EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques Article Inner Child Healing by Silvia Hartmann

IC Healing: EFT & Inner Child Work

About a week ago, a young man by the name of Paul killed himself with a heroin overdose. He was 24 years old, very intelligent, very talented.

Following his death, someone said, "I feel so guilty about this. I knew him for five years and I feel responsible. I could have done more to help him."

I said, "Get in line. Have you seen Murder On The Orient Express? I was there too, and so were at least a dozen other people. But before he ever got there, what about all the other people involved during the time of his life? His mother who left him, the various foster homes, the children's homes, all the teachers and social workers involved who "processed" him in that time, the drug dealers, his friends, his relatives - well, as I said, get in line. It's a very, very long line, and at the end of the day, by the time we knew him the damage had been done. By the time he was six years old, it was near enough all over."

This set me to thinking.

About the fact that a single sentence placed to a young child can do and undo more than 30 years spend in therapy for an adult.

And about the fact that the parts of us that remember what it was like to "be that child" live still in quantum space, and, it being a *quantum space* that we can make changes now that will re-write history then.

 

The November Man

Milton Erickson, the famous hypnotherapist, once had a very special client. This was a man who had been kept by his lunatic religious fanatic parents in a dark cellar his entire life and was only found upon their death. He had no understanding of the world and no social skills of any kind. Over a period of time, Milton Erickson would age regress him and appear to him as the November Man, a person who would take him out of the cellar and have him experience a playground, a family dinner, a walk to the shops, a holiday by the sea, so that the man would have "childhood memories" that would become templates to base his current behaviour on.

There is much literature on "Inner Child" work, and for all of you who dismiss this idea as some kind of lame new age fascination, please read on. It is my supposition that this is the most important type of personal development and HEALING work you could ever undertake - if you have the courage.

 

Inner Child Work & EFT

I am going to suggest some approaches to begin your own IC Healing explorations, using Gary Craig's Emotional Freedom Techniques. If you do not know how to use EFT, you can find a full protocol here and I would suggest you try this out on some other emotional issues first before returning to this article.

 

Pre-Work

In many cases, before we can even begin to start, some pre-work needs to be done. It is the sad truth that many deep underlying beliefs we now have as adults about how children should be treated have been formed by the way WE were treated. Oh, indeed, we make decisions to "do much better than that" and many of us do when we are dealing with *other* children or our own; however, how we deal with *ourselves* remains often very much just like our caretakers did.

So, we might begin with asking some very basic questions about your feelings regarding "children" in total.

·         How do you feel about children?

·         Do you like them?

·         Do you find them annoying, irritating, attention seeking, limiting to your own endeavours?

·         Do you like *some kinds of children* better than others? If so, why?

·         What *kind* of children do you find particularly annoying? What age, type, gender, race, upbringing, looks?

·         How do you feel about an adult's responsibility for the upbringing of children?

·         Do you have any particularly strong views about what should or should not be done with, to or by children?

 

The questions above will begin to make you aware of some emotions and memories regarding children in general, including the recoil decision "not to go there at all" or "not being interested in children", for example.

If you are involved in personal development, either with clients or for your own healing and growth, and most likely, both, then "children" and their issues should really be of prime concern to you - naturally.

I don't have to tell you that most every long lasting problem or limitation now is rooted in some way in childhood experiences or the lack thereof, you already know this on every level.

So *should there be a resistance* to even looking into these kinds of issues, I would seriously ask you to have a tap on this very resistance - it could well contain a breakthrough key to your current problems.

Now, let's move on to working with your own past selves, the children that you once were.

 

Proxy Tapping Past Selves

The mechanism of proxy tapping is particularly useful in the context of IC healing approaches because it has a TRIPLE effect:

·         Firstly, it clears the issue in question very successfully from the more resourceful, older position that you are now;

·         Secondly, it creates a sense of *connection* and of *responsibility* for the past self - it is a form of *re-parenting* yourself.

·         Thirdly, proxy tapping the past self both heals those old wounds and at the same time, changes the entire system that is your self esteem, self concept or whatever you want to call it, NOW as the changes ripple through the whole that is you, creating new templates of behaviour, thought and possibility as this happens.

If you need basic instructions on the EFT Proxy Protocol, you can find it on https://starfields.org/Relationships/proxy.htm

 

Healing Through Time

I will make some suggestions now on possible areas where you might like to apply EFT, through time.

Conception & Pregnancy. Consider the baby that was conceived and that would grow up to become you. What were the circumstances of this? Is there anything that comes to mind for this time period, any sense, any emotions, any words or statements you were told about that have stayed with you and still cause discomfort?

Example Opening Statements (please note the slight modifications in the statements):

·         Even though this baby should never have been born, I now deeply and profoundly love and welcome this baby.

·         Even though this baby was unwanted, I now deeply and profoundly love, accept and welcome this baby.

