Your Inner Child has Rights, Too E-Book

Joe Mittiga

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 495

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

My name is Joe Mittiga, and I am a 61-year-old man who is walking the same self-discovery path as you are. 

My desire is to paint the picture of my personal despair as clearly and as intimately as I can. This is called My Experience.

I will teach you the self-loving techniques I learned that allowed me to feel what I needed to heal. This is called My Strength.

I will share with you how I gained the courage I needed to follow my heart's desire and to pursue a life and career filled with love and abundance. This is called My Hope.

With 30 years of Sobriety and life free of Codependency my promise to you is that I will be as honest and as accurate as I possibly can throughout this book in order to gain your trust as well as your friendship.

And whether you are new to your Spiritual path, a 20-year 12 stepper, a black belt in Al-anon or an everyday member of ACA, I promise the content of this book will help you find your next answer to the personal growth challenge you are in today.

My hope is after you read my story you will be able to say to yourself, “If he can heal, and have such an abundance life, so can I”

I take no ownership of the content of this publication; I was only a channel for God to write through me to communicate with you.

Today my life is surrounded by the Love of the people around me, overflowing from inner love I have reconnected to inside me, a multi-million global business, two successful kids and I am living my dream.

My hope is that you will find your internal answers in these following pages so you too can live the life God wants you to live!

Leseprobe

Your Inner Child Has Rights, Too

A Common Mans Quest To Become One With God

By Joe Mittiga

Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Portions of this publication may be reproduced

With written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 979-8-9915568-0-4

Published by:

Spirit Walkers Publishing

Atlanta, Ga

Edited by:

Denise Hmieleski

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my sponsor / counselor (who chooses to remain anonymous) for all of her love and support through this era of my life. Many of the following exercises were taught to me by her. Today I want to freely share with you what was freely shared with me.

I also want to thank my friend Jacqueline for her love and continual encouragement during the creation of this book. Jacquelines limitless patience allowed me the external reality I needed to complete such a monumental project. Thank you, Jacqueline. You truly are my twin soul.

I thank my Higher Spirit for giving me the words I needed to share during the writing of this book. I take no ownership of the content of this publication. I was only a channel for God to write through me to communicate with you. My hope is that Gods words guide you in some loving way.

Finally, I want to thank myself and my editor for having the courage to follow our hearts as we have taken these words and brought them to you.

The 12 steps are adopted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous world services inc. (A.A.W.S.). Permission to adopt the 12 steps does not mean that A.A.W.S. Has reviewed or approved the content of this publication or that A.A.W.S. Necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. A.A. Is a program of recovery from alcoholism - use of the 12 steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A but which address other problems or in any other non – A. A. Context does not imply otherwise.

Introduction

Dear Friend,

I thank you for the opportunity to share my experience, strength and hope with you today. I am very humbled that you have followed your inner guidance and have chosen to purchase this book.

My name is Joe Mittiga and I am a 36-year-old single man who is walking the same self-discovery path as you are. My intention is to share with you, through my experience, that self-love can heal all wounds. As you read about my lifes challenges and the depth of spiritual bankruptcy in which I lived, perhaps you will be able to say to yourself, “If he can heal, so can I.”

Today my life is filled with love, hope and the grace of Spirit in my heart. I talk my walk as well as walk my talk. My life was totally transformed into a spiritual reality as a consequence of learning and acting on the self-loving techniques I am about to share with you throughout this book. I am a teacher not a preacher my friend so please feel free to take with you any aspect of this book that works for you and willfully leave the rest.

My desire is to paint the picture of my personal despair as clearly and as intimately as I can. This is called my experience. I will teach you the self-loving techniques I learned that allowed me to feel what I needed to heal. This is called my strength. I will share with you how I gained the courage I needed to follow my the desires of my heart and to pursue a life and career filled with love and abundance. This is called my hope.

My promise to you is that I will be as honest and as accurate as I possibly can throughout this book in order to gain your trust as well as your friendship. My dream is that one day our paths will cross, and you will share with me how in some small way my gifts from God have enhanced your life.

PART ONE

This book is based on the actual experiences in my life and the lives of friends around me. We are neither doctors nor psychiatrists. We are just common people like you; questing to heal, questing to love and be loved, and questing to be all that we can be.

CHAPTER 1 – Where it All Begins.

As I stood in confusion and terror, I asked God to take away my sixteen-year need for drugs and alcohol. Seven days before I made this request, I sat with a friend in the basement of his home. Getting stoned and drunk was an everyday event for us. The only difference this afternoon was the content of our conversation.

My friend was telling me of his inability to go ninety days without drinking, as was suggested to him in his first exploration into the Alcoholics Anonymous program.

My immediate thought was how anyone could possibly go ninety days without any mind-altering or body-altering substance. This idea seemed totally impossible to me.

As our conversation about alcoholism continued to progress, the rationalizing voice in my head got very loud and strong saying, “I do not drink very much anymore, so there is no problem with me it is just my friend who had the problem.” Then I took another sip of my beer.

At this point on my path I still thought that outside sources were the cause of all of my internal feelings. As I looked into his eyes, I saw the tremendous amount of guilt and shame he was experiencing so I, in turn, blamed all of his feelings on the A.A. program.

Never once had I thought these feelings were already in existence inside of him.

