Parenting the heroes journey
Parenting the hero on her journey is simply about taking care of yourself on your path of self discovery. The inner adolescent sets out on the path to become a complete and responsible adult. We are all on this path in our own ways. This journey is likely to take us into our own history of invasion and abandonment. Our inner child is partly an 'abandoned orphan' that we must find, recover and integrate with love. But this same inner child was invaded by demons, parasitic beliefs, behaviours and emotions that have partly ruled our lives. On this heroes journey we have to find, face and expel these demons.
In the first stages of the journey this adolescent needs a guide or mentor - a parent - who has completed many journeys. This parent understands the fear, spontaneity and longings of the inner child, as well as the passion and direction of the adolescent. This is Spiritual Counselling. So in the early stages of the journey this mentor helps the hero to listen to and integrate these, and other, inner voices, often in conflict, but of essential value. An important rite of passage is where the hero begins to integrate this mentor or parental figure ... so as to be able to support themselves in this inner listening and integration.
Parenting the hurt inner child
Since we are almost always working with the 'hurt inner child', in the body of an adult, the mentor/patent has to be aware of this. this child often has a deep mistrust and fear of intimacy, so we have to take great care. Intimacy and love is what is most deeply needed, but it is where the initial wounds happened, where the neurotic defences were constructed. The hurt inner child was never able to learn to control their interaction or satisfaction – so learned their neurotic defence mechanisms. The heroes journey, by definition, goes to these sensitive places and can release old, tensions, emotions, memories and behaviour.
This complex personal profile and boundaries constructed in our early childhood is seen in all our relationships and neurotic behaviour. Since these boundaries are complex and personal to each of us there is no one solution for everyone. The child needs appropriate loving containment from its carers so as to develop its own boundaries and self-esteem. Now the adult inner child needs a similar respectful nurturing embrace to begin to rebuild their self-esteem and appropriate boundaries.
All these aspects of relationships are closely linked to our self-esteem. Self-esteem is a reflection of a healthy ego - that part which has the clarity of our value as a human being, and the force to go for what we need and want, and also to defend ourselves from threats to our well-being.
A parental/mentoring relationship to help rebuild self-esteem must be a nurturing embrace that can:
The first and most important thing you can do to transmit this trust is … to have done the deepest work possible with your own hurt inner child. You must go fully into your own frustration, anxiety, fury, blame, desensitisation, judgement, confused boundaries, addictions, ….. It is the fact of having done this deep personal work that will transmit a first safe and nurturing energetic embrace to the person you work with. This personal work will also be the basis of how you sense and discern what are the next steps with each person in each moment.
Some essential qualities for bringing this appropriate nurturing embrace to each person:
Really we can begin by assuming that we are caring for a 6 month old baby in the body of an adult. We show that we understand, respect and care for their primary infantile and child survival mechanisms. Not invading or abandoning – or at least when these happen, we will recognise our 'transgressions' and take responsibility for them. Finding the 'right' therapeutic hug or containment for your client requires:
- gently exploring and observing their existing 'edges': social, physical, emotional, beliefs, ….. with lots of respect … “What happens when ….?”, “Lets explore gently how that works ...”
- explaining what you are doing to the client as you go along, using the kind of concepts we have already explored:
- go very slowly - at each stage checking what the client feels, and what you feel .. naming what is happening, naming the emotions, negotiating
- to transmit and establish safe 'containment' in intimacy to the client, the therapist has to be feeling it. Anything uncomfortable to you will never be therapeutic for the client, it will add to the confusion.
- you are aware that your own infantile confused boundaries can get mixed up with those of your client – so your personal containment should always include therapeutic supervision with someone who has had plenty experience working at similar levels
As we recognise, understand, respect and care for the particular defence mechanisms and needs of the person in our hands, then they can finally relax and grow. This compassionate nurturing embrace helps the person to begin to find the same qualities for themselves. They can begin to integrate a healthy ego, boundaries, self-esteem, assertiveness, … so as to expand into the world, surviving and thriving.
This nurturing therapeutic embrace is likely to explore all the range of experience where the hurt child built their particular defences: food, touch, gazing, warmth, sound/song/voice, play learning, digestion, urination and defecation, rest and sleep, the full range of emotions in intimacy. There are likely to be repeated scenes of invasion and abandonment with the associated emotions, mixing fear, love, anger, sadness and joy. You transmit presence, positive regard and authenticity in your recognition, acceptance, participation, intimacy and love for this vulnerable being in your care.
In the first stages of the journey this adolescent needs a guide or mentor - a parent - who has completed many journeys. This parent understands the fear, spontaneity and longings of the inner child, as well as the passion and direction of the adolescent. This is Spiritual Counselling. So in the early stages of the journey this mentor helps the hero to listen to and integrate these, and other, inner voices, often in conflict, but of essential value. An important rite of passage is where the hero begins to integrate this mentor or parental figure ... so as to be able to support themselves in this inner listening and integration.
