Gifts From The Child Within E-Book

Barbara Sinor

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 328

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

Gifts From the Child Within brings a refreshing approach to guiding its reader to understanding the initial or underlying basis to their emotional suffering due to past childhood trauma. This recovery book is geared toward both professional and layperson. Its pages are filled with offerings from psychological, physiological, and spiritual perspectives which takes the reader on a journey into the soul. It is written with sensitivity and clarity inviting the reader to search within for healing.
As the author shares her own journey of childhood abuse, the reader is asked to address issues surrounding physical, mental, spiritual, and sexual abuse. Instructions are captured to guide one toward reaching for their own child within; releasing negative emotions; re-creating outdated childhood beliefs; and, to recognize the gifts the inner child has for us.
The process of Re-Creation Therapy(tm) is introduced by the author allowing the reader who follows its guidance to reap the effects of gradual changes in self-awareness which lead to a greater understanding of the psychodynamics the child within plays in the adult life. Included are a series of healing visualizations and autohypnosis suggestions; blank journal pages; and sample affirmations following each chapter.
What Experts Say About Gifts From The Child Within
"This is indeed a valuable self-help book and a tool for the Counselor, Hypnotherapist, Minister, Psychotherapist, or Clinician. I assure you, the world will look much brighter after you read this book." --Lavona Stillman, PhD, CC, HT
"Barbara Sinor has written a book that will help the violated and traumatized child within to heal. Gifts From The Child Within helps guide survivors with repressed memories of trauma, as well as those with current memories of incest, through the healing process." Marilyn Van Derbur, Miss America 1958, Founder: Survivor's United Network
"Barbara Sinor has bridged the gap for clients and therapists alike between the mere discovery of the inner child and the building of a true relationship with this most important being within. Gifts From The Child Within is an important and highly readable work." Rick Boyes, M. Coun, CHT, Author A Body To Die For
"Gifts From The Child Within is a wonderful book that takes the reader on a journey into the soul. Flowing and readable, this book is filled with stories, myths, information, and revelation." Marilyn Gordon, CHT, Author, Healing is Remembering Who You Are

Leseprobe

Gifts From The Child Within

Second Edition

A workbook for self-discovery and self-recovery through Re-Creation Therapy™

Barabara Sinor, PhD

Gifts From The Child Within, Second Edition

Copyright © 1993, 2008 by Barbara Sinor, Ph.D.

First Edition 1993

Second Edition 2008

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.      __________________________________________________                         Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sinor, Barbara, 1945-

       Gifts from the child within : self-discovery and self-recovery through re-creation therapy(tm) / Barabara Sinor. -- 2nd ed.

                   p. cm.

       Includes bibliographical references and index.

       ISBN-13: 978-1-932690-46-0 (trade paper : alk. paper)

       ISBN-10: 1-932690-46-8 (trade paper : alk. paper)

       1. Inner child. 2. Self-help techniques. 3. Psychotherapy--Popular works. I. Title.

       BF698.35.I55S56 2008

       616.89′14--dc22

                                                                   2007047234

Acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following:

From Emmanuel's Book II by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton, Copyright 1989 by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

“The Stubborn Child” and “The Three Lazy Sons” from The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jack Zipes, translator, translation copyright 1987 by Jack Zipes. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Cover art: The Child Within by Paula B. Slater, M.A. All rights reserved.

Distributed by: Baker & Taylor, Ingram Book Group

Published by:

Loving Healing Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

http://www.LovingHealing.com or

[email protected]

Fax [phone]

Experts Praise Gifts From The Child Within

“Gifts From The Child Within is more than a well-written, well-researched guide to recovery from our childhood wounds. It is an exciting adventure in psychospiritual growth based on inner wisdom exercises that are a powerful addition to the archives of healing.”

Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., AuthorYour Soul's Compass

“Gifts From The Child Within is a skillfully written book about a significant subject. Dr. Sinor describes a broad range of valuable tools for healing the child within each of us. Her extensive research has yielded an excellent choice of quotes from many important sources. A fine storyteller, she further anchors her message with fascinating stories and examples ranging from Grimm to her own Hypnotherapy practice. Most importantly, the book details many powerful processes that the reader can use for substantial benefits with self-hypnosis.”