We continued our conversation, and our personal inebriation became more and more intense. I started to wonder what it would be like not to drink or smoke marijuana every day.

The thought of this, like in a dream, seemed so far-fetched that it was hard to hold on to. Reflected in the eyes of my friend, however, were my own potential feelings of guilt and shame. I was convinced at that moment that sobriety was about experiencing all of these feelings, so I wanted nothing to do with it.

As we continued drinking, my mind wandered back in time. I remembered my childhood, which had very little alcohol in it. The occasional glass of wine my father drank at dinner seemed appropriate to me. I also witnessed moderation in drinking by both of my parents in celebration situations, which also seemed harmless. My parents fit in well in all social situations, so it seemed quite normal to see them with a drink in hand.

Following in my parents’ footsteps, my own drinking also seemed very normal. Everywhere I went I, too, seemed to fit in with a drink in my hand. As time went on, and my alcohol and drug consumption increased, my feelings of isolation and false sense of purpose also grew.

I began to understand the meaning of the term “liquid courage” because only with some type of chemical substance in my body did the false feelings of being protected from the world become strong. My need for this protection was so great because of my paranoid belief that everyone and everything was out to get me. With alcohol and drugs in my system, my perception of the world was that of a very scary, very dark place.

My need for this liquid courage seemed to grow every day. My fear of the world seemed to consume me as if a blanket were being pulled over my body. The more fear I felt, the more I needed to drink to experience this false sense of protection. It was like a never ending cycle. The more I drank and drugged for courage, the more my insecurities grew.

Looking back, I now realize that drugs and alcohol were protecting me from feeling the deep fear and grief in my heart. Though not unlike any false belief, time is the only variable until it just does not protect us anymore.

Throughout my entire life, it seemed “protectors” or “ego parts” (drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.) had saved my life. Back in my drug-filled days, I felt I needed these protectors to live. Sitting on the couch, back in the reality of my basement dwelling, I started to realize that it had been many years since I had gone consecutive days without some type of numbing substance in my body.

My mind continued to wander back to high school days where the standing challenge of who could drink the most alcohol was a daily ritual. It seemed as though whoever could drink the most liquor was recognized as the king of the world; and for me, being on top of the world was exactly where I felt I belonged.

Little did I know that this type of extreme arrogance and attitude only enhanced my protector parts to drink and smoke more heavily. For me, the definition of a good time was going out with my friends, getting drunk, and raising hell. Life was nothing but a big party.

When I was eighteen years old, during the spring break of my senior year, several of my closest friends and I headed to Florida to broaden our drinking and partying horizons. The first thing we did upon entering the city limits of Daytona Beach was to head straight for a liquor store.

You can imagine the feeling of freedom we felt being in a city where we were legally able to drink. As I walked into the liquor store, I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I bought three large bottles of alcohol, thinking this might last a day or two. I visited the liquor store several more times that week trying to satisfy my need to numb myself.

Now on that particular weekend, our rival high school happened to be in the same city on the same portion of the beach. My egos false need to show the world that I was a “real man” was very great. So, when I was challenged to guzzle a quart of whiskey, of course I accepted immediately.

Within minutes of this challenge, it was my turn to start drinking. I opened a full bottle of whiskey, poured it into an empty beer pitcher, and proceeded to drink the entire bottle in one breath. As I finished, and everyone in the room yelled and screamed at my accomplishment, I felt on top of the world. My ego would tell me over and over that I was a big man because I could drink so much alcohol.

As my challenger started his pursuit to victory, he opened his full bottle of whiskey, threw the lid on the floor, and proceeded to drink the entire contents straight from the bottle. I felt an extreme sense of defeat because he could guzzle from the bottle, and I could not.

My ego then took me from the top of the hill to the bottom of the gutter. I felt like such a loser because, in my mind, I had lost my reputation as the best drinker in town.

The only thing I can remember from the rest of that insane night was walking on the beach with a friend and vomiting most of what I had drunk.

(Looking back on it now, fifteen years later, it is very clear to me that God was taking care of me that night, and that is the only reason I did not die from alcohol poisoning. The sole reason I share this story is to demonstrate how powerfully insane our ego and addictions can be in our lives.)

My mind continued its wandering, drifting on to my college years where I saw the same patterns happening for me. Drinkers and party goers seemed to be attracted to me like metal shavings to a magnet. If there was a party with drugs and alcohol present, I always seemed to be attracted to it.

The biggest difference, though, between my college years and my high school years was that for the first time in my life, I started to experience the deep feelings of loneliness and abandonment associated with my changing life.

During my senior year in high school, my father had moved one thousand miles away from home to seek the “Promised Land.” He was on a mission to find a new future for his family in the south. Although this seemed a noble act, it left me feeling extremely alone and afraid.

As my college days came and my path led me to change, the empty feelings in my stomach and heart began to grow. At this point in my life, I felt very uncomfortable and lonely most of the time. I seemed to be experiencing life as an outsider looking in. My obsession to be with my father grew every day.

As a consequence of this personal obsession, all of my summers and all of my school breaks were spent traveling a thousand miles away from my home to be with him. The rest of the time, on weekends or midweek breaks, my abandonment issues and unreleased grief took me north to visit my mother and the girl of my dreams.

