Spirit Release Therapy - A Retrospective

[Gaby]

I have an observation here; there used to be a lot of discussion in books and on here about the inner child. But I just don't understand the idea. How can there be an inner child in any case? For instance, I talk with my inner child, but I often wonder how crazy it is to be in that situation. I am 44 years old. How is a part of me completely unaffected by ageing and growth that it's still a child after four and a half decades? Drives me nuts trying to understand that, perhaps someone can enlighten me.

I think it is important to not let the "inner child" tyrannize the self with whims and self-defeating narratives. A well-balanced adult in charge will provide the awareness and understanding for the inner child, without allowing the later to run the show.

The recommended psychological books in this forum has being very helpful in that regard. The concept of "inner child" could be extrapolated for other concepts such as thinking fast and slow (System 1 and System 2). You can enrich your view of the inner child with "Healing Developmental Trauma" as well. The more knowledge and awareness, the better your perspective. It helps to be more response-able.

My 2 cents!

 

[Yas]

I have an observation here; there used to be a lot of discussion in books and on here about the inner child. But I just don't understand the idea. How can there be an inner child in any case? For instance, I talk with my inner child, but I often wonder how crazy it is to be in that situation. I am 44 years old. How is a part of me completely unaffected by ageing and growth that it's still a child after four and a half decades? Drives me nuts trying to understand that, perhaps someone can enlighten me.

I think it is important to not let the "inner child" tyrannize the self with whims and self-defeating narratives. A well-balanced adult in charge will provide the awareness and understanding for the inner child, without allowing the later to run the show.

The recommended psychological books in this forum has being very helpful in that regard. The concept of "inner child" could be extrapolated for other concepts such as thinking fast and slow (System 1 and System 2). You can enrich your view of the inner child with "Healing Developmental Trauma" as well. The more knowledge and awareness, the better your perspective. It helps to be more response-able.

My 2 cents!

I agree, and also, this is what I thought:

The way I see it, we can try our best to understand how some things impacted us as children, how we felt when we were children about some particular things and how that may be still influencing how we respond today to situations that trigger those feelings. We can also release emotions that were stuck from childhood, I guess, and slowly learn how to let go of the patterns created by early experiences. In the process, 'talking to the inner child' can be a tool to navigate a particular cluster of feelings and patterns of behaviour that stem from a painful situation/circumstance, for example. As when dealing with something that is particularly painful, making a distinction between the child you were then and the adult you are now, can give perspective as to why it hurt you (you were a child), why you responded the way you did and how you are now a stronger adult who can take responsibility to make things better for yourself and not allow that childhood adaptation/response to control your present life. There may or may not be some talking with that 'inner child' in the process, but it isn't like really talking to a child inside us as separate entity. It would be more like remembering while remaining conscious of your present circumstances and that you are now an adult... OSIT.

I wouldn't say this kind of approach is helpful to everyone in all circumstances, though. But it seems to be helpful in some cases.

 

[dugdeep]

I think it is important to not let the "inner child" tyrannize the self with whims and self-defeating narratives. A well-balanced adult in charge will provide the awareness and understanding for the inner child, without allowing the later to run the show.

The recommended psychological books in this forum has being very helpful in that regard. The concept of "inner child" could be extrapolated for other concepts such as thinking fast and slow (System 1 and System 2). You can enrich your view of the inner child with "Healing Developmental Trauma" as well. The more knowledge and awareness, the better your perspective. It helps to be more response-able.

My 2 cents!

Further to this, talk of an "inner child" always makes me think of the book In Search of the Miraculous (Ouspensky), where Gurdjieff, through some concoction, was able to bring forth the "essence" of a couple of volunteers. One of them started acting quite childlike, taking about wanting some bread with jam. Gurdjieff explained that many adults in the modern world have been essentially starving their essence since childhood, so it never actually grew up (I'm recounting all this from memory, so may have the details a bit off).

So it may be that the "inner child" is more of a metaphor for that part of us that has been pushed down by our modern lives and not allowed to develop. I think it manifests in irrational fears, immature behavior, "triggers" and the like; the coping strategies we developed in childhood that we would have outgrown given proper education and living in a sane world, just to speculate. How one would deal with this is difficult to say, but I think what Gaby has suggested, not letting "it" run the show and looking into the recommended psychology books, is a very good jumping off point.

