When I encourage people to heal their inner child, what is your impression? Do you think I am telling people to be silly, childish and regression to infantile behavior? No! What I mean is a re-parenting in a sense. We are a generation of children raised by children. No disrespect to parents. I mean that everybody is dealing with their own wounds, which can be terribly triggered by the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of children. Children are needy and selfish. This is unavoidable and to be expected. When we are not fully, emotionally integrated within ourselves - fully healed - we can persecute our children. That might be a poor word choice. Because in a lot of ways, it is not intentional. When we get stressed, we can dissociate. In this dissociation, we can vent our frustration with our children. It’s sad to say, but the reason we feel it safe to vent like this is because of their vulnerability. Darkness exists in these spaces of dissociation. Healing the inner child involves addressing these wounds and triggers at their source so that we can be unhindered by our emotional well-being. In our choices, reactions and words. Healing the inner child is a necessity the world over. There are very few exceptions where trauma and repressed emotion has not influenced people. Especially as religious and faithful people. For when you are a child, being raised in faith, where do you put that justifiable, reasonable anger and emotions that surface in reaction to injustice? You have been told that faith filled people do not get angry. This is where we learn to turn it in upon ourselves. Contrarily, faith filled people are raised in forgiveness and prayer. This is essential and builds grace, faith and love. But what of those serious injustices and wounds that we don’t remember? What has happened with the emotions associated with them? Even for those led by the Holy Ghost, if there are repressed emotions within the body, this makes true the Scripture verse: “The corruptible body weighs down the incorruptible soul” Wis 9:15. Yes, we are led by the Spirit. But we are still hindered by wounds and pains that have not been felt. That have not been processed and shelved away within the storehouses of our consciousness. When this is the case, our behavior, our attitude, our words, our actions are influenced by our flesh. And so, there is a conflict between our flesh and our soul. Very rarely are there people who are completely well integrated, emotionally. The concept of repressed memory is not a concept exclusive to me. It affects everyone. I don’t say this to scare you. Who can honestly say they remember every single event in their life? It is not a mystery that society, from our parents, to our teachers, to our employers have been conditioned to believe that the healthy expression of anger (especially in children) is unacceptable. In a way, it is as though, seeing a child express their emotions brings us right back, emotionally, to our own childhoods. It triggers the feelings that we have never been able to process. We need to recondition our world to believe that the healthy expression of emotions, (especially in men) is not only healing but incredibly liberating for the spirit. Healing the inner child is reconnecting with one’s needs and providing fulfillment of those needs to the child within, until they are integrated into the adult personhood. An example of one of those needs might be safety. A way to provide this to our inner child may be to stand up for oneself. To be assertive. It is all very personal and individual. Trauma is a unifying aspect of life. Nobody escapes trauma. We are all reacting, only reacting to life’s punches. It is about how we receive this suffering. When we receive it in resentment, when we resist, we can seek vengeance. We can turn it in on ourselves. This is the source of all kinds of emotional, mental, physical maladies. Or, we can embrace and feel our suffering. We can choose to offer it to the Lord. In this, is where true grace, true healing and true love is found. A child cannot seek this path on his own accord. He will need the grounding and safety provided only in healthy and loving family. Let us seek to offer every child, every baby, every teenager, the safety and love they need so that, when these traumas come, they will be given the grace to choose love, to choose forgiveness and to choose faith. This is where human life begins. It is not difficult to see how important this time of life is for the human being. Trauma and suffering can create the greatest divisions. It can create terrible conflict, stirring up the worst of emotions, the worst within the human being. It can also unite us all. Every one of us. Guys, the sooner we realize that very few people are truly evil, are truly our enemies; the sooner we realize we are all only very wounded and acting out our frustration at those wounds, the sooner our world will heal. Put aside the resentment. God loves you. God loves you. God loves you. Can you not feel it? It sounds like a spring zephyr across open prairie, smells like the purest of oxygen mixing with ozone at the onset of a midsummer thunderstorm, looks like a cool flame and feels like the greatest peace the world has ever known. Can you not feel it? Do you want to feel it? Jesus is calling you. Jesus is waiting for you. Jesus is calling you!
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