Randal Churchill, CHT,Director Hypnotherapy Training InstitutePresident, American Council of Hypnotist Examiners

“Gifts From The Child Within offers many techniques for therapists working with Adult Children of Alcoholics and is a therapeutic aid to re-discovery of self and subsequent change. This book is a useful tool for any therapist and a wonderful adjunct to one's therapy. Dr. Sinor has found a means within her book to award a ‘guide’ to the past and a ‘strength’ to continue into the future.”

Nancy New, Ph.D.

“Barbara Sinor has written a book that will help the violated and traumatized child within to heal. Recovery is a barbaric journey. Gifts From The Child Within helps guide survivors with repressed memories of trauma, as well as those with current memories of incest, through the healing process.”

Marilyn Van Derbur, Miss America 1958Founder, Survivors United Network

“[we wish you] …the best of success with Gifts From The Child Within, we look forward to its impact within the recovery field. We are grateful for your contribution.”

Gerald S. Myers, President & CEOSuzanne Somers Institute

“Dr. Sinor has bridged the gap for clients and therapists alike between the mere discovery of the inner child and the building of a true relationship with this most important being within. Gifts From The Child Within is an important and highly readable work.”

Rick Boyes, M.A., CHT, A Body To Die For

“Part of what makes recovery books useful for so many people is the array of diverse approaches offered in the self-help genre. In Gifts From The Child Within, Dr. Sinor shares her own story and unique vantage point in exercises and affirmations that seek to rework, rewrite, and re-create past, hurtful experiences that may interfere with present-day living.”

Nancy J. Napier, M.A., MFCC, AuthorRecreating Your Self

“Gifts From The Child Within is a wonderful book that takes the reader on a journey into the soul via the ‘time-traveling machine of the subconscious mind.’ Dr. Barbara Sinor writes with sensitivity and clarity revealing her deep knowledge of hypnotherapy and transpersonal psychology. She invites you to become a participant by exploring your own childhood and reveals intimate and fascinating details from her own. Flowing and readable, this book is filled with stories, myths, information and revelation.”

Marilyn Gordon, CHT, AuthorHealing is Remembering Who You Are

“[I am]…impressed with the focus and exercises found in Gifts From The Child Within. Father Leo Booth advocates the ‘whole person’ approach to therapy and healing, and always advises doing inner child exercises as integral steps to healing wounded spirituality…. this book is a valuable resource; it is definitely one we will add to our own reference library.”

Katharine Russell, Editorial Director Spiritual Concepts

“Gifts From The Child Within contributes to the much needed “wave of healing” currently happening in society. Dr. Sinor shows a sensitive understanding of how childhood distress and trauma affect us as adults; and she gives effective techniques for accessing the inner child part of us and for releasing blockages and emotions. These methods truly apply well to the recovery process and I am applying them effectively with ACAs and with others carrying emotional and behavioral scars from childhood. Thank you, Barbara, for your practical messages of hope for healing ourselves and for becoming more creative, happy adults!”

Barbara Lamb, M.S., MFCC

“Gifts From The Child Within is a sensitively written book totally free of the strain of self-pity found in many of the “wounded child” books. Dr. Barbara Sinor has given us an important self-help program based on her own healing experience, while keeping her work clinically sound and very well documented. The book is based on the premise that if we can accept, at least in part, responsibility the illusional reality of our past conditioning, we are then ready to re-create it into a reality for our present.

By following these guidelines perhaps we can stop the generational cycle of patterning that seems to have followed us from the beginning of time. Dr. Sinor has given us another, significant message overlooked by other writers, teachers and therapists. Not only does she show us how to get in touch with and love our child within, she helps us look further to recognize the gifts the child has to give in return. I highly recommend this book for the hypnotherapist, the counselor, the teacher and as a self-help course for people anywhere who are seeking the road to recovery.”