 

[Pierre]

I think what Gaby has suggested, not letting "it" run the show

Agreed. We should not throw the inner child with the bathwater though. Sometimes, I remember difficult childhood moments and mentally talk to the child I was, supporting him, comforting him and telling him the truth: despite the challenges, he is loved and he will make it.

I'm not sure it works but I know that what I needed when I was a kid.

In our community, where we, today, get so much invaluable information from "us in the future", it might make sense that us, today, provide help and support to us in the past.

 

[biala84]

Is important to work on Yourself, but i think is only possible by learning with others :) One Year ago i remember when i start to know all the facts i ask myself what i\m going to do with all this? I was thinking and thinking and then i realized we get the best possibility to working on Ourself by learning with others. My weak point is that i'm repeating the same mistakes and i forget the things very fast. After reading your books i recognized that we are able to control more the present and now i don't forget the things so easy and i'm able to rember them after a while. You are deffinetly right with the energies around Us that we have to be carefull, because many times in past i was hit by the other energies, but because i could not recognize i provoke them. It was not provoking from my side but rather defense by saying something and then everytime i get kick.. I think surely i do something wrong. Many times they come right now and they provkoing, but i' m quiet i don't say nothing and i never get hit :)

 

[seeker2seer]

Agreed. We should not throw the inner child with the bathwater though. Sometimes, I remember difficult childhood moments and mentally talk to the child I was, supporting him, comforting him and telling him the truth: despite the challenges, he is loved and he will make it.

I'm not sure it works but I know that what I needed when I was a kid.

In our community, where we, today, get so much invaluable information from "us in the future", it might make sense that us, today, provide help and support to us in the past.

Is this a way for the present to heal the past? Currently I am undergoing therapy for identifying and healing physical and emotional abuse from my parents including emotional enmeshment with my mother. My previous counselor told me to tell my inner child that he is safe now and everything is going to be ok but I really didn't understand what she meant. Now with my current therapist she is working on reducing what she calls the negative parent influence from my past and present to help the adult me grow with the end goal of freeing the inner child and not letting him run the show with his underdeveloped emotions and controlling fears. She said right now, the innner child is running the show and can only respond with sadness, shutting down (frozen), or occasional bursts of anger. So in a way the emotional enmeshment with my mother is similar to a spirit attachment hindering my development by keeping the inner child afraid and in charge.
However, I have hope as the present adult me can now see all this with some understanding which reduces the fear, guilt, and shame of my inner child from the past and allows me to see my parents and relationships as they truly are so I can respond or not respond appropriately in the present. So the "future" can heal the "past" in someway with evidence in the present.

 

[Martina]

Thank you for bringing this up.
I had a dream yesterday about I don't know how to explain it, a part of me that I sometimes dream about, it's a young man, a talented musician that writes music in the attic. Sometimes the same character also represents my Dionysian nature in my dreams, from the period when I was a teenage-college drunk vegetarian low life, not using my brains at all. Prior that my friend died and my grandfather died on my hands, plus I was depressed because complicated relationship I had with my mom, so I was worried I got attachment. But yesterday the young man was very peaceful and wasn't drinking at the party we were, like he overcome it. I don't know if it means something, but it was a good feeling, telling me things get sorted naturally with time. Sorry for bringing things like that up. I hope is not too upsetting.

 

[genero81]

In our community, where we, today, get so much invaluable information from "us in the future", it might make sense that us, today, provide help and support to us in the past.

What a great concept! Maybe particularly useful at this 'time' of the 'realm border crossing.'

 

[Xico]

yes, indeed it is a great topic, this SRT should not be taking lightly, when I was younger my grandmother took me to get "rid of" some attachments or so she thought, these were people who get into a sort of trance and help you cleance your aura and remove attachments, but honestly I never felt any different, just confused with all that process, I was around 12-14 years old, nothing seemed to change I was feeling the same and did the same things that a teenager would do. my two cents

 

[Laurs]

However, I have hope as the present adult me can now see all this with some understanding which reduces the fear, guilt, and shame of my inner child from the past and allows me to see my parents and relationships as they truly are so I can respond or not respond appropriately in the present. So the "future" can heal the "past" in someway with evidence in the present.

