The Secret of Life Wellness: The Essential Guide to Life's Big Questions (9 page)

was risking his family and his life. Although it was difficult, Colin was willing

to confront his shadow and deal with his challenging childhood. We discov-

ered that besides the savior archetype, he also had a rebel inner child, who

loved risk. “The bigger the danger, the higher the thrill” was his motto.

Although the lighter aspect of the rebel child had allowed Colin to become

38

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 39

The Secret of Life Wellness

successful, confident, and make 50-million-dollar deals, the shadow side was

seducing women and being seduced, lying, hiding, and living a double life.

Colin realized he was close to losing his family and possibly his life. He

began exploring his childhood, working with his inner child and learning

about his ancestry. Colin realized that if he did not deal with the patterns

he’d picked up from his parents, he would pass these on to his children.

Although his mother had died, Colin spoke to her spirit and found

peace. He then understood that his dad’s selfishness and cruelty came from

the lack of love he felt from his father. As Colin healed his past, he was also

able to heal his present, stop lying and cheating, and open his heart to his

family. He lost weight, left the corporate world, set up his own business,

began meditating and connecting to his inner strength. Colin’s willingness

to understand and work with his inner child changed his life.

The Archetype of the Inner Child

An archetype is a universally understood aspect of a personality trait, psychological pat-

tern, or behavior. Archetypes come from mythology and are part of our universal

psyche. Thus, they have a huge and active influence on our lives. The major role of an

archetype is to alert you to potentially destructive patterns within your psyche and to

aid you in transforming them into healthy and empowering points of view, feelings, and

behaviors.

Many of the beliefs, occurrences, points of view, unprocessed energies, and

emotions, you experienced as a child are held within your inner child archetype. This

archetype is concerned with family, support, care, and security. Thus, when dealing with

the shadow aspects of the child, you must help it to find safety and comfort in change,

allowing it to understand that transformation can be energizing, fun, and bring about

new and exciting opportunities.

Much of the anxiety that people experience is related to their childhood and the

aspect of their inner child that felt unsafe, vulnerable, and powerless to change things.

39

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 40

Inna Segal

If, as a child, you had to take too much responsibility for your family and grow up

too fast, it is possible that aspects of your mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity were

stunted.

As an adult, you may suffer, feeling like you never had a chance to experience the

innocence, freedom, hopes, dreams and inventiveness of a child. You may feel burdened by

responsibilities and sabotage your relationships and career because you want to experience

more fun. You may abandon your responsibilities, get lost in fantasies, demand attention,

or need someone to take care of you. On a physical level, you may feel depressed, heavy,

and unwell. Many digestive conditions, kidney problems, chronic lower back pain, and

fertility problems are related to the inner child’s inability to process his or her childhood

pain. To feel healthy and balanced you may need to work with your abandoned inner

child, help it to feel loved and accepted, which will lead to its growth and evolution.

Some of the strongest desires your inner child has is to be acknowledged, and nur-

tured. It holds much of your creative, spontaneous, and mystical potential. When you

are in tune with your inner child, it can literally magnetize magical experiences into

your life that seem Divinely inspired and synchronistic. On the other hand, if you deny

your inner child, it can plague you with doubts, fears, and insecurities preventing you

from moving forward and achieving success.

The inner child holds both personal and universal patterns and behaviors of a par-

ticular aspect of a person’s energy.

Although you may have never been physically abandoned as a child, at a particular

moment in your life you may feel drawn to the abandoned child archetype, such as a

time when you might be going through a difficult break up. Working with this arche-

type can help you heal feelings of rejection, isolation, loneliness, and misunderstanding

that you have carried throughout your life.

When you work with the inner child archetype, you become softer and gentler. You

begin to understand that this archetypal energy is there to help you. It can assist you to

heal past wounds and embrace joy, lightness, a sense of adventure, fun, and spontaneity.

When you become conscious of this archetype, you gain awareness of how it oper-

ates in your life, and if it serves you or not. When you accept and embrace your inner

40

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 41

The Secret of Life Wellness

child, it creates support, wisdom, and healing in your life, rather than chaos and

destruction.

Aspects of the Inner Child

Often, people can relate to different aspects of the inner child at particular times in

their lives. Through working with thousands of people I have observed four common

types of inner-child archetypes—the abandoned, wounded, rebellious, and Divine.

Below, I have tried to share brief explanations about them.

Before we dive in, remember that due to the fact that every psyche is individual, the

inner child can present itself in a myriad of ways. If you feel drawn to delve deeper, you

may discover more archetypes, such as the nature child, dependent child, and eternal

child, amongst others. It is important, however, not to get caught up in labels as these

are just general examples that can be beneficial to explore.

(Note: For the ease of writing, I will call the inner child it instead of he or she.)

The Abandoned Child

The abandoned inner child feels unaccepted, undervalued, and misunderstood. It

does not feel a sense of belonging and often experiences feelings of loneliness, isola-

tion, and rejection. The abandoned child seeks constant approval and experiences

confusion and self-doubt. It can struggle with the concept of growing up and taking

on responsibilities.