Lavona Stillman, Ph.D., CCHTStillman Institute for Research & Development

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

Part I: The Child Within

Chapter 1 – The Concept of the Child Within

Chapter 2 – Reaching for Recovery

Chapter 3 – The Process of Re-Creation Therapy

Part II: Re-Create Your Own Reality

Chapter 4 – Shadows of the Light

Chapter 5 – Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Chapter 6 – From Victim to Victory

Part III: Adult Child Games

Chapter 7 – Codependency, Take Two

Chapter 8 – The Saboteurs

Chapter 9 – For-Giving

Part IV: Gifts from the Child Within

Chapter 10 – Faces of Recovery

Chapter 11 – The Present and Beyond

Afterword

About the Author

Index

Dedication

I dedicate this book to Richard and Cindy Sinor. In many ways you both have taught me that a family can continue to develop its support and intimacy for one another even when seemingly apart. As each of you read this book you may identify with your own child within. Bright-eyed Richie who was always ready to help with his younger sister and talkative little Cindy who never wanted to go to bed will always be with you. The unique inner child that you each possess will also forever be a part of my life. I have watched in expectation those two small children mature into talented young adults. This dedication is my way of saying “thank you” for allowing me to participate in the joys and sorrows of your past and present.

Remember what your Grandpa used to say? “Your family is the most important thing in life.”

He was right.

Barbara Sinor, Ph.D.January 2008

Foreword

“Take her in my arms and love her? Why? I don't even like her!” my client sounded astonished and resentful. She wanted no part of the inner child and was aggravated by the implication that she was somehow responsible for her own dilemma. This client had been with me for three hypnotherapeutic sessions. The process of childhood age regression effectively re-created the feelings: A feeling of abandonment when her father died; feeling alone in the loveless relationship she had had with her father; and feeling the abusive entanglements of her mother's alcoholism. I had done a hypnotherapeutic interweave after each session. She seemed to be working positively through each stab of abuse and each scar of memory. But she simply would not accept that the inner child—her Beingness—had constantly given away her personal power in an endless, repetitive “trying to please everyone” type of behavior.

This client and I found the way out of the abyss of her denial and unfolded a vital spirit capable of successful interpersonal relationships. If Gifts From The Child Within had been available, I would have given her homework. From the first session she would have benefited from reading the exercises, the “Child Within Autohypnosis” visualizations, and the material in the chapter “Facing and For-giving Yourself.” I believe the reading of these sections would have helped facilitate her effective outcome from her hypnotherapy sessions.

To me there is a very important ingredient in Gifts From The Child Within. This ingredient is the knowledge that each individual must proceed through his/her life discoveries, or in therapeutic intervention at one's own rate, with one's own sense of how things are and with one's own resolutions. The therapist is ill-advised to mold and shape the individual toward a patterned behavior or personality cubby-hole—one which is controlled by the therapist based upon concepts rather than upon individualized actual experience emotionally constructed and attitudinally integrated by the individual through the life moments of choice and action.

Some years ago a client came to me after seeking help through every available avenue. Our therapeutic relationship flourished. He commented that he stayed with me and was able to withstand recovery because as he put it, “she keeps her cotton-picking hands off my psyche!” His inner child was so deeply buried he felt like his “entire being was in a tantrum.” By allowing him to go at his own pace and pretty much facilitate his own sessions, his child within cautiously emerged. After each session he functioned more capably in the world. Today he is free to love his child within and live fully.

Dr. Milton Erickson consistently had great success with clients from all walks of life, all ages, and with every conceivable kind of problem because he was able to enter the client's world and hear as the client heard. He did not impose nor force-feed his own view of how the world is or how the client should behave. Unfortunately many therapists impose their views and determinations upon their clients resulting in short-term help and eventual relapse. Dr. Erickson admonished therapists not to plan therapy but to allow the events of each session to guide the client's subconscious mind to direct the therapy. Re-Creation Therapy™ accomplishes this task.

Dr. Sinor has a very pragmatic, yet creative application of the general ideas of Alice Miller. In her this book, she utilizes re-creation exercises which are useful for professional application and for persons learning a new way of being. I have seen Barbara's concepts at work in my practicum sessions for advanced hypnotherapy training. One previous student of mine demonstrated a re-creation exercise that she had learned while attending one of Dr. Sinor's seminars. I was amazed and delighted at the effective use of Re-Creation Therapy™ and thankful that Barbara had created a readable, useful, and authoritative resource for us all.