Beautifully said seeker2seer. What also helps me with my ongoing healing process is the realisation that others have every right to their chosen expression (with or without whatever attachment), whether they realise or acknowledge hurting others or not. The moment I learned to look at the truth in a situation, like what is really going on here, and then to just allow their expression without taking anything personal, looking at the big picture , and indeed choosing to respond or not respond as appropriate, I find that such brings me peace and calm. And one learns something new every time, especially from difficult people, not only about them but about self.
That, and learning to help only when asked. Saves a lot of time, which can be spent reading!

 

[nicklebleu]

I have had mixed experiences with SRT.

After having read Baldwin’s therapy manual years ago, I contacted him to have a session online. His wife answered and told me that he had died two years previously, but that she had done SRT for many years with him, and she was willing to do a session with me over the phone.

I had basically two issues that I wanted to address: one was that once or twice a year I would have a fit of rage for a trifle and would be quite out of control. The second one was that often, just before falling asleep, I would wake up suddenly with the feeling of being strangled to death. At the time of my session, this was happening on about half the nights and was very distressing.

I was able to clear both problems with the one session: Of course there was the obligatory chasing away of dead dudes of various colours, but for me what really helped was the realization that in a former life I had been hanged by a nobleman after having stolen a loaf of bread, because me and my sister were starving. As I was choking to death I knew he would take away my sister and rape her. So the last thing I remember was this white-hot rage and hatered, with a profound helplessness to be unable to protect my sister.

Both sysmptoms were gone and haven’t returned since. Of course this all could be a narrative, but I don’t really care as the problem has been fixed. So in a sense this was a “quick fix”.

A few years later I had another session with another practitioner online, who worked with a medium (as described in the Patrick SRT thread). That session didn’t do anything good for me, and I haven’t really noted anything bad either. But everything was so vage, and I couldn’t really make any sense of what the guy and the medium were going on about.

But I have come to a similar conclusion, that while SRT can be helpful, it’s a bit of a mindfield, as it depends a lot on the integrity and skill of the practitioner, and that in general, quick fixes don’t work, or they don’t work permanently. So naturally I wonder, why in the first session I had such benefits. My take on that is that I got a workable solution presented with which I could work going forward, sort of like getting closure, for want of a better term, and that it was this that made the difference and not the dispelling of dead dudes. To be fair with Baldwin’s wife, according to her I was harboring a zoo of attachments (probably like most of us), but she only touched those that were connected with my problem, and some minor ones. Not sure if she did that on purpose, or not, though.

 

[Laura]

Just like bringing abuse in the present life to consciousness, to examine and release it, can be most therapeutic, I think that past-life therapy is also very therapeutic in the same way and for much the same reasons. And in some of those cases, the frequency distortion of the current body state can be due to past life influences; if that is the "frequency match" that attaching entities utilize, if you clear up the problem, they have to go and things are put on a better way and better footing.

But without the therapeutic aspects, just willy-nilly tossing out attachments gets a person nowhere. And therapeutic approaches take a lot of knowledge and insight AND experience. Baldwin stressed the therapy part. I've demonstrated the technique a time or two. If you find an attachment, you need to find out what attracted it and deal with that effectively. That can be time consuming and a lot of "quick fixers" don't even go there.

 

[seek10]

I think it is important to not let the "inner child" tyrannize the self with whims and self-defeating narratives. A well-balanced adult in charge will provide the awareness and understanding for the inner child, without allowing the later to run the show.

The recommended psychological books in this forum has being very helpful in that regard. The concept of "inner child" could be extrapolated for other concepts such as thinking fast and slow (System 1 and System 2). You can enrich your view of the inner child with "Healing Developmental Trauma" as well. The more knowledge and awareness, the better your perspective. It helps to be more response-able.
My 2 cents!

