Aug 08 2007
I Hear A Child Crying
This is quite odd.
I had planned to continue writing about the day I spent with my mom and something said I had to write this post.
Actually, it’s not as bizarre as I think; I do have posts that seem to have come out of nowhere – where I had one idea of what to write and then The Universe tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Uh, excuse me? Why don’t you write about this instead?â€
I try to pay attention to these shoulder taps.
In this case, I really was thinking of writing about the rest of my day with my mom, crafting it in my head, hearing her voice, and thinking about how to capture her childlike, in-the-moment view of the world. Maybe that’s why this post came to mind. I noted the idea and continued to think about the day I spent with my mom.
The tapping became more insistent.
I’ve been working on hearing my inner voice more clearly and I believe that this has improved my other senses as well. I felt the tapping and then I sensed that somewhere out there, a child was crying.
I believe that Things Happen For A Reason.
Whenever I’ve had a setback, it has usually set me on the path for something better. In keeping with this attitude, I also believe that the people I meet I meet for a reason. I wasn’t even 20 when I met a woman who I immediately connected with – on the phone! – and who is even now one of my closest friends. When we met the next day we shared so much and it was she who recommended that I read the book, “Bradshaw On: The Family” by John Bradshaw.
That book changed my life.
The book is about family dynamics, specifically about dysfunctional families and how they affect a child’s self esteem. He describes the Lost Child.
What is a Lost Child?
Parents who have never had their needs met as children are themselves needy. As parents, they can’t give their children what they don’t have. When parents are deprived of something as healthy as feeling worthy, they will try to feel worthy through a substitute.
When these esteem-deprived people become parents, their object of gratification becomes their own child or children. They have total power over their children. A child must obey their parent, must never abandon them – to do so would be too much to bear. A child will become the vessel for his parents’ lost narcissistic gratification through his achievements and performance.
When a child becomes a vessel, the child has emptied out his true self and become filled with a false one. The false self covers the wound suffered by the true self. The true self suffers because it has been told it can’t have its own feelings, needs, thoughts or desires.
The true self believes that it is flawed. The child feels flawed: worthless of his parents’ time and attention.
He says to himself, “I am worth-less.”
Bradshaw writes:
“This is internalized shame. The tragedy of all this is that individuals or generations get caught up in a repetition compulsion, a vicious cycle of repeating over and over again the quest for the lost paradise, only to find that each substitute is an illusion. Compulsively seeking fame, status, new sex partners, a certainty of salvation, security in political party and so on cannot give you that deep inner unity that was lost with your child-self. The lost self is an inner problem, not an outer one. Nothing on the outside can bring back what was lost.
Your lost child is lost forever.”
Bradshaw describes an exercise he conducted in one of his workshops.
In the workshop, he had each person bring a picture of himself before age eight. The person then used the photo or an internal image to contact the child within. You may be familiar with the term, Inner Child. Bradshaw had each person contact child within through imagery and meditation.
He suggests that each person tells his inner child that he is from their future and that he knows better than anyone what that child has been through.
When I read about talking to my Inner Child it sounded so, well, pointless. I thought how could talking to myself at age five help me believe in myself, feel a sense of self worth, gain some self-confidence?
I also thought that there was no harm in giving it a try.
I visualized myself as a little girl about 5 years old. I have lots of photos of myself at that time and it’s not just me, everyone will tell you that I was adorable. Seriously.
I imagined my seriously adorable but seriously sad child self whose entire existence was dedicated to being a Good Little Girl. Everyone told me what a Good Little Girl I was, told my parents, too.
But no matter what I did, I was Never Good Enough.
I visualized my five-year-old self standing alone in the center of a darkened room. My adult self walked up to my child self and said hello and introduced herself. I knelt down in front of her and looked into her eyes. Her sad child eyes.
I told her that she was perfect just as she was, that she was worthy of love and that she didn’t have to do anything to be loved, she didn’t have to be anything than who she was to be loved.
I told her that I loved her. We both cried.
I then gave her a big hug. I held onto her a long time.
From that moment on, I began to discover my true self.
Something told my I should write this post today.
Perhaps it is your Lost Child crying out, your true self, wanting to be found?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I know that you know about my post Now Now Children because of the very good comment that you left. Still, reading this reminded me of that post because I have also realized (through the afore-mentioned incident that was blogged about as well as many other miscellaneous ones) that there is just so much of our lives that are affected by our childhood and ultimately our parents. Personally I’m of the mind that those at Focus on the Family have been on to something for quite some time.
Thanks for that personal and interesting post. There is definitely truth in posts such as this! It’s also good to hear from you as you have gone through some self-reflection and got to experience all of this first-hand.