Regardless of whether I traveled north or south, I never felt I belonged. Growing in me every day was the desire to be “fixed” by someone or something outside of myself. No matter where I was or with whom, I always felt very lonely, with an emptiness inside me.

As my college years passed, my substance abuse grew. My fear of authority and having a boss led me into business for myself. With no experience or direction, I started a roofing company on sheer commitment and determination. I had dreams of filling the empty hole inside of me with a successful business.

However, with years of hard work and difficult learning experiences, I never felt this hole ever filled. It was like a vicious circle; the more I worked, the more stress I created for myself. With this self-induced stress came more fear, and with the fear came a higher level of substance abuse.

Even though my external life seemed very functional, I still felt very, very empty inside. In fact, any stress I created was for myself. With this self-induced stress came more fear, and with the fear came a higher level of substance abuse. Even though my external life seemed very functional, I still felt very, very empty inside. In fact, no amount of work, drugs, relationships, or sex seemed to give me any relief.

At this stage of my life, I never thought to ask “a God” for any guidance and support because I “knew” in my mind God would want nothing to do with me. It felt very hypocritical for someone like me–who was partying and drinking and smoking and chasing women all week long–to then go on Sunday and ask God for help.

It seemed especially so when I knew so well that on Monday I would be right back behaving exactly as I had the week before. At this point on my path, I wanted no part of this thing called God, and I decided He could want nothing to do with me, either.

Again, my awareness was brought back into my basement dwelling. As I was sitting on that couch that particular afternoon, I started remembering my thinking patterns during my middle twenties. I remembered how I used to wonder how my life could have gotten any worse. Even though my external life seemed fine, my internal world was full of holes, and I was very lonely.

Then one day late in 1989, my life hit a new emotional bottom. A phone call came from my relatives back home telling me that my grandmother had been in an accident and was not doing very well. In a state of panicked confusion, my entire immediate family rushed north to care for my grandmother; however, my own work responsibilities did not allow me this freedom.

I remembered sitting in fear and anticipation, waiting to hear of her health condition. As time went on, and I was able to talk to her, she reassured me that she was okay. My grandmother was the one person in this world I truly loved, and I knew she loved me.

Throughout my entire life she listened to me and advised me. She gave me a home during my toughest years and was always there for me. She was the one and only stable thing I had in my world. I felt as though I owed her so much in return for loving me.

The last words I heard from her mouth were, “Joe, thank you for calling me.” I never imagined she would pass on. I never considered the possibility of her leaving me; but on September 1, 1989, she did just that.

When I heard the news about her death, the emptiness inside of me became overwhelming. I was so angry and so sad that she had left me, some days I could not see straight. The pain inside became so great that my need for substances to numb my feelings increased dramatically. During the week before her funeral, I consumed two quarts of whiskey a day to alleviate my pain.

I had no conscious awareness of what emotions were, let alone how to nurture them. My path led me to two DUIs and one weekend in jail.

My obsession to fill my enormous wounds inside actually led me to break into the house where my girlfriend lived with her parents’ home just to wait for her to arrive. I felt an extreme need just to be hugged and held by her. The insanity of the situation was that she wanted nothing to do with me.

My thoughts were, “Maybe if she sees me, she will change her mind.” The reality was, my uninvited presence in her home scared her to death, and she ran out the door yelling for help!

The emptiness inside of me at this point was so big, it totally ran my entire life. The consequence of my choice to enter my friends home uninvited was to be thrown in jail. I was issued a court order not to call, write, or be within five hundred yards of this young woman.

However, the pain inside was so great I disobeyed the law and still made contact. I would have done anything to relieve my internal pain.

One day my father looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Have you lost your mind? You are going to jail if you keep contacting her.” I was in such a daze that I could not comprehend anything he was saying. All I knew was that I needed relief. My God, I just needed relief.

They say that time heals all wounds. In my case, the wounds just festered! My drug, alcohol, sex, and work addictions all escalated to an everyday occurrence. I changed geographic locations several times in hopes of some relief, though nothing seemed to help. The agony I felt inside was overwhelming.

Sitting on that couch in my friends basement, I remembered the feeling of living in total hopelessness and abject despair. I had realized, even back then, that something was wrong with me, although I had no idea what it was.

Then one day I was sitting in my mothers house feeling lonely and depressed, with tears streaming from my eyes, and I thought, “I NEED HELP!” Later I realized what I was actually feeling was grief and fear. Back then I was so emotionally closed down that I did not even realize I was crying.

In fact, I did not know that emotions are standard and normal characteristics of who we really are as human beings.

I sat there that day crying and asking for help; and help is what I got. For the first time in my adult life, I felt like things might be okay. This is when I was introduced to my inner child for the first time.

My inner child was an aspect of me that I never knew existed. I was twenty-six years old when I started my inner emotional quest for peace. Even though this was only the first step of my emotional path, it was certainly the largest step I had ever taken. With this step, I literally went from a totally unconscious lifestyle to living a life where conscious choice became my reality.

I realized that the wounds I was feeling were inside of me, and now for the first time, I had hope they could be healed.  

Soul Mate

As we journey down our paths of life,

We often times cross paths with a spirit of

Great importance to us.

We often times know right away that this person

Is someone very special in our journey.

Daily growth allows us to feel and experience a similar love and

Compassion for each other, as though

Acquired years and years ago.