As you read this book, you will find that Dr. Sinor presents a paradigm for empowering yourself or a client to solve problems working with body, mind, emotions, and spirit. We are all healing together on Universal levels. In this regard, Alice Miller believed that all of us are victims of “child rearing” and that most of the abuse to children is well intentioned. Parents raised their children the way their parents raised them. In the added Afterword to the Second Edition (1984) of For Your Own Good, Miller lists twelve points to amplify her meaning. These points include:

1. All children, for their development, need to be respected and taken seriously so that they can express their love, be loved in return, grow up with undamaged integrity, and with the ability to be responsive, intelligent, loving and highly sensitive.

2. When children are abused, exploited and not allowed to express their anger and pain, they suppress these feelings to the point that they have no memory of them.

3. As adults and parents, they then often take revenge on their own children and/or society because their childhood repression, though unremembered, exerts a powerful influence over them.

4. It is society in general and children in particular who suffer and pay the price for this. Yes society still sanctions abusive child rearing methods.

Gifts From The Child Within acknowledges these facts and Dr. Sinor quite honestly shares with us the pain of her own childhood; then like the golden dawn coming to a dark bleak morning, she also shares her own journey toward wholeness and presents a process for self-healing. It is a sensitively written book totally free of the strain of self-pity found in many of the “wounded child” books. By following the guidelines within this book, perhaps we can stop the generational cycle of patterning that seems to have followed us from the beginning of time.

Dr. Barbara Sinor has shown us how to get in touch with and love our child within; release negative emotions; re-create childhood beliefs and experiences; and to look further, in recognition of all the gifts the child within has for us who have the courage and wisdom to look within. This is indeed a valuable self-help book, a tool for the Counselor, Hypnotherapist, Minister, Psychotherapist, or Clinician. Dr. Sinor has given all mental health professionals an invaluable paradigm for use in Inner Child work. I assure you, the world will look much brighter after you read this book.

Lavona Stillman, Ph.D., CC.HT.Stillman Institute for Research & DevelopmentSanta Clara, CaliforniaFirst Edition, August 1993

Introduction

“Re-Creation Therapy™ is a transforming process of reaching, touching, and accepting the child within us; the process continues with a releasing of blockages and emotions, and finally, the re-creating of past emotional trauma to re-form the creative vital force found within the adult.”

The above definition of Re-Creation Therapy™ was written many years ago. I have worked with this enriching and rewarding process for over twenty-five years and have found a great personal sense of healing and recovery from the wounds of my childhood. In the late 1970s, while trying desperately to make sense of my negative childhood experiences, recent divorce, plummeting career, and general lack of motivation, I chose to study counseling.

Soon I realized that most of the women who came to the clinic where I was working were locked into their childhood conditioning and experiences. I began investigating my own inner beliefs and self-concepts and discovered that I, too, saw myself and my world through the eyes of my little girl buried deep inside me. I recognized this child within was still trying desperately to get the attention and approval she so desired from her parents.

During the early 1980s, I developed the basic principles of Re-Creation Therapy™ through many hours of self-exploration and testing. The techniques and exercises in this book have evolved during my initial counseling practice and my own recovery years of being a child of an alcoholic father who demonstrated inappropriate behavior with my sisters and myself, as well as, a codependent mother. I have had the opportunity to introduce the healing techniques of Re-Creation Therapy™ to many clients who have re-created their own negative childhood conditioning and trauma into new personal successes of recovery.

Re-Creation Therapy™ is based on, and is an expansion of, the concept of the child within each of us. Working with the various methods and tools found within this book, your inner child becomes a messenger who brings long awaited information regarding the origin of your present beliefs, values, and motivations. Many of the suggested exercises and methods are derived from my Transpersonal Counseling background. As you discover and explore your child within memories and move through past experiences and emotions, you will appreciate how these transpersonal methods allow you to move with your own rhythms and direction. This type of guiding therapy encourages one to seek inner wisdom rather than a pre-set therapeutic directive. You will become aware of hidden childhood beliefs and emotions and begin to realize and use your adult “power of choice” and to learn how to re-create your own reality.

The past is but a memory locked within the subconscious mind. Recent research into the areas of human consciousness is bringing us evidence that “memory must be nonphysical, metaphysical or spiritual in nature.” In reading and experiencing this book, you will learn there are no time barriers to reaching your vast storehouse of memories. You can create a positive present by re-creating the past with the use of Hypnotherapy (or autohypnosis), Creative Visualization, and other Transpersonal Counseling techniques.