This is an excellent post and I know a great number of people who fall into this category. Some fall into more than others!
Derek: There is truth to those psych jokes about how a person’s “issues” stem from their upbringing and the relationship they have with their parents.
Bad or good, we are always using the relationship we had with our parents as a model. Sometimes we think we are escaping the bad model but that in itself is a reaction. I once read that a bad parent will affect 7 generations after it (if each improves). It makes sense, though. One alcoholic abusive parent will create a legacy of dysfunctional relationships unless someone breaks the cycle.
HMTKSteve: Glad you liked the post. Unfortunately, it seems that dysfunctional families are the norm. When I meet someone who has a close relationship with their family and high self-esteem I am astounded and happy for them.
I think that so much of what we call “evil” in the world is ego and that bad parenting creates lost children who become adults with low-self-esteem, some of who mask their sadness with rage and anger.
I had read your response to Derek’s before this post & it reminded me of it too.
On the affecting 7 generations thing, I had never heard that before but it’s funny because my brother and I *almost* came to the exact same conclusion based on our own family, that is each generation of having less of a temper. My grandfather told me a few years ago about an incident where for punishment his father had knocked him out cold …
Ok, I’m going to finish that comment in just a moment bec. I just talked to a friend for an hour in between…remember the one I said brought me junk food at 1:00 am? During the phone call I told her about your post & then she told me that another friend of hers had just told her *tonight* that it was evident that her inner child was crying out, basically!…so, so weird.
Back to my grandfather – he told me how for punishment this one time his father knocked him out cold repeatedly, waking him up by pulling him into a standing position by his hair in between punching him. My dad was so surprised to hear the story. I was more surprised that my dad had been surprised. I had been sad to hear the story, shocked at the *level* of violence, but not surprised in the LEAST at the violence itself. I would have been **way** more surprised to hear that my great grandfather had been even tempered, calm.
Jill: Yes, I remember your junk-food bringing friend (aaaah, some friends just know when to bring flowers, when to bring food and when to call, huh?)
I had heard somewhere (I think it was a TV show) about the 7 generations thing and based on my own experience (and I only have a sense of what went on for my great-grandparents) I would guess that it effects AT LEAST 4 generations and there has to be significant work done by the 4th to not pass it on to the 5th!
Or the 3rd marries an emotionally healthy person who breaks the cycle.
A lot (a LOT) of male anger, rage and violence stems from depression. Men tend to express depression as anger, women as low-self esteem. This is what I have observed. When I see easily angered men, I immediately think depression. A friend (male) recommended this book:
“I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression ” by Terrence Real
He said that after he read it he was totally astounded at how much it described HIS childhood.
I read the book and wow, it is an eye-opener. I can’t recall the details but I remember it as both sad and inspiring.
I have to admit that I think that bad parenting and esteem issues are the cause of well, the majority of the problems out there.
People say, “Oh, it’s poverty” Sure, poverty can play a part. But I think you can say, “Oh, it’s parenting” just as well.
After I read the first John Bradshaw book (he had a series of PBS specials as well) I pored through as many of his books as I could find. My friend who recommended his books to me also introduced me to the term “codependent”
I was very lucky to have begun reading his books just as I entered my 20s – I was lucky to begin the process of loving my inner child so young. My friend and I? We definitely feel “connected” and that’s why I believe that things do happen for a reason.
I know I’m not psychic (far from it) but I do believe in sychronicitous events (they have played a big part in my life) so my being compelled to write this post immediately must be important to … someone in some small way. Maybe someone will tell someone who…
Who knows.
I was right with everyone else thinking that talking to my inner child was a bunch of hooey. Well, no longer. These days, the more I embrace “hooey” the more at peace I feel.
I hope that the friend-of-your-friend takes care of her crying inner child.
Oh — it’s my friend’s inner child! That was a confusing sentence I guess – the friend told my 1:00 am junk food friend that 1:00 am junk food’s inner child was crying out just moments before *I* started telling her that both our inner children were having some kind of field day…
I dislike blaming poor parenting only because…well, lots of reasons. I do think there’s a lot of poor parenting, & I’m doing some myself just at the moment (glancing back over here instead of looking up Harry Potter times, for instance) but I think in general way too much time is spent berating parents for poor doing a poor job when the same amount of energy could have been spent showing them a better way, lifting some of their stresses so they could do a better job, or realizing that while they might have been an exceptionally poor parent on Wednesday, they did a bang up job on Tuesday & Thursday.