·         Even though this baby's mother drank all through pregnancy, I now deeply and profoundly love and welcome this baby.

·         Even though it was said that this baby was born under an unlucky star, I now deeply and profoundly love and welcome this baby.

You might like to do another round, after such statements have been completed, but use the generic set up statement of:

"I now deeply and completely HEAL this baby."

*Comment - If these Opening Statements cause you much distress, it might be best to do this process with another to help guide and support you.

 

Birth. Birth is always a very dramatic experience. You might remember something, you might have a feeling or sense of something that happened then, and many of us have been told many horrific things about this time, all of which is stored on some level in our multiordinate energy matrices.

Here are some example opening statements:

·         Even though this baby caused his/her mother so much pain and suffering, I now deeply and profoundly forgive and love this baby.

·         Even though this baby was born too early, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this baby.

·         Even though this baby nearly died, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this baby.

 

Following the birth statements, I would advise to always append each round with a round of:

I now deeply and profoundly heal this baby from all wounds he/she might have sustained at the time of birth.

0-6 Months. This is a critical stage in the life of a child, as it makes its first experiences with The Hard. Constant caretaking, attention, love, warmth, feeding is of the essence for this child to grow up strong and confident. There are those who say that the very most basic ideas and concepts, way below the threshold of conscious awareness or of words and pictures, are formed in that time.

Example Opening Statements:

·         Even though this baby never received enough love, I now deeply and profoundly love this baby.

·         Even though this baby was left alone in the dark, I now deeply and profoundly love and embrace this baby.

·         Even though this baby was so helpless, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept responsibility for this baby.

·         Even though this baby was always screaming, I now deeply and profoundly love and nourish this baby.

 

I would advise to append each round with the following:

I now deeply and profoundly heal this baby from the wounds he/she has sustained at that fragile time.

 

 

6 Months - 2 Years. Entirely reliant on the caretakers, the child now begins their own explorations of the World. Their experiences during this time - and this includes toilet training - are said to set their energy exchanges with the All There Is on a most profound level. This includes basic beliefs of what can and cannot be had, what can and cannot be done, what can and cannot be learned, as well as how, what and why relationships are constructed, mostly based on the primary caretakers of that time.

Example opening statements might include:

·         Even though this child was not allowed to explore, I now deeply and profoundly love and encourage this child.

·         Even though this child was ignored, I now deeply and profoundly acknowledge and love this child.

·         Even though this child was totally overwhelmed by the world, I now deeply and profoundly love and take responsibility for this child.

·         Even though this child was pushed on way too fast, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this child.

Append as usual, any one given round with a round of:

I now heal this child, deeply and profoundly, from all the injuries it sustained during this time of life.

 

2 Years - 6 Years. This is the time of development of the basic sense of self - who we are, what our place is in the world. Many very unhelpful self concepts are formed during this time, which may include first contacts with organised learning which are of the essence for undertaking a great many tasks that rely on learning and change in the future.

Example opening statements might include:

·         Even though this child was a girl, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this child.

·         Even though this child was slow to learn, I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this child.

·         Even though this child was said to have been "a little monster", I now deeply and profoundly love and accept this child.

·         Even though this child was abused, I now deeply and profoundly love and treasure this child.

·         Even though this child was different, I now deeply and profoundly love and treasure this child.

As always, append each round with the global:

I now heal all the injuries this child sustained during this time, deeply and profoundly, with my love.

 

And Onward To Maturity

Of course, change and learning do not stop when we are 6 years old. It would be most valuable indeed to continue on and create your own custom made line of growth beyond age 6 and into pre-teen, then teenager stage and until you have reached a point of conclusion where you felt maturity and adult hood had been obtained.

Now the truth is that many of us, age 40, 50, 60 and beyond have never really felt as though they did attain adulthood; many of us have a horror of such a state and actively fight it for many reasons, the main one being that those who were presented to us as models of adulthood were not what we would ever want to become.

However, it is my supposition that IC explorations, and more specifically, IC Healing can help accomplish this.

By taking responsibility in a true adult fashion - note, a true adult fashion not as was modelled by the so called "Grown Ups" around us - for our own selves, we are both healing past wounds as well as *recreating a whole new model* of adulthood for our own past selves.

This is a most profoundly healing and ecological set of energy exchanges *within our own self* that I absolutely believe needs to be accomplished FIRST and as the FIRST PRIORITY to any other endeavour.

For how can you heal others if you cannot heal yourself, how can you forgive others if you cannot forgive yourself, how can you serve others if you cannot serve yourself?

It is often said that "loving the self" precedes all endeavours to love others.

Loving the child you once were is an essential, if not *the only essential* component to understanding the nature of love, forgiveness and healing. I offer you these protocols for use with your self and your clients with my sincere wishes to you for deep healing and re-alignment.

Silvia Hartmann

First Published In SFI E-Zine February 3rd, 2002

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