We come to understand this experience to

be a soul mate relationship.

This relationship is cherished for a lifetime.

Deep love is created on a daily basis.

Love that sometimes leads the relationship to separate,

though never dwindles apart.

Soul mates are inner lovers, life after life after life.

It is a blessed day when you happen upon a

friend You call soulmate.

Soul Mate

CHAPTER 2 – Seeking Help

Seeking help was not something that was easy for me at all. I was raised in a very traditional Italian family where the man was taught to be the strong one and the leader. In my reality, men were supposed to be tough and fearless. I also totally believed in the social paradigm that if a man shows any emotion, he is a sissy; if a woman shows any strength, she is a bitch.

I grew up believing that to be in control of my emotions was to be in control of my entire life. I needed such extreme control because without it, my world seemed totally unbearable.

I also lived in a family where it was not okay to be angry. In fact, you were taking your life into your own hands if you expressed any type of anger at home. My father grew up with a rage acholic mother, so in turn, all he knew was personal trauma in regard to expressing anger.

He forbade any expression of anger in our home and as a natural consequence of this rule, every time I felt this emotion inside myself, I also experienced deep feelings of shame and guilt.

At my core, I knew I was a bad seed, the evil one; or better yet, just totally crazy because I was so angry all of the time. Since I was never taught how to express my anger in a healthy way, it would boil up until it was time for me to explode.

I remember one experience when an old girlfriend of mine was meeting a male friend of hers at a bar where I was drinking. When I spotted them together, all I saw was red. As I watched them go outside to talk to each other, I followed them very quickly.

In my pursuit, the only feeling I held in my heart was rage. As I approached the exterior doors of this huge hotel lobby, I remember hitting them with one rage- filled blow, knocking them entirely off their hinges.

I stepped through the opening and grabbed the young man by the neck, pinning him up against a brick post. By that time, I was screaming at my ex-girlfriend, totally unaware I was choking this young man into submission.

My internal stuffed rage was so great, and my inability to express my emotions in a healthy way was so meek, that very often in fits of rage, I would vomit all of this stuffed inner pain onto anyone in my path. Thats exactly what I did that night.

I have shared this story to illustrate how my life really was. This was not an extreme case for me, but an example of an everyday occurrence.

I want to make it clear that finding and healing our inner child wounds

IS NOT ABOUT BLAMING

our parents, siblings, or our environment,

although throughout this book I will describe the emotional harm that has been done to us as a natural consequence of emotionally growing up in a dysfunctional world.

The truth is our parents did the best they could. Being brought up in an unconscious world themselves, they had no basis for how to raise their children in any other way. It remains a case of the blind leading the blind, where no one gets very far emotionally. Our parents, and all parents, have done the best they know how to do.

We, however, are the GENERATION OF CHANGE.

We have the internal emotional ability to be different from the generations that preceded us. We have the ability to love differently, to act differently, and to live differently.

In order to make these lifetime changes, though, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes.

For me, I needed to seek outside therapy and an outside loving support system to help me through my journey toward serenity. When I first got started on this emotional quest, to actually seek support was extremely terrifying for me.

Looking back, this is one of the first times I could understand that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to seek and learn about oneself. Left to my own devices, I could never be here at this conscious level.

I know today that the Great Spirit is the source of all of my internal courage. I thank God every day that I was at a place to be able to receive and act on this God-given gift of inner wisdom and inner courage.

The idea of consciously seeking a therapist on my own was totally foreign to me back then. In fact, the very act of calling my first therapist in a small town near my home was almost impossible for me.

My fears of people, places, and things were so great that I was paralyzed in my own terror at the thought of making this call.

(It is important to share that I was an owner/ operator of a small business with ten employees at the time. So please do not let the ego statement, “I have got a job, so I must be okay,” stop you from seeking emotional support, like I did. The first several appointments were actually made and paid for by my mother.)

Meeting Mary, my therapist, literally saved my life. Up until this point, I never knew this type of healthy environment even existed. My interpretation of a therapist was a guy with short hair, tiny glasses, and a funny accent. My new friend, Mary, was none of these.

She was nice, gentle, and very understanding with me. She created an environment where I could talk to an individual with a non-biased opinion; where I was never judged, just listened to.

She never told me what to do; she only made suggestions. She never criticized me; she only spoke loving words of encouragement.

Because of her loving behavior, I noticed a tangible difference in how I felt each time I would visit her at her office.

Week after week, month after month, we would sit and talk about my general problems. Then on one magical day, as if by an act of God, Mary started teaching me about my inner child.

As she spoke to me, I had no idea intellectually what she was talking about, although I seemed to relate to everything she said. At this point on my path, I was not consciously aware of the aspect of a self who could totally relate to everything Mary was saying, but I do know it all seemed to feel true.

Her explanation of the inner child was very simple. She said that as we mature in a dysfunctional world, a part of us called the inner child does not receive the emotional support it needs to thrive and survive.

She said that through hypnosis and imagery work of the mind, we can reeducate this aspect of ourselves to believe that everything is okay. I thought what she said seemed really cool, and I was game to continue if she was.

Our first session of imagining the child within me was very simple. She told me to relax by taking several deep breaths in and out–you know, those full, slow breaths you feel deep in your stomach. I did this several times over and over.