I choose to study and work with Hypnotherapy for it fills my spiritual needs in searching for my inner-most Self. Hypnotherapy is a rewarding and enlightening tool for self-discovery and self-recovery. If you have reservations regarding the use of hypnosis, let me assure you that hypnosis is a very safe journey inward to explore your own subconscious mind. You are totally in control.

Some of the most common misconceptions about the use of hypnosis are:

• I will pass out

• I won't be in control of myself

• My mind will be weakened

• I might tell the therapist secrets

• I may not awaken from the “trance”

• I will behave in an unacceptable manner

ALL OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ARE FALSE

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy can:

• Induce relaxation

• Help control (or alleviate) pain

• Overcome habitual addictions

• Instill a sense of calm and peace

• Arouse latent creativity

• Release fears and phobias

• Reduce stress, both emotional and physical

• Create positive growth patterns

• Effect behavioral changes, and

• Employ age regression as an emotional release and healing tool

Add to the above list a most important outcome derived from hypnotherapy: The realization that you have control over and can manifest your own reality. That we “create our own reality” is becoming more and more evident to the expanded minds of today. We realize what we are at present is the outcome of what we have thought, acted upon, reacted to, and believed ourselves to be. We are today literally the sum total of our experiences, perceptions, and beliefs. With this belief, we become a co-creator of our reality and can choose to re-create our experiences, perceptions, and beliefs thereby shaping a reality by choice, not mere acceptance of what we believed we must accept. One of this therapy's highest rewards is this “consciousness of Self” in relation to God/ Goddess/All That Is.

In Part I of the book, I explain in detail the concept of the Child Within and urge the reader to explore and reach for this small voice inside. Along with various exercises to help this connection unfold, the basic foundations of Re-Creation Therapy™ are presented. Part II and III delve into many of the core issues surrounding the blockages many of us as adults today have had to face because of our childhood experiences, as well as, offering many exercises, autohypnosis visualizations, affirmations, and other techniques to begin the journey of recovery.

I suggest you start at your own pace as you forge ahead on this healing journey taking the time to explore and feel the emotions which surface along the way. The last few Chapters address the avenues we can take to ensure our awareness of this healing jaunt and offer insight for the future. Remembering that our actions, thoughts, beliefs and values are all based upon our awareness of our reality, we can accept our reality as (at least partially) of our own making. With this knowledge, we can proceed to heal it—for in the final analysis, we all heal ourselves.

We are constantly testing ourselves and our reality. There is no finish line. There is no ribbon signifying an end to the race for recovery. It is an ongoing race. Our competition?

Ourselves.

Barbara Sinor, Ph.D.Second Edition 2008

** The names and sequences of experiences related in this book have been altered to protect the anonymity of the people who have shared their stories.

Part I

TheChild Within

“Somewhere, sometime, you were a child.”

—W. Hugh Missildine

1

The Concept ofthe Child Within

“…the child symbolizes the pre-conscious and the post-conscious essence of man.”

—C.G. Jung

When I was a little girl, my family lived near a reservoir called Puddingstone Dam. It was used for recreational fishing, boating, and swimming by the local communities. On hot summer days my Mother, two sisters, and I would wait for Daddy to come home from work then head off for our favorite swimming spot. The water deepened gradually where we swam, so I was able to “fake it” for many years. You see, I was almost nine years old before learning to really swim.

I will never forget how much I wanted to please my Father by swimming across the roped-off area. Even my younger sister was swimming and diving off the raft out in the deep end by three years old! I desperately wanted to receive the praise and smiles she was commanding from Daddy. I was so afraid to bring both my feet up to kick that for many years I would keep one foot on the bottom while kicking on the surface with the other foot making it look like I was swimming. Then one summer Daddy decided to test me. He literally picked me up and threw me into the deep water. I immediately learned to swim with both feet kicking high!

What I remember most about this swimming episode was not the trauma of how I learned to swim but my “feelings” surrounding the need for Daddy's approval. As a child, I would have done anything he asked to get his approval—and I did. He was a big-hearted, self-engrossed alcoholic and I bought right into the typical codependent, self-effacing, self-sacrificing role of the child adult, later becoming an adult child.

