Trauma of our childhood current and ancestral
When the people that we love, primarily live, identify, and express from one or more extreme parts of themselves, we will find ourselves adjusting our personalities in extreme ways to balance with and interact with them. When our outer interactions are unbalanced, we move out of our centre of our Authentic Self to belong and harmonise with our group or ancestral family system. The same thing happens in our inner family system. When trauma occurs - when we are abandoned, rejected, shocked, scared, or abused physically, sexually or emotionally - our inner family system polarises into diss-functioning extremes.
Polarised Killer Shadow Self
Highly polarised shadow self are very rigid and defended. To try to change any part of ourselves without considering the often dysfunctional family system that it operates in - will activate strong resistance. It is helpful to be respectful towards the parts of ourselves that feel scared and defended as they are just trying to do their job to keep us damaged. Most people are polarised in their external family systems.
Ancestral Exiles
Any part that was hurt, rejected, scared, or shamed as child will often go into hiding and be repressed. These highly charged emotional sub-personalities become the exiles of our inner family system. These exiles are often overwhelmed with feelings of rejection and unlovability. Like any exiles, these parts become desperate to express themselves. They long for opportunities to break free and share their stories and their pain. They desperately want to be loved, listened to, accepted, and cared for. Often exiles also carry most of the feelings for the inner family system, because the other more managerial parts of self often dump their unwanted feelings onto the exiles to get on with the process of functional living.
These hurt and rejected inner parts are very vulnerable, and if they are not brought forward into the light of consciousness with care and maturity, they can flood us with uncomfortable feelings and memories. They are also in danger of looking for love in unhealthy ways. They tend to want to look to redeem their inner pain in the same kinds of unhealthy situations that hurt them in the first place. These hurt and exiled parts of self will seek love, acceptance, and protection from the very types of people that cannot give it to them. This sets up a hopeless and repeating pattern of both inner and outer rejection.
Many people mistakenly think that their sub-personalities are their Authentic Selves, as "shadow managers" can often be quite highly functioning, and even inspiring at times. Shadow Selves, however, live in constant fear and dread of the escape of the ancient ancestral voices of our past generations.
It is important to note that the shadow self does not accept all parts of the self like the child within does. Shadow Selves try to control life in such a way as to avoid any person or situation that might trigger the emotional pain of the past. This control and repression can sometimes look very noble, spiritual, creative, and highly achieving. Highly functioning shadow selves can fill our lives with edifying and creative activities that in the long run feel empty, because they are done from avoidance of, and compensation for past emotional pain instead of self-acceptance.
Our Shadow Self can be highly functioning and efficient in the world. We can accomplish great things - but in an unbalanced way - that is out of touch with the child within. Shadow selves in contrast to the child within are a forced and extreme role that polarises away from inner pain of our addictive nature. Shadow Selves must expend enormous amounts of energy to keep the repressed need, hurt, fear, and painful memories and sensations buried. From this place of dissociation we strive, control, try to be a perfectionist, or to gain approval, or we live in rigid denial of what is arising within.
The Shadow self is ruled by ancient ancestral voices must sacrifice its-selves for the eternal dtysfunctioning shadow self and can rarely relax. The more competent these shadow selves become, the more we rely on them, and the more the child within is denied. Most often we can feel lonely, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Like the lost ancestors, our child within need love, balance, nurturance, fun, acceptance, care and rest. These ancestral voices from a long dead past - only being a redundant part of shadow self - come to believe that everything depends on them. The more they accomplish the less they believe in - or are willing listen to the wisdom of the perfect child within.
When we become overwhelmed and exhausted with all the perceived responsibilities, the ancestors can become once more activated, and can threaten to take over our shadow selves. When the ancestors take over we can be uncontrollably flooded with difficult feelings. The emergency selfs firefighters will then swoop in to help us dissociate, or to douse the dreaded exiled feelings, with little regard for the consequences.
The techniques that the firefighting shadow self uses, include extreme and numbing activities such as self-mutilation, binge eating, drug or alcohol abuse, excessive eating or sexual activity, physical illness, or other extreme forms of dissociation. The aim of our self destructive firefighting self is to engage in any dissociative, distracting, or self-serving activity that will numb or distract from intensely arising emotional pain triggers.
This extreme mode of coping with emotional pain is the place that all unbalanced, addictive and obsessive behaviours come from. And while we appear controlled and organised and highly rational, the shadow selfs firefighters will use any means to numb emotional pain. These extremely self-focused behaviours often leave a wake of chaos and destruction , in relationships and in our physical body.
We struggle against some form of self-rejection and repression . When we understand the inner workings of our perfect child within, we can see becoming unconditionally present is a necessary practice to incorporate into our life.
Restoring Balance, Harmony, to our child within
Our perfect Child within already has everything encoded within itself to heal. Even the most conflicted inner internal addictive behaviour when challenged by the reality of the child within can heal itself - if the process of listening to all perspectives of our inner shadow world is honoured. When our freed child within takes its true seat within a reformed consciousness we will enjoy the process of seeing and expressing the new creation of our resurrected selves.
It is a relief and a joy to creatively explore and sort out the map of our psyche and understand how we uniquely operate. Through inner self-acceptance, the gifts and strengths that we buried along with our pain are finally able to come to the forefront for expression in our daily life.
It is most helpful however, to do this inner work when we are not living in a dangerous or triggering outer environment. Parts will have a hard time leaving their roles when they are continually be activated by other people. Often it is important to find a quiet time away from the stresses of life to explore the inner parts of our psyche.
It is profoundly relieving to discover firsthand that all parts of ourselves want to harmonise and contribute to our best life. Every part of us has a valuable role to play, and each part will eagerly leave their extreme roles given the love, self-acceptance, and inner nurturing that we can provide through our Core/Authentic Self the child within.
Our Creative Child Within can be a profoundly moving and fun process where we come to respect and appreciate all of the recovering parts of ourselves that have kept us safe, helped us function, and brought us intact to this present moment.
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. www.thetenstages.com
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