Then she said to allow my mind to wander into my childhood. She told me not to pick a time, just allow it to come up for me. Eventually I saw a little boy playing Little League baseball.

(Later in this book, I will explain in detail the entire meditation technique I used to reconnect to my little boy.)

He was standing out in left field wearing a Minnesota Twins baseball uniform. He seemed to be continually looking around, paying little attention to the game. Then I sensed the little boy was at this game all alone.

Mary asked me to describe in detail what I saw, and then she asked me to walk up to the little boy and say hello. As I did this, I got the feeling I knew him, but for the life of me I did not know from where.

Then it hit me! I just knew it! The vision I was seeing in my minds eye was me–my little boy inside; lost, alone, and very afraid.

I did not know what to do at this point and became very confused, so I lost the image. Disappointed in losing it, I felt a sense of shame. Mary was very loving and understanding with me as she confirmed my understanding.

She told me that this vision was my inner child, and I could reach him at any time I chose.

My session ended and as I left her office, I felt excitement mixed with confusion. My mind was racing. My ego kept saying to me, “This cannot be true. How could any of this stuff help me?”

As I drove away, I thought that all of this “inner child stuff” was baloney. So, I turned on the radio as a distraction.

While driving, I became more relaxed, and my mind started wandering back to that little boy inside of me. Now, though, the vision was that of a child sitting all alone in anticipation, as though he were waiting for something. I kept driving, only giving brief thought to this new vision.

That evening, while talking to a friend and getting stoned, I saw this little boy again in my minds eye. He still seemed to be waiting for someone, although I did not know who. Then it hit me, as if by another act of God–this little boy was not waiting for just anyone, he was waiting for me! A feeling of reality hit my inebriated body as never before.

I knew at that moment that Mary was right; connecting with my inner child would help me. I had no idea how or why, but I truly felt this newly discovered connection would help.

♦♦♦

For the sake of clarification, I want to stop my story for a moment and explain in more detail what I mean when I refer to the aspect of our self-called the inner child, who and what the inner child is, and where he/she resides.

What I am about to explain is information I learned through years of personal experiences well after this point in my story.

The inner child is the emotional aspect of self which resides in all human beings. It is the part of self that feels the basic emotions of anger, happiness, sorrow, and fear (mad, glad, sad, and scared).

It permits us to dream again just as we did when we were children, allowing us to be spontaneous and full of life. It is a reconnection to our childlike faith in God, as well as all of the true wisdom of the universe.

The inner child is the natural connection with true compassion for other human beings and all the beings in Gods creation. When we reconnect with the inner child in us, we begin to feel totally whole inside.

For me personally, it is in this wholeness that I have remembered my connection to my Higher Power and to the Great Spirit. It is deep inside our inner child that we will find our natural feelings of vulnerability, humility, and a deep sense of inner peace.

The inner child allows us to close the gap between our personal emotion of love and the love of God.

Now of course, on some level, we all know that the above mentioned reality is truly what we desire. So, the question is, if we all have an inner child, why do not we all live in the truest sense of inner peace?

The answer is that we all have the ability to feel these wonderful loving aspects of life, though most of our personal, internal peace is buried deep inside ourselves under layers and layers of inner wounds.

Very few of us have known how to develop or nurture our inner child. In fact, most of us have been raised in an environment where the little kid in ourselves was not only neglected but shamed into complete seclusion.

Let me share with you a few examples to illustrate my point. When you were a child perhaps you heard these words, “Stop that crying or I will give you something to cry about,” or “You should have known better,” even though you were only seven years old.

Perhaps you grew up in a household where it was not okay to express anger. In my home, the only people allowed to get angry were my parents, and my mother could only express her anger when my father was not around because he refused to allow anger to be expressed.

So, whenever I felt angry, I had to suppress this natural emotion, thereby suppressing my inner child.

As if this external reality was not hurtful enough, my ego reinforced this untrue belief that the emotion of anger was not okay. Therefore, every time I felt angry, not only did my surrounding world shame me into submission, but my own ego voices learned how to shame me, too.

I would say to myself, “I am angry, but anger is not okay, so I must not be okay.”

As a consequence of this false belief, I always felt like something was wrong with me. In fact, the effects of this internal false belief were totally devastating to me because the consequence of this internal shame caused my little kid to close down completely.

Another false belief that totally invalidates the inner child of males is the belief that big boys do not cry. That statement to me is total baloney, though it has been projected on us men since the beginning of time.

Intellectually then, let us stop and think about this unloving reality for a moment. If every time in our life when we were angry and needed to express this rage, or if we were sad and needed to express our grief, and we were not allowed to do so, where did this energy go?

The answer is that all this unexpressed emotion is still suppressed inside of us, and it is covering up our inner child and his true love and joy one layer at a time.

Here are a few more examples of the different ways in which our inner child or our emotional self has been hurt and buried over the years.

Any type of physical, verbal, psychological, or especially sexual abuse to us as actual children will create an internal reality for our inner child that will cause him/her to be buried under layers of grief, fear, and anger.

Also, any type of personal invalidation or shaming us as children can cause a tremendous amount of harm to our inner child in later years.

As children, in order to develop our emotional selves, our primary inherent needs are to be validated and loved by our environmental source figures. For most children, these source figures are our parents.