Through my adult years, I studied, researched, analyzed, have been analyzed, and worked with my personal childhood trauma resulting from living in a dysfunctional family. I learned a great deal about my child within and the different concepts for healing and recovery. During the 1980s to present, I have been fortunate to experience and clinically introduce a healing process which directly addresses the phenomenon of healing the wounded inner child. Whether seeking recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, codependency, victimization, physical, emotional or spiritual abuse, or the trauma of living in a dysfunctional family, Re-Creation Therapy™ may be the long awaited guidance for which you have been searching.

Can you remember your childhood? Can you consciously recall a particular age and sense your emotions at that time in your life? If you were asked to close your eyes and visualize yourself at the age of five or twelve, could you sense or see yourself at this age? Can you imagine the surroundings where you grew up and/or the emotions you felt? Can you remember the qualities you liked or disliked about your mother, father, relatives, teachers, or friends during your childhood years? There may be several different memories within each year of your childhood. All these, as well as, the ones you do not recall are held tight within your subconscious mind by your child within.

As we become adults, we learn to put aside our childhood, believing it to be over and that the past no longer matters. However, the child within us still plays, laughs, cries, yells, desires attention and needs love. Our inner child is usually adventuresome, curious, fearful and nervous, inventive, caring and compassionate; but most importantly, it is a part of us. The experiential exercises, visualizations, and techniques within this book will help you rediscover your child within, which in turn will lead you to forgotten memories, unfulfilled dreams, past woundedness, and outmoded beliefs which may be blocking a more creative, successful adult life.

Conceptual Background

The concept of the inner child is not a new one. When renowned psychotherapist Carl G. Jung talked of the “inner child archetype,” he was referring to the universal unconscious mindset found within the “Collective Unconscious.” However, Jung also noted an individual inner child, a child which actually exists within each adult. Jung explained, “The child motif is a picture of certain forgotten things in our childhood…. [it] represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche.”

One noted psychoanalyst of the 1950s, Eric Berne, spoke of the aspect of the “child” as one of the ego components in his Transactional Analysis (TA) process. The other two ego components of TA are the “parent” and the “adult.” Berne's TA theory of human personality demonstrates how each ego state directs our individual lives. Berne's intent was to find “the briefest, most economical way for his clients to increase their autonomy by reawakening their potential for awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy—capacities which are inherent in all of us, but which are sometimes limited as a result of the stresses and traumas of growing up.”

Many feel Berne's personality theory to be a close glimpse of the child within concept but disagree with Berne's labeling the inner child an “ego state.” Perhaps the word ego is too strong when describing these three personality components and the term “aspect” might be more suitable to denote the fine line divisions between the adult, parent, and child selves. These three aspects are parts of our personality and are linked to an “inner core”—the higher spiritual-self—which is most readily connected to the child within.

Charles Whitfield, doctor and author, introduces the “healing nature” of the child within through the recovery process found in the widely emerging Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA) groups. In his book, Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, Whitfield states,

“When the Child Within is not nurtured or allowed freedom of expression, a false or codependent self emerges. We begin to live our lives from a victim stance, and experience difficulties in resolving emotional traumas. The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness.”

We can recapture our emotional stability and independence-of-self by allowing ourselves to remember, experience, and communicate with this hidden child within who learned so aptly to adapt to his or her environment as a means of tactical survival. During a workshop I attended (May 1990) Whitfield commented that most alcoholics start out being a “child adult” learning to cope with many adult responsibilities as a child, then later, they become an “adult child.”

There are many therapists who have given us insight into the concept of the child within, one such master of hypnosis is Milton Erickson. Erickson was one of the earliest founders of the child within concept via his renown work with Hypnotherapy. His research and clinical work with literally thousands of patients has revealed truly miraculous techniques and methods for healing and recovery.

One of Erickson's more noted case histories exploring the child within is that of “The February Man” in which he draws on psychotherapeutic age regression techniques. One of his methods surrounding this important work is the hypnotic tool of “reframing” (developing new frames of reference for the past). Erickson demonstrates just how inseparable the mind/body phenomenon is in this case of a client who has a fear of being able to adequately raise her child-to-be because of her lack of secure familial ties in childhood.

