Quotes from Charles L. Whitfield

false self, co-dependent self, unauthentic or public self.

Many children growing up in troubled or dysfunctional families learn how to be either aggressive or manipulative or to sit back or withdraw. They don't get what they want or need. They almost never see assertiveness being modeled, are rarely taught to be assertive and thus grow up to be adults who operate by being either aggressive, and/or manipulative or passive, "people pleasers," or a combination of these.

Nearly all are associated with our relationship with ourself and with people around us. To reach our full potential, we apparently require most of these needs. Growing up in an environment without these needs, we grow up automatically without realizing that our needs have not been met and are not being met. We often feel confused and chronically unhappy.

Submitting to others, rather than affirming our own reality, is the heart of active co-dependence—we give up our own inner world in order to be accepted by others.

The mother or other parent figure(s) must attend the infant and child so that at least its safety, security and touching are met.

One alternative that nearly always relieves our suffering is surrender: we surrender our false self, and our attachment to the notion that we can control anything.

They even believe they can somehow control life itself. It is hard to learn that life cannot be controlled. Life's powerful and mysterious process goes on, no matter what we do. Life cannot be controlled because it is far too rich, spontaneous and rambunctious to be fully understood, much less controlled by our thinking, controlling ego/false self (Cermak 1985).

This is an amazing thing about infants. They can sense that mother is needy, and can eventually detect her specific needs and begin providing them for her. Of course, this carries a major price—the denial, stifling and stunting of the infant's own True Self or Child Within.

Guidance, also a part of helping the infant and child to develop and grow, may include advice, assistance, and any other form of help, verbal or non-verbal. It also includes modeling and teaching appropriate and healthy social

1) Closed About Our Feelings When we cannot feel a feeling, we are closed in our ability to accurately name and use it (Table 8). At that stage not only do we not know the feeling, but also we are unable to understand and communicate the condition of our True Self. While we may be talking superficially or even reporting facts, our interpersonal interaction and our ability to experience life and to grow is very low. We can call this stage of growing and sharing our feelings closed, or Level One.

In our recovery we learn that love is not simply a feeling. Rather it is an energy that is manifested by a commitment and a will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's total growth, which includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions (Peck 1978).

The final need is unconditional love. This is a difficult concept for many to understand. I discuss this need further in Chapter 15.

we are not our feelings.

In order to survive, the child who cannot develop a strong True Self compensates by developing an exaggerated false or co-dependent self.

When we allow ourselves to feel these painful feelings, give them an accurate name, and when we share the grief with safe and supportive others over time, we are able to complete our grief work and thus be free of it.

the self (or "object self") and the observing self.

This lack of awareness of a major source of the family chaos results in extensive, destructive and unnecessary acceptance, as well as self blame and guilt among family members.

Separation, suffering and evil are the absence of realizing Love, and are therefore ultimately illusions. They are also manifestations of our searching for Love, Wholeness, and Home. The evil or darkness is thus ultimately in the service of the Light.

Guilt is the uncomfortable or painful feeling that results from doing something that violates or breaks a personal standard or value, or from hurting another person, or even from breaking an agreement or a law. Guilt thus concerns our behavior, feeling bad about what we have done, or about what we didn't do that we were supposed to have done.

When we are not allowed to remember, to express our feelings and to grieve or mourn our losses or traumas, whether real or threatened, through the free expression of our Child Within, we become ill. Thus we can consider viewing a spectrum of unresolved grieving as beginning with mild symptoms or signs of grief, to co-dependence, to PTSD.

Furthermore, people like Marcus can over-estimate the degree of threat or mis-read visual cues such as facial expressions, resulting in an inability to modulate emotional pain. Imagine what will happen when he experiences a situation in early recovery that reminds him of the old trauma. For example, if his male supervisor at work gets angry with him, Marcus' brain has learned to go into a "fight or flight" pattern, which leads to another angry outburst.

In order to survive, the traumatized child's Real Self (True Self or Child Within) goes into hiding deep within the unconscious part of its psyche. What emerges is a false self or ego which tries to run the show of our life, but is unable to succeed because it is simply a defense mechanism against pain and not real. Its motives are based more on needing to be right and in control.

spirituality is about the relationships that we have with our self, with others and with the universe." (pg. 127).

An important part of successful recovery is learning to accurately name what happened for us and the components of our inner life as they come up for us, including our various feelings, and learning to tolerate emotional pain without trying to medicate it away.