So, if we were raised by parents who were emotionally unavailable, or who did not know how to verbally communicate or show their love, then naturally, an environment was created that inhibited the emotional development of our inner child.

As a consequence of this type of limited emotional availability, a child will grow up very confused because deep inside the heart of each child they have intuitive knowledge that love, and validation are needed for healthy growth.

When outside loving support is not given to us as children, our only means of protection is to close down our vulnerable inner self. To perpetuate the closing down process, our inner voices start to say, “I know I need to be loved by my parents, but since they do not give me this love, there must be something wrong with me.”

As a consequence of the internal false belief that there is something wrong with us, our inner child will close itself down to protect itself, hiding under more and more layers of anger and grief.

The amazing thing for me is that the entire process of human emotional development can be summed up in this passage from the Bible, “...visiting the iniquity (sins) of the fathers passed upon the children, and upon the childrens children to the third and the fourth generation,” (Exodus 34:7).

What this means to me is that as parents we emotionally end up raising our own children the exact same way our parents emotionally raised us, even though we promised ourselves a thousand times we will never treat our children the way our parents treated us.

I have always wondered why this happens. I believe it is because as children, in order to protect ourselves, our ego parts had to cover up the truth of our need for love and support from outside sources.

So over time, the natural human development of these unloved ego parts creates a reality which eventually runs our lives and all of our choices. As a consequence of this development, the same unloving voices that are running our lives are the exact same voices that were running the lives of our parents. Hence, the emotional awareness of the father is passed on to the son.

The bottom line is that emotionally you are going to interact in your world of today, exactly the same way you emotionally experienced your world as a child, unless you consciously choose to change.

My hope is that I can show you, step-by-step, how I healed my inner emotional self and how in turn, the fear-based ego that used to guide my life has transformed into my Higher Self. As a natural consequence of this internal healing, I now live in a world filled with peace, love, and serenity.

By healing the wounded parts of me, my feeling of wholeness is absolutely tremendous. For me, the natural consequence of this newly- found wholeness has not only been the creation of a deep connection with my Higher Spirit, but the realization that I live in complete freedom of all my fear-based ego voices.

I hope that you will acquire the tools you need to create your own sense of this magical freedom.

As I now continue with my story using the terms inner child, little kid, or emotional self, you will have a clearer understanding of who and what I am talking about.

♦♦♦

I went several weeks without even a thought of this inner child vision, let alone my little kid himself. The family business I owned kept me working seventy to eighty hours a week because of the illusion, “If I had a lot of money, I would be okay.”

In addition to my work schedule, I also exercised five to six nights a week because of the false belief system that said, “If my physical body were big and strong, then everybody would love me.”

I also had a girlfriend who was just as addicted to sex as I was. I could have sexual interactions at least nine or ten times a week because of the false belief system that says, “sex equals love.”

So, when you add drinking five nights a week and smoking marijuana every day, it is no wonder I did not have any time for my inner child.

I was addicted to everything in an extreme way and never knew why! Then one day I was sitting in a session bitching and complaining that my dad did this, and my girlfriend was not good enough to be loved, and my workout partner was a drug addicted loser.

Mary, my therapist, stopped me and said, “Joe, that which we see or judge in others is a true description of ourselves on some level.” After she said this, it finally became clear to me what she was actually talking about.

For the first time in my life, I could truly say that I understood what she meant about criticizing other people. She had made the exact statement to me before, but on that day, I became aware of its true meaning.

I realized that as I am judging and criticizing other people, I am actually describing my own unconscious interpretation of myself. So, if I think someone else is a drug addicted loser, then in actuality some part of me, deep inside, feels as though I am a drug addicted loser, also!

Or if I think my girlfriend is not good enough to be loved, then some aspect of myself feels as though I am not good enough to be loved, either. For the first time on my path, I became aware of the actual reality of being a multi- dimensional human being.

The truth is, even though we are not consciously connected to our own inner wounds, that does not mean those wounds do not exist.

I remember saying to Mary, “You mean to tell me that all of the horrible things I see in other people are truly inside of me?” Mary never spoke; she only nodded her head in an affirmative way as I sat there in shock.

The truth is, I was totally unaware of how much pain I had inside myself. I just never knew! I left her office that day confused and very afraid. I kept saying to myself, “How can I possibly have all of that pain inside of this perfect body?”

My ego was so big that I had convinced myself for many years that I really did not have any pain at all. How could I? I felt like I was a god and since a god is perfect, so am I.

That night, though, while I was listening to the tape that Mary had given me during our session, I saw my little boy again. This time, however, unlike my other experiences, I just walked up to him and sat down.

I was too afraid to say anything, and my little boy would not voluntarily look up. So, we just sat there. I finally felt myself coming down off of my daily marijuana buzz, feeling extremely frightened and alone.

I realized I was in a lot of internal pain, but did not know what to do about it. I was lost, alone, and full of fear.

It was on this night that I became aware for the first time in my life that I was truly paralyzed in terror. I lay there that night helpless in my own fear, not being able to move or talk.

As the night wore on, all I could hope for was to fall asleep; and after shaking with terror for three or four hours, sleep finally came.

To Embrace Our Fears

There is no light without darkness, no life without death,

No love without fear.

To embrace our fears is to give love to the unknown

Parts of ourselves that are still hidden.

