In each of us, there is a young, suffering child. We have all had times of difficulty as children and many of us have experienced trauma.

In each of us, there is a young, suffering child. We have all had times of difficulty as children and many of us have experienced trauma. To protect and defend ourselves against future suffering, we often try to forget those painful times. Every time we’re in touch with the experience of suffering, we believe we can’t bear it, and we stuff our feelings and memories deep down in our unconscious mind.WE dissociate from them. It may be that we haven’t dared to face this child for many decades.


But just because we may have ignored the child within doesn’t mean she or he isn’t there. The child within is always there, trying to get our attention. The child says, “I’m here. I’m here. You can’t avoid me. You can’t run away from me.” We want to end our suffering by sending the child to a deep place inside, and staying as far away as possible. But running away doesn’t end our suffering; it only prolongs it.


The child within us asks for care and love, but we do the opposite. We run away because we’re afraid of suffering. The block of pain and sorrow in us feels overwhelming. Even if we have time, we don’t come home to ourselves. We try to keep ourselves constantly entertained—watching television or movies, socialising, or using alcohol or drugs—because we don’t want to experience that suffering all over again.We are dissociated.


The child is there and we don’t even know the child within is there. The child in us is a reality, but we can’t see it. That inability to see is a kind of ignorance. This child has been severely abused. She or he really needs us to return. Instead we turn away.

Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It’s like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water. That ignorance stops us from seeing reality; it pushes us to do foolish things that make us suffer even more and we dissociate again pushing down the child in us.

The child within is also in each cell of our body. There is no cell of our body that does not have that child in it. We don’t have to look far into the past for that child. We only have to look deeply and we can be in touch with him/her. The suffering of that abused child is lying inside us right now in the present moment.

But just as the suffering is present in every cell of our body, so are the seeds of awakened understanding and happiness handed down to us from our ancestors. We just have to use them. We have a lamp inside us, the lamp of intuition, which we can light anytime. The oil of that lamp is our breathing, our steps, and our peaceful smile. We have to light up that lamp of our forgotten intuition so the light will shine out and the darkness will dissipate and cease. Our practice is to light up the lamp.


When we become aware that we’ve forgotten the child in ourselves, we feel great compassion for that child and we begin to generate the energy of our child within. The practices of compassion, loving-kindness, and meditational breathing are our foundation. With our breath and the stages, we can produce the energy of our intuition and return to the awakened wisdom lying in each cell of our body. That energy will embrace us and heal us, and will heal the child within us.

The Ten Stages is a studied recovery course. It is a source of reconnection a method of unlearning and a reintroduction to our child within which leads us back to our one true intuitive voice.We start to learn and come out of our protective dysfunctional shell and reclaim our lives. #childwithin#10stages