 Growing Down:
Tools for Healing the Inner Child
Dumping Negative Garbage
Content:
What negative garbage is preventing your inner healing?
You need to dump any or all of
the following garbage of emotions, feelings, and attitudes in order to grow down
in a healthy way.
The garbage of abuse
The anger, pain, and hurt from childhood experiences
of being abused physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually.
The garbage of neglect
The confusion, resentment, chip on the shoulder, the
nurture neediness of being emotionally and/or physically neglected in your
childhood.
The garbage of invisibility The numbness, lack of focus, fear, insecurity, and
lack of trust from being ignored and isolated from others as a result of being
invisible to others in your childhood.
The garbage of violation of boundaries The anger, resentment, defensiveness, mistrust and
guardedness of having your emotional and/or physical boundaries violated and/or
ignored as a youth.
The garbage of disassociation of feelings The confusion of not being able to label your
feelings about past or present experiences in your life due to the survival
mechanism of disassociation from the painful, humiliating, offensive, abusive,
painful violations you experienced in your early life.
The garbage of sick family life The myriad irrational, unhealthy, sick beliefs,
thoughts, attitudes, emotions, feelings, behaviors, and actions which were the
result of your being raised in a dysfunctional, sick and emotionally unhealthy
family. Laying
the Foundation explores the full range of issues resulting from being
raised in a dysfunctional family.
The garbage of being over-criticized
The defensive emotional and attitudinal barriers you
have set up to defend against the barrage of criticism, non-reinforcement and
negativity you received in your formative years.
The garbage of loss The
emotional turmoil from recognizing the magnitude of the losses in your life
which are a result of being raised in a dysfunctional family, losing a healthy
childhood, losing a fantasy family life, losing loved ones to death and/or
addiction and/or mental illness. Tools for
Handling Loss explores these issues fully.
The garbage of being unloved
The pervasive sense of never being loved or accepted
unconditionally for who you are but rather feeling that no matter what you did
it never was "good enough'' for others to love and accept you.
The garbage of anger In Tools for
Anger Workout the many faces of anger are explored. They include: rage,
hatred, revenge, resentment, hostility, sarcasm, cynicism, pessimism, jumping to
negative assumptions, silent withdrawal, depression, self-destructive behaviors
and passive aggressiveness.
The garbage of control In Tools for
Handling Control Issues the
many faces of control are fully explored. They include: intimidation,
manipulation, the need to fix, caretaker behaviors, powerlessness,
overdependency, helplessness, suicide, and survival behaviors.
The garbage of unhealthy relationships In Tools for Relationships issues
in unhealthy relationships are covered. They include: conflict, barriers,
problem solving, rejection, need for approval, victim-hood and martyrdom, power
and control, competition, lack of intimacy, fantasy relationships, lack of
forgiveness, and forgetting and lack of clarity of goals.
The garbage of low self-esteem In Tools for
Personal Growth the issues arising from low self-esteem are
explored. They include: guilt, lack of trust, insecurity, vulnerability,
inability to be a risk taker, disabling fear, fear of failure, fear of success,
perfectionism, pride, lack of patience, lack of spirituality, lack of personal
responsibility, high levels of stress, burnout and inability to have fun.
The garbage of poor communications In Tools for
Communications the elements of unhealthy communications are explored
which include: over content-oriented, ignoring of feelings, lack of empathy,
lack of understanding, poor responsivity, and lack of healthy problem solving.
The garbage of the struggle Recognizing that recovery is a lifetime project can
result in anger, rage, and despair. The recovery lifestyle as outlined in The
SEA's Program Manual recognizes that you must always be prepared for
relapse in your life. This reality can be a stimulus for negativity and loss of
hope unless it is dealt with in a rational manner.
How to dump this garbage
You can dump the garbage which
prevents you from growing down and healing your inner child by:
-
Anger workout.
-
Overcoming blocks to anger.
-
Overcoming depression.
-
Eliminating hostility, sarcasm, and cynicism.
-
Overcoming pessimism and negativity.
-
Overcoming hatred.
-
Eliminating resentment.
-
Not jumping to negative assumptions.
-
Eliminating silent anger withdrawal.
-
Eliminating revenge.
-
Eliminating rage.
-
Stopping self-destructive anger responses.
-
Overcoming irritations.
-
Eliminating passive aggressiveness.
-
Handling
angry confrontations.
All of these are described in Tools
for Anger Workout.
Anger workout which assists inner healing
You can dump garbage for
growing down by the following anger workout:
Step 1:
Identify the type of garbage which is hindering your growing down and the
healing of your inner child.
Step 2:
Accept that you are angry that this garbage is holding you back.
Step 3:
Name the garbage and visualize this mess on a weight bag which is either
seated on a chair or hanging from a ceiling hook.
Step 4:
Begin to beat the identified garbage with a "growing-down garbage-dumping
bat'' and yell out and scream all the anger, hatred, disgust, and bile you can
so as to dump this garbage from your soul, mind, heart, and body.
Step 5:
Once you feel energized and are no longer able to dump, conclude your
garbage dumping for the time being, recognizing that some form of garbage
dumping will be a lifelong process.
How to make a garbage dumping bat
Materials needed: old newspapers, a
role of transparent plastic packing tape, scissors.
Procedure: Roll up a newspaper into a
bat and then use the tape to secure the rolled up paper. Keep wrapping the
rolled up paper bat until it is fully secure. Be sure to tape the ends of the
bat well. Make several of these rolled up paper bats since you have got so much
garbage to dump over the next thirty days that you'll need several of these bats
to accomplish the initial major dump. Make the bats on an as needed basis after
the first thirty days.
Tips for garbage dumping
Garbage-dumping tip 1:
Get angry at behaviors and attitudes of people so as not to stay angry at the
people.
Garbage-dumping tip 2:
The purpose of anger workout is to grow in self-esteem, self forgiveness, and
the ability to forgive people even if you are not ever able to fully forgive
their unforgivable behaviors.
Garbage-dumping tip 3:
Yell, scream, ventilate your emotions. Emotional release energizes your inner
child's healing powers.
Garbage-dumping tip 4:
Crying is a silent anger workout. It hinders the healing process. Cry at first
but get ready to convert it eventually to vocalization for a good healthy
emotional dump.
Garbage-dumping tip 5:
It isn't pretty to dump all this emotional garbage so dress appropriately.
Garbage-dumping tip 6:
Dump this garbage in your own space; don't ever dump it on people. No one
deserves to have your garbage dumped on them.
Garbage-dumping tip 7:
Use all of the Tools for Coping Series books to help you identify the
issues to be dumped.
Garbage-dumping tip 8:
Schedule a dump session at least daily for the first thirty days of your efforts
at growing down so that this garbage doesn't interfere with your inner child
healing efforts.
Garbage-dumping tip 9:
Use your heart, feelings, emotions, and gut in the dumping. Get out of your
head. Try not to rationalize why you shouldn't be angry. Remember growing down
is emotional release work and not intellectual fertilizer spreading.
Garbage-dumping tip 10:
Full recovery and healing of your inner child requires that you take up the
cause or case of your inner child and need to dump all the garbage which has
kept your inner child lost, hidden, ignored, abandoned, and isolated from you.
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