During therapy, Erickson introduced to his client's “subconscious mind” a friend, a confidant. This fatherly figure was brought into the age regression sessions while she was in a hypnotic state. Over a succession of meetings, Erickson repeatedly employed techniques of age regression incorporated with an amnesia effect so his client would not recall this fictitious acquaintance in a conscious waking state of mind. The use of age regression facilitated Erickson's success in generating past real-life memories which were intertwined with the use of indirect hypnotic suggestions regarding the fictional “February Man” (later named because he had met this client in the month of February).

Erickson demonstrated perfectly with this case that there is no separation of mind/body—for change in belief structure precedes the body's experience. In other words, belief precedes experience and change. When Erickson's client firmly embraced on a subconscious level that she had been aided and cared for by the February Man in her childhood, she was able to re-create her fear and apprehension into stability and confidence in her ability to raise her unborn child.

Re-Creation Therapy™ employs a form of Hypnotherapy which incorporates the main theme of age regression and reframing employed by Erickson. This process can be executed alone by using self-hypnosis (autohypnosis) or with the assistance of a Hypnotherapist. This emotional release therapy introduces tools to acknowledge, meet, and communicate with one's inner child. A new frame of reference is established which brings with it a clear, enlightened view of who you are becoming.

You can release limiting emotions, fears, and inappropriate patterns which bind you to your parents and the learned behavior of the past. While in the state of guided hypnosis, or within autohypnosis, a new element of reference can be introduced to the subconscious mind. An unpleasant event can be re-created into a positive experience; or you can re-create a totally different scenario altogether to wash away old fears, rejections, or childhood turmoil. As with Erickson's reframing methods which made it “…possible to introduce a new element not actually belonging to the situation but that could easily fit into it,” the process of Re-Creation Therapy™ allows you to touch the hidden past of your child within and re-create your own reality making it suitable to you now as an adult.

Illusional Reality

We all use adaptability in one form or another in childhood to “fit-in” and gain approval. However, like my trick of deceiving my family that I really knew how to swim, many of the traits, beliefs, and feelings we adopt may not be sufficient for a healthy adulthood. Do you rely on childhood behaviors of adaptability to help you gain acceptance or recognition which no longer serve you as an adult? These automatic responses and emotions may have surfaced time and again but you were not ready to uncover their foundation. Perhaps now is the time and this book is the opportunity for you to discover why your life is not unfolding the way you would like. Whether your desire is to find success in personal or public relationships, increased creativity, prosperity, motivation, physical health, healing of past childhood trauma, or to awaken spirituality, your own inner child can help guide you.

Jung tells us that the goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the Self-uniting conscious and unconscious (subconscious), as well as, balancing body, mind and spirit. The techniques found in Re-Creation Therapy™ can help to revive and heal the unaware or subconscious elements. Each of these subconscious aspects retain outmoded belief systems, repressed emotions, predisposed illness, religious suppressions, and other blockages which can prevent us from achieving autonomy and wholeness.

On a physical level, to maintain a state of physical balance, or homeostasis, a constant flux of new cells replace the destruction of old cells. On the emotional/mental level, we keep our balance by “staying calm” and at the same time actively alert to our environment. On the spiritual level, we assume attunement with a Higher Power. These methods of maintaining a state of balance are usually accomplished unconsciously. They become conscious only when we choose to act and react from a level of awareness. Therefore, to bring a conscious awareness to each level—body, mind, and spirit—one's highest potential can be revealed.

On a physical level: During childhood we take into our bodies all the stress and emotional turmoil we experience and witness. Not understanding stress management or quiet healing time at this age, some claim we actually hold these negative elements from childhood in our cellular structure during our maturation. As we become adults much of these traumatic stresses are built upon until our bodies can cope no longer and a breaking down of cell structure results in illness. Working through childhood trauma can help release and heal the physical body and its trauma.