To love the dark side of who we are

Takes tremendous amounts of courage.

In life we so very often walk to what we know

Because seeking the unknown creates change.

Even though change is the most feared event

Life puts in front of us,

Change is also very necessary for our growth.

So, as we face our fears, we create a personal growth in love.

Love is that unconditional feeling of abundance

That we create as we connect inside.

The connection to the child within

Brings us trust and faith in our Spirit throughout.

Embracing our fears means loving ourselves unconditionally.

Embracing our fears means to grow

Where no one has grown before.

Embracing our fears is to feel the love of Spirit,

And know who we truly are.

Embracing our fears–what a challenge.

It takes courage from a deep unknown place.

Embracing our fears means we live in the love of Who we truly are.

To Embrace Our Fears

CHAPTER 3 – Living in Euphoria

In some ways my life became better as the years continued, but in other ways it became worse. My intellectual understanding of the inner child concept grew each day. I realized that by just spending a little time using this concept on a daily basis, my knowledge surrounding my inner child grew more extensively.

My external life, however, was not getting any better at all. I was still working eighty or more hours a week, lifting weights, and getting stoned daily. My biggest dilemma at this point in my life was trying to figure out why my business would not grow. I knew in my heart that if I could make more money, I would feel better. I just knew it!

My addiction to marijuana had become an every day, every hour, and every minute experience. I smoked marijuana like most people smoked cigarettes. My ego was so massive that I would walk around in public places smoking a joint, rationalizing it to myself by saying, “No one would ever expect this to be marijuana out here in broad daylight.

And anyway, if anyone says anything to me, I will just beat the shit out of them.” To tell you the truth, all of my thoughts and actions during those days were totally insane. Looking back, I realize that it was because of this insanity that my business had no chance to grow and prosper.

There was an extreme void in my life at this point. All I did was work, smoke, and play pool in strip clubs. Then one day my life was changed forever. I looked across the room, saw a waitress, and fell in love at first sight. She had waist-long blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that was absolutely incredible.

I knew at that moment that I had to meet this beauty. A friend of mine who worked with my “new love” told me that her name was Angel and that she could arrange for us to meet.

A few days later, as I was sitting at a table drinking beer, Angel walked up to me and as she touched my shoulder she said, “You need to sit in my section.” I knew by this first touch that she loved me as much as I loved her, and that my life would never be the same.

♦♦♦

Now before I go any further, I want to describe my illusion of love more clearly, to show how addicted to love, sex, and relationships I truly was.

The truth of this situation was that I was sitting in a bar with a hundred naked women, drunk and stoned, THINKING that I was feeling the sensation of love at first sight.

To make the scenario even more insane, later I found out that Angel had a husband who was living in Los Angeles.

For me, though, my addictions to love, sex, and relationships were so massive I did not consider Angels marital status to be an issue that would hinder our relationship at all.

At that point in my life, I honestly believed that I had found and connected with the love of my life; so, nothing was going to stop me from pursuing our experience together.

♦♦♦

The next two months for me were absolutely euphoric. I was in love with a beautiful girl who loved me, too. Seven days after Angel and I met, I moved into her apartment with her because I knew my problems were over. I was so in love with this girl I even tried to give up smoking marijuana because she did not like it.

My good intentions did not last very long, although I did try because of my illusion of love for her. For me life was great! Our relationship together was new, and the sex was fantastic and alive.

In fact, we spent hours together in the shower just talking about anything that life had to offer us. All of my senses told me that this was the girl I was going to marry.

Angel and I were alike in many ways. She enjoyed drinking, talking, and having sex as much as I did. In fact, looking back, she filled every hole I had. As far as I was concerned, Angel was absolutely perfect for me, and I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with her.

I was so in love, I did not even care that my business was in trouble. To be honest, nothing mattered to me in my outside world because of this newly found illusion.

I remember thinking to myself that God had finally blessed my life because he had led me to the woman of my dreams in that strip club that night. Everything in my world was great because I lived in the euphoria of “cloud nine” for two or three months.

I even remember talking to Mary about Angel and expressing to her my hopes and dreams of creating a lifelong relationship.

Now at this point in my internal process, I had gained an extremely keen intellectual understanding of the inner child concept. My understanding was that all I had to do was use my imagination and bingo, there was my inner kid.

In fact, during the beginning years of creating this new inner knowing, I felt as if that was exactly what I was doing–just using my imagination.

I knew that my inner child was inside of me, although to tell you the truth, he always felt very separate from me. And even after working with Mary for over three and half years, I still felt as though there had to be something more.

The cliche “fake it till you make it” just was not working for me anymore. The idea of leaving Mary never entered my mind, even though I was seeking more.

My life with Angel seemed to solidify itself when she, too, started visiting Mary in the hopes of learning more about her inner child. The woman of my dreams was also seeking out her inner child and I was absolutely elated!

My external world seemed to be going very well, even though my internal world still felt restless and lonely. I just did not understand why I still felt so terrible inside. (Today I realize nothing outside of myself can fill my internal holes.

I also understand that to fill my internal holes, I have to create an internal healing process for myself; although I did not understand this back then.) What happened for me next on my path dropped me to my knees in my own overwhelming reality of inner pain.