On the lighter side, through support and healing, the abandoned child can claim its

independence, courage, and self-empowerment. It will then connect to others from

the heart and demonstrate compassion and understanding in challenging situations. The

abandoned child will then feel liberated and creative and play with others without fear

of being hurt.

The Wounded Child

The wounded inner child feels hurt, neglected, and mistreated. It experiences feelings

of victimhood, violation, and trauma. It is easy for the wounded child to blame others

41

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 42

Inna Segal

and to see the world as a scary, difficult, painful place. The wounded child often experi-

ences dysfunction in close relationships with others.

On the lighter side, the wounded child has an opportunity to learn compassion,

forgiveness, and self-empowerment. Often through its own healing, the wounded child

develops a desire to be of service and assistance to others, to help others grow, expand,

and experience love and healing.

The Rebellious Child

The rebellious inner child resists control and order and therefore experiences

difficulties fitting into society, systems, situations, or the set of rules it has been given.

The rebel feels limited, bored, and tired of conforming.

It is easy for the rebel to push boundaries, demand change, disregard others beliefs,

and get into trouble. The rebel can be blasé about potentially dangerous situations, start

uprisings, break the law, lie, take advantage of and abuse others, take drugs, gamble, and

generally reject authority.

The lighter, softer side of the rebellious child sees the limitations that are presented

and refuses to buy into them. It can be an explorer, dreamer, and innovator. Creativity is

the forte of the rebellious child, who often disregards boundaries and moves mountains

to make its dreams a reality. The rebel can assist others to let go of old outdated ideas

and introduce them to a more innovative way of living.

The Divine Child

The shadow of the Divine child emerges when there is loss of hope and the possibilities

of life and the magic are not readily apparent, which can manifest in depression, fatigue,

and lethargy. Under its shadow, this child, who was once an adventurer and saw the

potential in everything, no longer believes that life is worthwhile, or that there is a possi-

bility of achieving its dreams.

On the lighter side the Divine child believes that miracles and blessings are not

only possible but everyone’s Divine right. The child is full of creativity, inspiration and

42

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 43

The Secret of Life Wellness

wonderful ideas. Life seems like a magical playground. The Divine child believes in

higher intelligence and connects easily to Divine Love and Wisdom.

Working with the Inner Child

You can work with the inner child in many ways. You can do visualization exercises,

where you relax and imagine a child aspect of yourself and ask this child questions

about, how it feels, what it believes, what hurts it, what makes it happy, how you can

support it. Further empowering questions include: what does it need to heal, feel nur-

tured, healthy, and to grow?

Inner child work is very powerful and something you need to do regularly. As you

work with your inner child on all different beliefs about your parents, money, jobs and

relationships, you will see how all these things shift in your life. You will also be able to

sense a happy, healthy inner child within you. As your inner child is linked to your

sacral energy center, you will find that this center becomes stronger and more vibrant.

Because this center is connected to your ability to manifest things into physical reality,

you will also find that your creative abilities strengthen and that you are able to

manifest more of what you desire in your life.

Many people who have been ill have benefited greatly from working with their

inner child. By healing aspects of themselves that were desperately searching for love

and nurturing. Their health problems also often dramatically improved or completely

disappeared.

Several clients have also told me that their relationships with their children,

parents, and partners improved dramatically after they worked with their inner child.

They reported increase in confidence, inner strength, and love. Some of my clients even

lost large amounts of weight after realizing that they were carrying it to protect their

inner child.

My Grandfather’s Story: Healing His Inner Child

As a child, my maternal grandfather Misha developed a rare kind of

courage, intuition, and survival instinct. He demonstrated audacity that left

43

SeLife_interior_galley_Layout 1 3/29/13 12:15 PM Page 44

Inna Segal

his older siblings and their friends in awe. Unfortunately, at the tender age of

fourteen, he was unjustly captured and cruelly punished for something he

did not do, as one day, while walking home, he noticed a crowd of people in

heated discussion. Curious, he approached them and noticed a broken lock

on the ground. Someone had broken into a local bakery and stolen some

bread. Just as Misha was discovering what had happened, a swarm of

policemen arrived, grabbing everyone who was in the vicinity of the bakery.

Misha was falsely convicted and sentenced to ten years at a labor camp

in Siberia. The conditions were ghastly and very few survived the harsh labor,

starvation, bitter cold, cruel beatings, and random killings. Instinctively, Misha

used the power of his mind, his intuition, and a strong resolve to stay alive

and to endure the brutal years until his release. Incredibly, as an adult he was

strong, loving, gentle, and fearless. The deeper scars of his torturous experi-

ences began to emerge more obviously as he progressed into his seventies.

Several years ago I was exploring the power of ancestral memories and

their profound effects on family lineages. I knew that neither of my grand-

parents had done much healing of their traumatic childhoods. Their only

release was sharing their experiences fifty years later. For many years in