Parenting the hurt inner child
Since we are almost always working with the 'hurt inner child', in the body of an adult, the mentor/patent has to be aware of this. this child often has a deep mistrust and fear of intimacy, so we have to take great care. Intimacy and love is what is most deeply needed, but it is where the initial wounds happened, where the neurotic defences were constructed. The hurt inner child was never able to learn to control their interaction or satisfaction – so learned their neurotic defence mechanisms. The heroes journey, by definition, goes to these sensitive places and can release old, tensions, emotions, memories and behaviour.
This complex personal profile and boundaries constructed in our early childhood is seen in all our relationships and neurotic behaviour. Since these boundaries are complex and personal to each of us there is no one solution for everyone. The child needs appropriate loving containment from its carers so as to develop its own boundaries and self-esteem. Now the adult inner child needs a similar respectful nurturing embrace to begin to rebuild their self-esteem and appropriate boundaries.
All these aspects of relationships are closely linked to our self-esteem. Self-esteem is a reflection of a healthy ego - that part which has the clarity of our value as a human being, and the force to go for what we need and want, and also to defend ourselves from threats to our well-being.
A parental/mentoring relationship to help rebuild self-esteem must be a nurturing embrace that can:
- touch on, be a reflection of, all the early mechanisms of love including the most neurotic. These must emerge in the healing relationship. They must emerge fully, with the fears, anger, resentment, manipulations, victimism, invasion, abandonment. They will appear, and be faced with love and respect
- explore, nurture, model, rehearse, act out, … the appropriate new boundaries for each person based upon self awareness, self-esteem and self care
The first and most important thing you can do to transmit this trust is … to have done the deepest work possible with your own hurt inner child. You must go fully into your own frustration, anxiety, fury, blame, desensitisation, judgement, confused boundaries, addictions, ….. It is the fact of having done this deep personal work that will transmit a first safe and nurturing energetic embrace to the person you work with. This personal work will also be the basis of how you sense and discern what are the next steps with each person in each moment.
Some essential qualities for bringing this appropriate nurturing embrace to each person:
- Presence – you have to be fully present, not thinking of techniques and steps or theories. This means present in yourself, in your feelings and your moment … and present with the context, surroundings, time, … and also fully present for the person you are working with. Your attention must be able to float around all these aspects, each of immense importance in sensing, moment by moment, what is emerging in the other person.
- Positive regard or compassion – you recognise the creative and innocent child in each person, even when their behaviour might be disagreeable, challenging or uncomfortable. You are able to do this because you have been to the same places with your own disagreeable and uncomfortable parts.
- Authenticity – you will be able to share aspects of yourself to illustrate this innocence and compassion. Your proposals are not from text book theories or techniques … but from your own deep experience of invasion and abandonment. Any proposals will resonate easily in the 'language' of the other person .. because you are resonating in their language – their pain is your pain.
Really we can begin by assuming that we are caring for a 6 month old baby in the body of an adult. We show that we understand, respect and care for their primary infantile and child survival mechanisms. Not invading or abandoning – or at least when these happen, we will recognise our 'transgressions' and take responsibility for them. Finding the 'right' therapeutic hug or containment for your client requires:
- gently exploring and observing their existing 'edges': social, physical, emotional, beliefs, ….. with lots of respect … “What happens when ….?”, “Lets explore gently how that works ...”
- explaining what you are doing to the client as you go along, using the kind of concepts we have already explored:
- if the client does not understand, then they are likely to be in a very infantile and volatile state … needing very clear and firm boundaries that the therapist has to maintain
- If the client is able to understand and discuss these issues then they will have some capacity for self-containment. Negotiate rules with them for the therapy … knowing that they will transgress the rules … you still have to maintain firm boundaries … but engage in a negotiating process
- go very slowly - at each stage checking what the client feels, and what you feel .. naming what is happening, naming the emotions, negotiating
- to transmit and establish safe 'containment' in intimacy to the client, the therapist has to be feeling it. Anything uncomfortable to you will never be therapeutic for the client, it will add to the confusion.
- you are aware that your own infantile confused boundaries can get mixed up with those of your client – so your personal containment should always include therapeutic supervision with someone who has had plenty experience working at similar levels
As we recognise, understand, respect and care for the particular defence mechanisms and needs of the person in our hands, then they can finally relax and grow. This compassionate nurturing embrace helps the person to begin to find the same qualities for themselves. They can begin to integrate a healthy ego, boundaries, self-esteem, assertiveness, … so as to expand into the world, surviving and thriving.
This nurturing therapeutic embrace is likely to explore all the range of experience where the hurt child built their particular defences: food, touch, gazing, warmth, sound/song/voice, play learning, digestion, urination and defecation, rest and sleep, the full range of emotions in intimacy. There are likely to be repeated scenes of invasion and abandonment with the associated emotions, mixing fear, love, anger, sadness and joy. You transmit presence, positive regard and authenticity in your recognition, acceptance, participation, intimacy and love for this vulnerable being in your care.