Miracles Interview -- PART 2

One of a series of interviews with the leading healers of our time

Healing the Inner Child

Paul Ferrini talks with Charles Whitfield about his ground-breaking work on the Adult Child Recovery Process

PART TWO

P: Inner Child injuries seem to be epidemic in our society, particularly when you consider the more subtle types of abuse.

C: Yes. Actually, a better word than "epidemic" is the word "endemic," because endemic means that most of the population has it. Actually this kind of abuse has been happening to most men and women since the beginning of recorded time.

     But I think that we're starting to heal it more effectively now. And spiritual literature and holy books like A Course in Miracles are being of clear assistance in that healing.

P: Yes, it seems that there is a kind of global awakening happening now in which we are becoming conscious of our deep unconscious wounds and coming forward to talk about them and heal them.

C: Yes, that's true, but I think it is still small numbers of people who are awakening. I would say it is only ten or twenty percent of the population. The other eighty to ninety percent appear to be still asleep.

P: But what's so helpful is that the trauma recovery movement encourages people to take charge of their own healing. And that makes healing accessible to people in a way that conventional psychology and psychiatry don't always do.

C: Right. People are more empowered and less dependent on helping professionals, and the healing process itself has been demystified.

P: So it really represents a radical shift in the whole direction of the therapeutic process. Now, the wounded person can take charge of their healing and seek out peer support through Twelve Step and recovery programs.

C: Yes. Now the person has a menu of therapies at their disposal. And it includes adult child group therapy facilitated by therapists who have done their own healing, as well as individual therapy, body therapies, massage, breath work, bibliotherapy (reading appropriate literature), and other approaches to healing.

P: Do you feel the adult child or trauma recovery movement really developed out of the Twelve Step movement?

C: No, I don't. I think it developed from multiple sources, and the Twelve Step fellowships are one important source. But it also came from psycho-dynamic and spiritual psychology and a number of other important sources.

P: But the Twelve Step movement seems to have created an awakening in the mass consciousness that the inner child work seems to piggyback on, don't you think?

C: I think the Twelve Step programs are supportive and contribute important ideas and energy to it, but they are not the only source. You see, that's a common misunderstanding of the anti-recovery backlash who think this trauma recovery healing process is something based only on the Twelve Steps.

P: They're not seeing the universality of the process. They're just looking at the Stage Zero disorder like alcoholism or drug abuse and not realizing that these are just symptoms of deeper healing that we all need to go through.

C: Correct -- The Twelve steps themselves have a universal relevance. And they are helpful in all three stages of recovery. They help us recognize and deal with our disorder in Stage One, work out our core issues (which they call character defects) and heal our woundedness in Stage Two, and stay connected to the ground even as we learn to rely on our Higher Power in Stage Three.

P: This may seem like a strange question, but what happens if there is no Stage Zero disorder? How does the adult child healing process take place?

C: Well, that could happen, but most people have one or more Stage Zero disorders. It may be something as simple as asthma or migraine headaches. It doesn't have to be as devastating as an advanced addiction or mental illness.

P: So we're talking about degrees. You're saying that in essence just about everybody has some sort of symptom.

C: Yes.

P: But if the particular illness or disorder is subtle, there may be millions of people out there sitting on deep wounds that they don't even know they have, because they have not yet manifested obvious physical or psychological symptoms.

C: That's right. A simple thing like a mild illness is unlikely to push a person into awakening. So that person goes on for years without experiencing a bottom. But meanwhile, there can be all kinds of chronic tension in that person's life. And one day something happens -- maybe it's not even something major -- and it's the straw that breaks the camel's back.

P: Yet, by the time the illness manifests, it can become drastic enough to get the person's attention. Then, it's clear that there are some deep issues that need to be addressed.

C: Well, we become so dependent on our false self or ego to run our lives, it often takes something powerful to push the ego out of the way.

P: I guess that as long as things seem to be going reasonably smoothly in our lives, we're not going to take the time to look at our deeper issues. It's only when things get out of control that we realize we've got to disconnect the cruise control and apply the breaks.

C: Yes, I agree.

P: I'd like to explore with your more about Stage Three specifically in terms of A Course in Miracles. The Course says that the root condition is the separation we experience between ourselves and God. It says that everything can be traced back to this root condition. Now, in inner child work, there isn't much discussed around this issue. Yet to me they're intimately connected. I wonder how you've explored that in connection to your own thinking.

C: Well, one problem is that until I know my true identity, I can't usually consider that I've separated from anything. So the first thing I have to do is go through Stage Two recovery, and get to know me. Then I realize that I feel separated and alienated from my whole "sacred person," which is the relationship that I have with my Higher Self and God.

P: It has been my experience that the feeling of separation comes in at the very beginning. In my pain, I know that I feel separate from my brothers and sisters and from any sense of well being within. I don't really love myself, because I don't accept myself as I am. I need to come to a gut level acceptance of myself if I am going to begin my healing process. Until I do that, I will feel cut off from others and out of touch with the meaning of my life.

C: What you just described is what I call Stage Two recovery, or Healing the Child Within.

P: Yes, I can see that. But I'm looking for a connection with A Course in Miracles here. The Course would suggest that in order to heal that sense of separation, which goes very deep, we need to stop projecting our unhappiness onto others. So even if we have experienced wounds in our childhood, making others responsible for them doesn't alleviate our shame and guilt. In fact, it just deepens it.

C: But in order to heal, I also need to name my experience. I need to feel all the emotions which I repressed before.

P: I agree. Perhaps the withdrawal of projection doesn't happen until what you call Stage Three. But it is clear that it is a necessary part of the healing process.

