Your Inner Infant

Since many months I had been feeling the calling to take my journey deeper into Inner Child work. I was wondering how I could do that. So I mailed Dr.Newton who had told me that Inner Child therapy is my expertise when I had learnt it under him in 2008 asking him how I could go about it. He mailed me back references of the people who are pioneers of Inner Child therapy. Of all of them, I was most struck by John Bradshaw’s book, Homecoming. I ordered it over Flipkart and started reading. Instantly we connected! Every time I read it, I pieced back unexplained, unspoken and hence unhealed parts of my childhood. Hence I read haltingly and consciously. Diving deeper I came across the section of healing the infant in me – aged 0-2 years. There is a questionnaire at the beginning of every stage of childhood that reveals to you how deeply wounded you were at that stage in life. It turned out to be a mountain of work! Everything that was churning in my life ranging from having too many thoughts, over-intellectualizing my emotions, feeling insecure about physical touch, health issues, etc. seemed to be emerging from this root cause.

The infant self in us has some very core developmental needs for which we are dependent on our caretakers to fulfill. At that stage it is “healthy codependency”. But not all these needs are understood for them to be fulfilled. We all have an idea of how confusing parenting really is for most of our society. Hence, it is very common to carry an infant in you who has unmet needs. A misinterpretation of these can turn into some very deep wounds that can project into a whole range of scenarios in the outside world – health issues, issues in our relationships with our parents or partners, lack of satisfaction in life, feeling lost or confused about our life are just a few of them. They can come from very simple situations that might have occurred in our childhood such as failing to receive a hug when we are feeling cold from the environment around, or not having anyone to clean you up for a long time after you have passed your motions in the cradle. It might sound silly, but these can result into deeply entrenched beliefs about love, care, affection and life in general.

As I set out to heal this stage, I was wondering how I could be supported. It was difficult to explain to anyone who is not aware that there is such a stage, about how I kept “falling” into spontaneous memory recalls, which is a sign of the wounded infant self. As I turned the pages of the book though, I came across a guided meditation script to heal the wounded infant. So off I got to recording it in my voice and I sampled it for a few days. Intuitively I realised that the infant in me wanted to hear my voice speaking to it. So I thought to myself, “I wish I could put it to some music”, and so I started sifting through my treasure of meditation music that “fit” with it. This whole process took about a month. Last Sunday, I decided to slip into this meditation myself for good and see whether it worked. It did. What emerged was a heartfelt sensitivity I felt for the wounded infant in me as a “wise parent”. I was able to simultaneously observe & comfort as the “wise self” and connect to the “infant self”. To put it succinctly, the process, as directed by the meditation, helped me feel a lot of wholesomeness that I had been missing since infancy.

I was so glad I made this effort. Hence, out of this gladness, I share this audio track created by reading word by word from the infant healing chapter of the book, Homecoming. I intend it enables you to experience wholeness with the infant that might be crying out in ways for your attention that you may not know yet.

Here is the link to the questionnaire – Index of Suspicion – Infant Healing – I suggest you to go through it and check your response before you get into this work so that you can become aware of what it is that you are healing.

Here is the link to the audio track – Inner Child-Infant Healing – that you can download and get into.

Please note that this can bring up some very intense memories and processing. If you have had a difficult childhood, I would suggest you confide in someone, especially a therapist who is aware of Inner Child healing, and have him/her support you as you decide to take up this healing. I myself had a lot of people support me in as I was healing this phase. Also, the effect of this process can last for days or months even.

Lastly, do leave your feedback after taking up this journey or if you have any questions regarding the same. If it is personal, you can write to me at [email protected].

In love and grace.