On the emotional/mental level: You may find that a great deal of the time you are oblivious to your thoughts and feelings, allowing them to wander aimlessly within the subconscious realm. However, it has been proven within the medical arena that “what” you think directly affects your physical health. Subscribers of positive thinking indicate that how we use our mental/emotional energies is directly related to how we experience our reality. If we choose to act and react consciously toward ourselves and others, we will stay in balance; however, if we do not choose but instead remain locked into subconscious mental and emotional patterns, we find ourselves entertaining frustration, discouragement, depression, confusion, unhappiness, fear, and the many other symptoms which accompany the imbalance of the conscious and subconscious mind. Taking responsibility for emotional health means being willing to feel even when afraid to do so.

On the spiritual level: Instilled within us before birth is an enlightened fragment of the Divine which can be consciously called upon for guidance at any time in our lives. However, even if not consciously activated this spiritual aspect remains hidden manifesting through intuitive glimpses, a sixth sense, and synchronistic events (coincidences which cannot be ignored). This spiritual nature is directly connected to the Child Within. As children we came into our lives with this purity of spirit, our inner child is the link. The process of Re-Creation Therapy™ and your own child within can unlock your subconscious mind to assist your remembrance of this true-Self.

The techniques of hypnosis and autohypnosis found in this book can liberate many of the hidden blockages and forgotten assets held tight in the subconscious. In his book, Global Mind Change, Willis Harman speaks of the phenomenon of hypnosis and the concept of reality:

…it is well established from research in hypnosis and other areas of experimental psychology that once a person has an internalized picture of reality, further experience tends to confirm that picture. Reality is experienced in accordance with the established picture, sometimes at the cost of gross perceptual distortion and elaborate rationalization to make it all hold together.

Rationalization is just one of the adapted techniques we employ to keep the picture of our reality alive and well. When we are challenged by new information from our environment often our first reaction is—from the internal subconscious—to review our past attempting to gain reassurance regarding our established picture. However, this picture is many times just an illusion of the true reality.

To demonstrate this illusional reality let me tell you how an elephant is trained in India. When an elephant is very young the trainer places a thick heavy rope around its leg and ties the other end to a secure post or tree. As the elephant matures and grows larger the trainer gradually reduces the size and weight of the rope. Finally, when full grown the elephant needs only a small flimsy strap tied to a short stub in the ground to become submissive and completely controlled. We humans construct our belief systems and our reality in this same manner.

As children we are very eager to please our elders whether parents, siblings, teachers, grandparents and other family members, or religious figures. We learn to adapt to imposed ideas, restrictions, mental and physical confinements, and various other commitments. We literally “take-in” our environment's offerings and tuck the entire package into the recesses of our subconscious minds. Then when this mindset is threatened with new assumptions or challenging opinions, we turn to our illusional reality, our ingrained structured beliefs. We unconsciously sort through them and arrive at what we think is the best determined conclusion based upon our past experience and previous assumptions. This outcome becomes our rationalized rope.

As unique individuals growing up in our exclusive childhoods, we formed an illusional reality structured from our particular environment. We, now as adults, live happily with our “rationalized ropes” of internalized beliefs, or do we? Harman elaborates:

The fundamental fact, powerful and empowering in its implications, is that our experiencing of reality is strongly affected by our internalized beliefs…. each of us, from infancy onward, is subjected to a complex set of suggestions from our social environment, which in effect teaches us how to perceive the world…. each of us is literally hypnotized from infancy to perceive the world the way people in our culture perceive it…. A prime task of adult life is to become dehypnotized, “enlightened”—to see reality as it is and to “know thy Self.”

To “know thy Self” is a challenge for every adult. This is not an easy task for deep programming from childhood blocks a clear perception of the true-Self. To become dehypnotized and begin to see reality from your true-Self first requires the recognition of that Self. Your child within can bring you this gift. As an adult, you can relearn to choose the input you wish to experience and re-create childhood experiences and the emotions attached to them.

The ability to manifest the life you wish to experience is based upon your ability to unify what you believe you deserve and are capable of attaining with what you were taught you could be and possess while you were a child. You can re-program your subconscious mind by replacing what was actually experienced with a more positive image. Only you can take a closer look at your past, your childhood, to discover what perceptions, beliefs, or illusional realities you want to change.

You possess all that is needed to heal yourself. You possess a creative mind, a physicality, and the spiritual nature which can direct you to your own child within guide. Your inner child is directly connected to that part of yourself which is complete and pure. Allow yourself to be guided. You can begin this inner journey by reaching for recovery.