I much, much, much rather blame poverty. I think like this –
Mom1 has worked 8 or 10 hours already that day, the phone has been cut off and she’s trying to figure out where she’s going to get the money to fix the brakes on her car. Little son 1 is sick and she has to also come up with the copay, if she even has insurance. Meanwhile daughter two spills sugar all over the floor while trying to mix up some koolaid (I don’t believe in koolaid, but it fits nicely into my story!
Mom2 worked her part time job for 3 hours yesterday, is off today but she kept her sitter for the day anyway to get some of the laundry done so that mom can spend time with her kids. Little son 1 is sick and mom’s reading a story to him. Meanwhile daughter two spills sugar all over the floor while trying to mix up some koolaid (I still don’t believe in koolaid, but it doesn’t have that many ingredients & daughter two can mix it easily even though she’s only 6).
Now which kid is going to hear, “I can’t take ONE MORE THING!!!!!!!!!!! Why did you DO THAT?!?!?!?” and which kid is going to hear, “That was so nice of you to try & mix up the koolaid! Let me show you how you use the wisk and dustpan!”
I have so, so, sooooooooooooo very much more to say on this subject, but I actually have to go do some parenting!
MsQ, what an inspiring and personal post this is! I will definitely be adding that book to my wish-list.
I am now at an age where the influence from my childhood is becoming more and more evident, especially in relationships. I can only hope I will break the circle and be aware not to transfer this behaviour to my own children. Which I hope (and think) I’m managing nicely until now.
I also really relate to, and admire the beautiful thing you’re saying on your inner voice tapping on your shoulder. It’s difficult, but something so incredibly important and worthwile to focus on.
For you it resulted in this wonderful post, which is all the encouragement I could want. As you say, Things Happen for a Reason.. for me it was to stumble upon your blog right at the moment of these posts. Thank you!!
[...] I wanted to respond to Jill of Twipply Skwood comments on my post about Hearing a Child Crying. [...]
Jill: ah…so your “junk food” friend (feels funny to call her that) had both you and another friend telling her that her inner child was crying! Thanks for clearing that up.
If I were JF friend, I’d be thinking, hmmm…Message From the Universe?
The friend who recommended the Bradshaw book (I ended up reading as many of his as I could find) also told me this term: Codependent.
This was prior to The Internet (or at least my knowledge of computers!) so I was learning about codependence via the library, the Dewey Decimal system and even attending some Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Al-Anon meetings to learn more. My friend was dating an alcoholic and they were throwing around terms like “codependent” and “enablers” and attending those meetings was a big eye-opener for me. I’d never been around people who really expressed their feelings, much less their pain.
I am very fortunate to have learned about codependence and what makes a relationship healthy at an early age. I think I’d be a much more frightened person with little self-worth right now if I hadn’t been encouraged to grow. What is that quote, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear” ?
I do have the right teacher show up when I needed them. Sounds like your JF friend is having 2 teachers show up for her!
Ellen: My library system had the “Bradshaw On: The Family” available as an eBook so you may want to see if can get it that way. Oops – I checked out (or tried to check out) your blog but you’re in the Netherlands? I can’t read uh, Dutch. I am sooo American – only know English! OK, I used to be fluent in Spanish but dang, didn’t use it, so lost it.
John Bradshaw wrote many books on relationships and family – I just checked out one I haven’t read yet, “Creating Love: The Next Great Stage of Growth”
I just opened the book jacket an in the front there’s 2 quotes from him:
“I was brought up to believe that love is easy. That anyone related by blood naturally loved other family members, and that when the time was right, I would fall in love and naturally know what to do to develop that love.”
“I now know that love is very difficult. Creating love requires a decision on my part…..Above all, it requires rigorous honesty, the courage to let another see me as I really am…”
Yow! I’m looking forward to reading it.
It’s amazing how much our childhood influences us and how profoundly. Every time I think I have dealt with some issue something new filters up. For example, I had thought that I had handled my parents’ divorce really well. Hahaha! I was a textbook case of being a little adult at the age of 15. Not exactly healthy.
If you desire to break the circle when it comes to your children, you’re well on your way. I think awareness and trying to be a good parent are a big step.
I am glad you feel inspired and encouraged by my post and I appreciate your telling me. It encourages me to keep writing and to listening to my inner voice.
Wowee! I haven’t even gotten a chance to see that next post – over here at an ex-inlaws trying to help with some computer stuff (but getting distracted…)…
Yes! The junk food friend (so funny, because normally she doesn’t even EAT junk food!) had two friends tell her within a half hour that her inner child was seeking some tending! :-0
Hi MsQ, thanks for checking my blog! I have two, one in Dutch and one in English, I apparantly left you the wrong one, sorry
)..
Thanks again for advice on the books, I’ll definitely read them!