preferred language, whatever it may be. They hear our every thought. This may seem frightening, for we tend to think that our thoughts are private. We have been taught that only our actions and our spoken words count as being real, but nothing could be further from the Truth.

Along with our guide, we are completely interwoven with the Universal Intelligence. Nothing escapes notice - no thought, no attitude, no emotion, no experience, nothing - is ignored or overlooked. Our thoughts are every bit as audible to the guides as the spoken word is to us. Communicating consciously with the Universal Intelligence through our guide, by asking questions and, just as importantly, by listening for answers, opens the door to finding the root causes of our negative thoughts, attitudes, emotions, beliefs, desires and behaviours. Armed with this knowledge, we can resolve difficulties in our lives.

Doing this self-work changes the ways in which we interact with others, and our family and friends can tend to be less than enthusiastic when uninvited change is thrust upon them. However, do not wait for anyone’s permission or approval before starting this work. This is your choice; only you may decide what is right for you.


The process of inner child work
Do in conjunction with Section 8 - Spiritual Questionnaire.

The first step is to identify a negative behaviour that causes problems for you. Could be addictions, chronic lateness, verbal sniping, withholding communication as a punishment, pathological lying, feeling like a victim, or any pattern that you want to stop.

The second step is to recall the event that triggered the negative pattern. This can be challenging if you dismiss an event simply because it was not necessarily traumatic in the clinical sense, or if you believe that early childhood events cannot be recalled. Ask your guide to show you the event while in a meditative state, and then pay attention to your thoughts. They will reveal your original reaction to the event, and your body is likely to feel how you felt then.

Figure 08: The process of inner child work

Recall the decision that said, "I am going to  (fill in the blank)". This could be something as simple as “I am never going to cry again” or as complex as “I am not worthy of respect or love” or “I am bad”. The decision you made then is the root cause that continues to create negativity in your life because it was made without understanding. Unresolved experiences tend to replay in our thoughts as we continually try to figure out why they happened. We get triggered whenever we are reminded either of the event, or of the conclusion we drew from it. Inner child work enables us to learn our motivations and validates our painful experiences. It also helps us to see that we were not solely responsible for their occurrence because after all, as children, we are simply not responsible.

Work with your guide to gain full understanding about why the event happened, why you reacted in the way that you did, and why you continue doing the behaviour. As adults, we can look at our childhood experiences and find understanding that is not possible for young children. This is not to place blame, but to accept responsibility for our part and to recognize that, as children, we were not solely responsible for their occurrence.

The third step is to feel the emotions and think the thoughts that could not be expressed as a child. Grieve the losses that were felt, and say the angry thoughts out loud, if possible. Cry, cry, cry. Let it all out, as scary as that may sound, for crying is an important part of the physical (and spiritual) healing process. Unresolved, repressed or suppressed issues create harmful toxins in the body and crying provides an escape route for them. Acknowledge the pain that made us choose to react the way we did, without understating its importance.

These events were important, for they have made us who we are today. It does not matter whether anyone else thinks that our experiences were easier or worse than theirs. What is important is that they happened to us, they hurt us, they were traumatic for us. All our experiences have helped to create all the thoughts, attitudes and emotions, beliefs and inner conflicts that we have now, that are creating our negative behaviours.

The fourth step is to forgive, both self and others. This is a crucial action. Without forgiveness, we remain stuck in the past, constantly replaying unresolved experiences in our thoughts, hoping that somehow we will be able to figure out why they happened, or that we will be able to magically transcend the experience just by remembering it.

The fifth step is to identify another negative behaviour and repeat the process. After all, we all have more than one bad habit. The reasons for our behaviours are intertwined, so there is always more understanding to be gained. Keep working toward inner peace and enlightenment.

Food for thought
Not doing this self-work puts us at risk for developing many chronic diseases, but don’t just take my word for it. Science is now proving that traumatic childhood experiences impact our health in adulthood - check out this
TED Talks presentation

Video courtesy of TEDMED.com

About belief systems
Our core belief systems are incredibly powerful. Our self-esteem depends on them, and they determine how we interpret and experience life. They begin forming in childhood and we continue to find them to be true due to our innate confirmation bias.

What sorts of experiences create them? Well, an emotionally absent parent can lead a child to believe that she/he is unworthy, unimportant or unwelcome. A smothering parent can lead a child to believe that she/he is helpless, witless, incompetent and/or incapable, while a parent who smothers one child yet ignores another can lead the ignored one to believe that she/he is insignificant, and the smothered child can end up seeking co-dependent relationships. Inner child work roots out inaccurate beliefs that create negative thoughts, attitudes and emotions, and reveals the Universal Truth about them, rather than what we have come to accept as truth. Looking back on our childhood as adults, we can recall the thoughts we had as young children and find validation.		Figure 09: Negative messages are harmful

Here is an example of what can happen if inner conflicts are not reresolved:

While a young child, the parents of a friend of mine, Kim, separated. Her father moved Kim and her brother to a new home in the stealth of darkness, unbeknown to their mother. It was a traumatic experience for all, but Kim suffered enormous guilt. Why guilt? She believed - really believed - that she had caused all of this turmoil. As a result, she grew up feeling responsible for her brother’s and father’s care, as well as for looking after their new home. She was only eight years old! She lost many of her favourite items in the move since she had no control over which of her belongings came with her. It will come as no surprise then, that hoarding became her security blanket. Kim hoarded not only physical items but emotional and spiritual anguish. “Victim” became her identity, and she used this as her reason for underperforming. She died of breast cancer while in her 50’s, unwilling and seemingly unable to let go of her pain, or of her belief that she was "bad".

Many of our childhood experiences are written off by our caregivers as being unimportant, or even worse, the Truth of the experiences becomes wrapped in their denial. We can end up believing that we are wrong or crazy or just plain bad (the source of many of our issues), so we must validate ourselves. Finding Universal Truth through meditation enables us to become strong and confident by ensuring that our beliefs are based in Truth, rather than having to rely on someone else’s biased version of our pivotal life events.

Figure 10: Inner child work fits all my pieces together

Next step
The next step on the path to spiritual self-awareness is learning to meditate in a new way.

Self-test

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© Sheila A. McBeath 1999  All Rights Reserved
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ISBN  978-1-7753521-2-9

Last Updated
20200205