Quotes from Charles L. Whitfield

By choosing recovery and risking to be real, we set the healthy boundaries that say, "I am in charge of my recovery and my life, and no one else on this Earth is.

Simos said, "Grief work must be shared. In sharing, however, there must be no impatience, censure or boredom with the repetition, because repetition is necessary for catharsis and internalization and eventual unconscious acceptance of the reality of the loss. The bereaved are sensitive to the feelings of others and will not only refrain from revealing feelings to those they consider unequal to the burden of sharing the grief but may even try to comfort the helpers." (97)

From the recovery experience of hundreds of thousands of people, we know that there is an effective way out of this constricting and binding effect of shame: to tell the story of our suffering to safe and supportive others. (51)

The shame-based person is nearly always enmeshed in some way with one or more people. While we are in a dysfunctional, shame-based relationship, we may feel like we are losing our mind, going crazy. When we try to test reality, we are unable to trust our senses, our feelings and our reactions.

Gradually, as more and more of our needs are met, we discover a crucial truth: that we are the most influential, effective and powerful person who can help us get what we need. The more we realize this, the more we can seek out, ask for and actually realize our needs. As we do so, our Child Within begins to awaken and eventually to flourish, grow and create.

in the lower self, love is neediness, "chemistry" or infatuation, possession, strong admiration, or even worship—in short, traditional romantic love. Many people who grew up in troubled homes and who experienced a stifling of their Child Within become stuck at these lower levels or ways of experiencing love.

When this Child Within is not nurtured or allowed freedom of expression, a false or co-dependent self emerges. We begin to live our lives from a victim stance, and experience difficulties in resolving emotional traumas. The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness.

We are going home (we are Home, already and always). Home on this earth is being all levels of our awareness or consciousness in our own unique fashion. (138)

The primary focus of psychotherapy involves the integration of feelings (affect) and thinking (cognition), resulting in personal growth.

Our shame seems to come from what we do with the negative messages, negative affirmations, beliefs and rules that we hear as we grow up. We hear these from our parents, parent figures and other people in authority, such as teachers and clergy. These messages basically tell us that we are somehow not all right, not okay. That our feelings, our needs, our True Self, our Child Within is not acceptable.

Many children from troubled families have difficulty relaxing and having fun. Ability to be spontaneous and to play is a need and a characteristic of our Child Within.

We can remove the blocks to realizing our Higher Power by experiencing (including living in the Now), remembering, forgiving and surrendering (these five realizations can be viewed as being ultimately the same). Regular spiritual practices help us with this realization. (138)

Because it forgets our Oneness, it feels separate. It is our public self—who we think others and eventually even we think we should be. Most of the time, when we are in the role of our false self, we feel uncomfortable, numb, empty or in a contrived or contracted state. We do not feel real, complete, whole or sane. At one level or another, we sense that something is wrong, and that something is missing.

Because they have not healed their Child Within, they are generally unable to be a part of the safe and supportive healing of another. However, we can learn to set limits with these people, so that they do not continue to mistreat us. We set limits both with firmness and with love. We do so not with aggressiveness, but with assertiveness.

Infants deprived of touching fail to thrive and grow, even if they get proper food, nourishment and protection. Touching is most powerful by appropriate skin to skin contact. Experiments with rabbits fed atherosclerosis inducing diets show that those rabbits which are held and petted by the laboratory workers tend not to get atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Those rabbits which are not held and petted tend to get atherosclerosis (Dossey 1985).

Virginia Satir has suggested that we need from four to twelve hugs a day as part of our health maintenance.

At this point we understand that if the mother or other parent figure cannot provide these first few needs, the child's physical, mental-emotional and spiritual growth would likely be stunted.

We have two basic kinds of feelings or emotions—joyful and painful. Joyful feelings make us feel a sense of strength, well being and completion. Painful feelings interfere with our sense of well being, use up our energy and can leave us feeling drained, empty and alone. Yet even though they may be painful, they are often telling us something, a message to ourself that something important may be happening, something that may need our attention.

A person cannot betray another person's True Self for long without causing serious damage to the relationship. In order to grow, the Child Within should feel trusted and be able to trust others.

Some people who grew up in troubled or dysfunctional families found it difficult to complete a task or a project or to make decisions. This is because they did not practice doing so with the guidance and support of an important other. By contrast, others from dysfunctional families may be high achievers in some areas, such as education or work, but are repeatedly unable to achieve in other areas, such as intimate relationships.

However, the nurturing person must be able to nurture and the person in need must be able to let go, to surrender, in order to be nurtured. In my observations of patients, their families, and of other people, this reciprocity is unusual in human interaction. It is not the child's job to nurture their parent, and when this happens repeatedly, it is a subtle form of child abuse or neglect.

What the child sees as reality is denied, and a new model, view or false belief system of reality is assumed as true by each family member. This fantasy often binds the family together in a further dysfunctional way. This denial and the new belief system stifle and retard the child's development and growth in the crucial mental, emotional, and spiritual areas of their life (Brown 1986).

Denial of the Child Within and the subsequent emergence of a false self or negative ego are particularly common among children and adults who grew up in troubled families, such as those where chronic physical or mental illness, rigidity, coldness or lack of nurturing were common.

Indeed, any effort is usually in denying our awareness and expression of it.