Added to this, reactions before the speaking age gets expressed without words, that makes expressing emotions difficult. We can observe it, write it, look for reason based on the information learned from books. It may fit and relieve one or not. Things will return over and over. If one has a children( so responsible), asking one self how one wants to deal with helps it( don't mean to say project on them, just motivate your self to find solution). Most important thing is saying that I don't know, so I need to find out what experienced people do or say redirects the attention from the self beating ("I should have known, so some thing wrong with me") to open learning. In that sense, when correctly used, internet is a gift. we can search very fast and experiment with them.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Okay good! Was worried I may have been doing something suboptimal. I remember back in early 2017 when I got my first attunement from a local practictioner and joined the student reiki share I had an attachment removed just through the normal work of the reiki plus my own awareness. The experience was relaxing and good until this negative thought/feeling loop I had occasionally since a certain point in my life came up very persistently and wouldn't go away. Then I finally had the awareness to ask, "was this thought really from me?" Then almost instantly I could see clearly that it was something foreign I didn't want there. And upon that recognition it just seemed to melt off and away forever. I felt the reiki did help to give me energy, but I had to use my own discernment and awareness to be able to ultimately "fight the battle" of identifying and removing it. I can't also rule out that the reiki itself brought that thought loop to my attention in some way as well, if it sensed that's where it was most needed. Anyway, just an anecdote.

Well, I think anecdotes are good in the sense that I seem to learn most from them. I recently had a weird experience last night where as I was reading some threads, I had a terrible thought loop constantly repeat, it was about my brother who lives with me. I know that there wasn't much truth to it and it was just a part of me stuck in control and anger issues. I smoked a cigarette and I started feeling my body and noticed something like a black mass right at my heart. Left of my sternum. I spontaneously decided take my personal crystal and lie down, applying it on the area, and just sensing that energy there. It become a dialogue with that stuck energy. It was qualitatively weird because I was verbalizing what I guessed the "entity" was saying, and I just intuitively felt out the best thing to say to allow it to let go of me. I closed my eyes and concentrated my awareness on the area, and I felt like I was getting "close" to it. And all of a sudden my body just released a whole lot of energy and I heard a kind of scream in my mind. I kept on going for a few cycles until I felt it clear up. I don't really know what to say about it, and I get the feeling that it will keep coming back.

I'm still extremely fragmented with very little control over my mind at times, but at other times I can function perfectly well if not quite optimally, I guess it depends on whether I have something to do and be responsible for. I also tend to come into alignment when I have the opportunity to gain knowledge through reading or listening to audiobooks, as long as I'm able to focus.

The trouble I find is, that sense of intensity and concentration can come up when encountering something that feels foreign, like a spirit attachment. It's like the reiki wants to give the patient energy so it can detach the attachment. Sort of like how for a wound to heal the splinter needs to be removed (to use a physical analogy). Is that kind of what you meant by just giving the patient energy, and not going out of your way to interact with the entity, dialogue, do diagnosis, etc.?

Could it also be that the reiki is feeding the attachment or entity directly and thereby strengthening it? The host is strengthened, but since the attachment is still effectively part of his personality, it also gets equally strengthened.

Agreed. We should not throw the inner child with the bathwater though. Sometimes, I remember difficult childhood moments and mentally talk to the child I was, supporting him, comforting him and telling him the truth: despite the challenges, he is loved and he will make it.

I'm not sure it works but I know that what I needed when I was a kid.

In our community, where we, today, get so much invaluable information from "us in the future", it might make sense that us, today, provide help and support to us in the past.

But, what if our child is mostly stuck in a pre-verbal state? There's the material from Healing Developmental Trauma which helps us get a handle on those needs which were not provided for during those early years that give us an inkling of what could really help us grow out of it. I guess when the appropriate soil and fertilizer is provided the plant should begin to grow - and once it starts growing, use of language & logic can be further strengthened.

When I was reading Adrian Raine's Anatomy of Violence, I was struck by his mention of his own issues with violence, where he felt split between being Jekyll and Hyde due to his experience with violent crime. I brought this up because I feel somewhat similar in some cases: I have a pre-verbal Jekyll and a logical, rational Hyde within me and it's a matter of what the weather is like as to which one decides to take centerstage. I feel that a fully developed person would have these different aspects of their personality integrated within them, which is of course the road that we're taking now.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Something that I'm wondering is that whether there is a connection between spirits, attachments and entities with unfinished motoric action within the body, just stuck energy? Trauma releasing exercises are where people lie down and try to feel into their bodies to release the stuck action patterns within their bodies: