I am not writing about TV channel surfing. I am writing about channeling into your psyche and your soul. Channeling is an important approach to help others. In recent weeks in working with people who were struggling in life, I have seen yet again the power of this approach. Channeling is a combination of meditation and therapeutic healing.
Channeling expands the biblical wisdom that “unless you become as a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:13); “a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 1:6); and “The Kingdom of God is within you” Luke 17:21).
Reflect as well on Whitman’s memorable poem, “There Was a Child Went Forth.”
There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him, for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
Channeling has shone a bright light on a way for me to help others for many years. This revelation is found in the three biblical verses and Whitman’s poem which are above.
We are all channeling or being influenced by others. Too many Republicans are channeling Donald Trump. He lives in them. We channel various music that stays with us during the whole day. If I heard the Christian hymn, “And I Will Raise You Up,” it stays with me the whole day or Adele’s hits like “Rolling in the Deep” which I run to. We channel fashion from the current styles in vogue.
The kind of channeling that I am thinking about is the “inner child of the past” found in the biblical verses and poem that I mentioned that are woven into the fabric of our psyche and soul. I have been channeling Hugh Missildine and his theory of finding your inner child of your past.
Missildine, a psychiatrist, wrote about how each of us has an inner child of our past within us. It stays with us forever. We must find it and know how it is empowering or hindering our progression to wholeness, happiness, and meaning in the psyche and the soul. This is usually based in our relationship with our parents or parenting figure. We must find it or it can create havoc in the choices we make and the attitudes that we possess today.
Missildine found that if our parent’s attitude toward us was an excessive amount of: perfectionism, we would be overly serious about accomplishment; over coercion would cause us to be resistant and procrastinate; over submission produces lack of consideration for others; over indulgence causes boredom and lack of effort; punitiveness causes a desire for revenge; neglect makes it difficult to be close to others; and rejection has us feeling unacceptance by others.
During premarital counseling, I will raise the issue that two people don’t get married, six do. Yes, the bride and groom but also the parents of the two. We discuss it. It is usually a short period of time after they discuss it with one another that they will inevitably say to me, “You’re right! I never thought about that!” Recall that Princess Diana said, referring to Camilla as a problem, we have three people in our marriage bed.
What Whitman and Jesus knew is that we can create a kingdom of wholeness and integration within us, but it isn’t a given. You have to find your inner child of your past. Something extraordinary happens when it is a tension within your psyche and soul. If your inner child is making your life and others around you miserable, you don’t forget it, but it loses its power over you when you identify it. If your inner child is making your life better for you and others, you won’t forget it, but it continues to make you and others whole. Since parents aren’t perfect, there is usually a tension within us.
Two themes that are part of my counseling perspective that I wrote about in The Times of My Life are: “Never forget where you came from!” and “How did I get here from there?” Those two comments will take you right to the heart of your inner child of past.
Your inner child of the past! You and I have one. What’s yours?
“There was a child who went forth every day.”
“A little child shall lead them.”
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