My relationship with Angel seemed to be going extremely well except for three things. First, I tried to stop smoking marijuana for her, but I could not. Without drugs in my system, I was much too scared and insecure in my life.

So, I kept smoking but began lying to Angel about it. The reason I lied was because of my codependent need to get her approval and love. My dishonest illusion lasted for a little while until over time, my lies caught up with me and caused us a tremendous amount of trouble.

The second aspect of our relationship that really bothered me was that Angel would call her husband in Los Angeles and ask him for money. Of course, I never shared my concerns with her because I was too cool to admit I was jealous.

The third aspect of our experience together that hurt our relationship was when Angel started staying out of the apartment, partying later and later into the night without me. Several times she even stayed out the entire night without telling me where she was.

I knew something funny was going on, but I did not want to know the truth because my addiction to this dream relationship was so strong that no unloving behavior was going to stop me from working things out between us.

I never shared my problems about Angel with Mary because I figured I could handle our situation by myself. Mary and I only talked about my relationship with my father and why I felt so abandoned by him.

Then one day during work, I became consciously aware that my father had never really been there for me throughout my entire life. So, when Mary and I saw each other the following week, we talked about this new awareness in detail.

That day in session, Mary asked me to imagine my father with a baseball uniform on, playing catch with me. At this place on my path, this new mental vision actually lifted my spirits.

♦♦♦

The imagery work I completed during those three and half years of my life taught me how to intellectually understand my inner childs wounds. Even though this imagery work probably saved my life, it did not heal the internal wounds of my inner child that I was feeling in my heart.

The reason is because mental imagery work is done in the mind, and internal wounds are in the heart. So by definition, most mental imagery work only acts as a bandage over the wound that is growing in our heart!

Now for me, this bandage was exactly what was needed during the process of healing my inner child, although eventually it would no longer work.

♦♦♦

That session truly changed my life! I rushed home with excitement to share this new experience with Angel, but she was not there. I was back on “cloud nine” with this new image in my mind, but my heart really hurt because Angel was not there to share it with me.

The next day I confronted Angel about where she had been and what she had been doing the previous evening. After a couple of hours of consistent and aggressive badgering, she finally admitted to me that she had had sexual relations with her separated husband, as well as an old boyfriend.

I was absolutely stunned as she blurted out the truth! The energy of this admission knocked me straight back onto the floor where I sat in shock. The love of my life had cheated on me not only once, but twice. I could not believe it!

I was in so much pain the next couple of days that I tried to get her to tell me she had been lying to me; but of course, she had not. Then when the truth settled in and the shock wore off, the pain in my heart and soul increased to a level I never imagined possible.

Every old wound that Angel had filled over the previous four months was now open and festering. Every feeling I had thought was true, I now found to be an illusion.

Every dream I had held of a beautiful wife and a white picket fence was now smashed. For me, my wonderful illusion was over with one simple statement, “Joe, I cheated on you.”

I fell into a deep state of darkness and depression and moved out of Angels apartment the following week. I was completely confused. I did not know if it was day or night, and I really did not care.

Even alcohol and drugs would no longer numb my inner pain. Renting a room from a strange man, I spent most of my time inside the confines of those four walls with my head under a pillow. My world as I knew it was destroyed, and again my life was riddled with fear.

I remember checking my business pager one day and seeing twenty-seven messages for me to return. I could not bring myself to make these calls because I was too terrified to talk with anyone. Again, my life was paralyzed in hurt, anger, and terror.

Over the next couple of months, time passed, but nothing really changed for me. I felt totally betrayed and alone again. Parts of me wanted Angel back, although other parts literally hated her. I knew I had to heal, but I had no idea how.

I had a birthday coming up and I was about to turn thirty years old. For my entire life I had looked forward to this birthday because a part of me always fantasized about having a beautiful birthday experience with a beautiful woman.

My dream was to sail off into the sunset with someone who loved me, drinking champagne and eating great food. Soon, though, the dream was over, and the actual day arrived.

The truth is, that day I did spend time with Angel, although it was just long enough for her to tell me that she was going to Florida with an old boyfriend to visit the ocean and to party.

I also was able to drink champagne that night, but it was at a smelly, hard-core rock-and-roll bar where I knew no one.

At this point, I recognized something was very wrong with my life. I also remember asking for Gods guidance that night for the very first time in my adult life. I had always believed in God even though I honestly did not think God wanted anything to do with me.

All alone, with a broken heart, I said these words, “Please help me to see a better life.” I never used the word God even though I did ask for a little help.

The next three days were spent in bed with my head under the covers. My fears had totally paralyzed me, and I had a massive struggle going on inside my head because a part of me wanted Angel back, while a larger part did not.

I stayed in bed those three days shaking with terror until I finally realized that the pain I was feeling was not just from my broken heart over Angel. I consciously became aware that the pain I was feeling was in every cell of my body.

I was finally able to see that what I was experiencing was not just about Angels choice to leave me, but it was also about a lifetime of suppressed feelings and fears surrounding all of my abandonment issues.

Three days after my thirtieth birthday, I had what I called my womb experience in Marys office. During our session that day, I realized on a very deep level that I had felt personally alone and abandoned ever since I experienced living in my mothers womb.

It was this womb experience that took me out of my head and into my body for the very first time. I realized at that very moment that my work with Mary was finished.