C: Well, as I've said, I think it gets easier to experience the spiritual the more I know the real me.

P: I guess the main issue I have with adult child work is that it seems to give people license to become chronic victims. I know that this is not the goal of the work, but it is sometimes an outcome of it.

     If shame is really worked through, it does not get projected. Shame that turns into blame is just being projected. This does not constitute a real healing of the wound. And a lot of people get stuck there.

C:  Well, sure. And that's why many people criticize the recovery movement as  being too blaming. But I don't think it is blaming. Because what we are doing is naming the truth of our individual experiences. That is very important.

     I can't tell you about your experience. But I can tell you about mine and I can listen to you when you tell me about yours, and then maybe we can assist each other in our healing. And that's exactly what's going on in the adult child trauma recovery process.

P: And it's a powerful process. The naming and the grieving of the wounds are essential parts of the healing process.

C: Right. And the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin underscores this, because when she gives this creature an accurate name, it either disappears or it runs away screaming, depending on the version you are reading.

P: I think you are right that all of us must go through the process of naming our pain. That is in many respects the first phase of the healing journey. It happens soon after we hit bottom. And I have certainly met many spiritual people, including a lot of Course students, who try to skip over their inner child work. Of course, it doesn't work. Their lives don't get better, no matter how many holy books they read.

C: Well, that's the spiritual bypass.

P: Yes. And of course the disadvantage of that is that it sets people up for a real emotional crash, because they have all these major expectations of themselves which they are not able to live up to. They become spiritual achievers, but that's just the mask for the wounded child who feels inadequate and is always trying to prove himself by doing something outwardly. The real existential acceptance of self has not yet occurred.

C: Right, and that existential self-acceptance is what happens in Stage Two recovery.

P: Yes. That, it seems to me, is where these two areas become joined. To me, the existential self-affirmation is the core of both recovery and the process of spiritual awakening. Without it, recovery and spiritual awakening can't happen.

C: Well, I think spiritual awakening can happen, but further progress may be slowed unless the person does Stage Two work.

P: Let's come back for a moment to the issue of separation, which A Course in Miracles says underlies the wounding we experience. When I get to the bottom of my pain, I encounter a deep sense of inadequacy, a profound guilt. Rather than deal with this guilt head on, I project it on my brother. I attack him or allow him to attack me. This just deepens my guilt. Even if I try to make amends, it doesn't work, because I can't forgive my brother until I forgive myself.

C: Well, they're in a cycle. I can't forgive others until I forgive myself. And I can't forgive myself until I've forgiven someone else.

P: Right. They go together and you can't have one without the other.

     I know that you have said that forgiveness is not necessary in recovery, and I understand why you say this. But I would say forgiveness is ultimately necessary, even though we can't choose it until we are ready to.

     Although we can decide "when" to learn our forgiveness lessons, we can't decide "whether or not" to learn them. Because unless we pass through deep forgiveness, we haven't fully completed the healing process. Do you agree?

C: Yes, but there's no rush for that.

P: Right. You can't do it until you're ready to do it.

C: The whole process is a spiritual one from beginning to end. Looking back, we can see that every move we made away from God was maybe a movement of God, since God is in us.

P: Yes, there's a non-dualistic level where we realize that it's all God happening. Even the illusion is just a set-up for God realization. That's why the Course tells us we never left our Home in Heaven and that this is just a dream. We don't have any choice about whether or not to wake up because we are the dreamer, not the dream. The end of this journey was present in the beginning. The outcome was determined. Why else would the Course tell us that we need do nothing?

C: Well, I think the Course says, "I need do nothing" when I'm in the holy instant. But before that, we do the lessons in the Workbook. We do our Stage One and Two recovery work.

P: Well, I mean we need do nothing in the sense that we don't establish our own innocence. We do establish our guilt mistakenly, but we don't establish our own innocence. Our innocence simply is. We don't need to do anything to be a holy son or daughter of God. That's our inheritance. All we need to do is recognize this. It is our primary state of being. Everything else is an add on, a mistaken notion, an illusory idea that we need to recognize and transcend.

C: That's why I have the mandala "target" illustration on the cover of my Co-Dependence book. These are layers that we peel away as we go through the different stages of the healing process.

P: And the peeling away process does not always look like we think spiritually it ought to look. When Donna Cary, Dennis Robillard and I were on our east coast tour, the major theme that developed was the idea that our joy sits right next to our pain. The experiential processes we presented  enabled a lot of people to experience their pain. But being in that pain did not result in feelings of separation. Instead, there was a profound bonding of people, because of their willingness to share their pain. So then, right next to the pain, there was an incredible feeling of joy. It was almost spooky. But it just underscores how paradoxical this process is.

     The whole process of becoming an authentic person means that we need to embrace our entire experience. This is not an antiseptic process. It is not a process that you can go through and use the word "forgiveness" lightly. You need to be present emotionally in whatever your experience is. And there's a real sense of brotherhood and sisterhood that comes through just being willing to be honest about our experience.

C: Sure. It's all about being real. Shame and fear are barriers we can all move through. One reason we hide our stuff is we think that we're the only ones who have horror stories to tell. But that's not true and we can find that out. Our experience may be unique, but we're not alone in it.

P: I guess both the Course and adult child recovery tells us that.

     Well, I know you have to go. We didn't talk about your fascinating study of the Jesus material. But I guess that is a subject that deserves a whole discussion of its own. Thanks so much for sharing this time with us.

C: Thank you. I enjoyed it.

--The end of Part Two--