Daily Voice Dialogue - Issue 15

----- DAILY VOICE DIALOGUE -----

a free newsletter about using Voice Dialogue in your daily life

written by Astra Niedra, edited by Mark Belfanti

Welcome to the fifteenth edition of Daily Voice Dialogue. This newsletter covers various aspects of Voice Dialogue and gives you ways to use Voice Dialogue in your life on a day-to-day basis.

Best wishes,
Astra Niedra

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TOPIC OF THE MONTH

THE INNER CHILDREN

We all have many inner child selves, including a child who is vulnerable, playful, and magical.

Most adults have disowned their child selves, although the Playful Child is available at times to many people. The Vulnerable Child is usually the most deeply disowned.

The next few issues of Daily Voice Dialogue will deal with these inner children. In this issue, the Vulnerable Child will feature.

THE VULNERABLE CHILD

The Vulnerable Child is a part of all of us. It is a very important aspect of ourselves as it is who we are when we are born. Because of this, it holds the essence of our nature. It is also a self that we usually disown as we grow up. As adults (even as children) we identify with more powerful primary selves who have the ability to get us through life. These primary selves don't normally see much use for our vulnerability as it is a hindrance to a successful life in their eyes. After all, they had to make us 'not vulnerable' so we could develop the skills of these more powerful selves.

Even though this Vulnerable Child is rarely available to people's consciousness as adults, it is still there in the psyche. And it often affects people's lives anyway.

It's absence can affect you by making it difficult for you to handle vulnerability in others, such as in young babies or animals, causing you to avoid such vulnerable creatures. Or, if you've identified with a very protective primary self, you might be drawn to vulnerability in others, feeling very protective of them.

The disowned Vulnerable Child can also cause anxiety or panicky feelings - just because it is disowned by your primary selves doesn't mean it doesn't get affected by events in your life. Just as with other disowned selves, if its feelings are not available to you consciously, they can be made apparent in physical symptoms.

Another way the absence of this child can affect you is to make you very insensitive to other's pain. If you are identified with a very powerful self, and don't have access to your vulnerability, you could even be seen to be (and might be) quite cruel.

No Vulnerable Child also means you are missing out on deep intimacy in your relationships, for it is this child who connects deeply with other people. (See section on Relationships below.)

The irony is that if you reclaim your Vulnerable Child and consciously take care of it, you become less vulnerable in your life. You will actually be more powerful with your Vulnerable Child alongside you, if you are being responsible for it.

Why? Because if you know what its needs are and take care of them in a way that you choose, it won't affect you unconsciously. For example, if you are a public speaker, and you know about the feelings your child has about public speaking and you take care of that child regarding this, you won't be subject to the child's feelings breaking out as panic attacks or anxiety before or during a speech.

Or if you are in a position of power in your job, and you know your own Vulnerable Child and its concerns, you will no longer polarise others into a more vulnerable state. This will make you and your staff more stable and balanced in your positions.

Also, with your own vulnerability available to you, you won't attract very vulnerable people into your life who you might feel an intense need to protect at all costs. Again, you won't be destabilised but will feel a sense of calm and strength.

The following exercise gives you some suggestions for starting to gain awareness of your Vulnerable Child, which will help you to become more conscious of its needs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not rush into working with your Vulnerable Child directly. Your primary selves have disowned it for good reason and until you get to know and appreciate them first and how they have tried to protect you, there will be no benefit in contacting your Vulnerable Child. You first need to have an Aware Ego which can take the responsibility for protecting your child. And to get such an Aware Ego process started you need to work with your primary selves first.

If you work with your child too soon you may have a very intense session with many emotions and pain surfacing and releasing, which might temporarily feel good. But then when you walk out the door, your primary self kicks back in and decides you're never going there again, using the outburst as evidence that the decision to disown the child in the first place was right.

You might even become too identified with the child and its needs and no longer be able to function in your life effectively. You really need to work with the outer layers of your personality first, before exposing the inner ones. For you need to understand why your personality is structured as it is, and develop the ability to take the responsibility for any new discoveries before you go and make those discoveries.

What you can do is start to develop awareness of your Vulnerable Child by following such suggestions as below.

---------------------------------------------
EXERCISE

HOW TO GAIN AWARENESS OF YOUR VULNERABLE CHILD

SUGGESTIONS TO TRY:
* Start paying attention to your feelings - don't just dismiss them. You don't have to necessarily do anything about them, just acknowledge them. Your Vulnerable Child has a lot of feelings about the things you do in your life, so by acknowledging your feelings you are acknowledging your child.

* If you feel vulnerable at any time, comfort yourself. Don't just try to be not-vulnerable if that's what you would normally do, but give yourself some care. If you can bring in a stronger part of yourself to do this, such as a nurturing self, do so. Pay attention to how it feels when you comfort yourself.

* Notice when you are hungry or thirsty, and eat and drink then. Don't wait until the 'right' time to eat. Your child will really appreciate this as it is concerned about these fundamentals of life.

* If, during a normal day, you feel like resting, it might be your Vulnerable Child who wants to do so. This might be because your child feels overwhelmed by the amount of activity you've done or it just wants some time out. Pay attention to how you would like to rest: lying on the couch, or lying in bed snuggled up under your doona, or curled up on a big chair with a window nearby to look out of. Don't just automatically do as you feel but also don't just automatically react against it by dismissing your feelings and continuing to do what you were doing. See if you can stay with both of the opposite forces: the urge to rest and the urge to keep going. If you decide to do one or the other don't ignore the other. Stay aware of the part you don't go with and of its feelings.

---------------------------------------------
RELATIONSHIPS

Vulnerability is a crucial part of successful relationships. When a couple don't know about their Vulnerable Child and its needs, they both repress it, leaving their relationship devoid of the intimacy and sweetness this child can bring. This can create a kind of distant, almost lonely feeling in the relationship, a relationship between two primary self systems each defensive of itself. Each person in such a relationship hands over the care of their Vulnerable Child to the other, but in an unconscious way.

This means that as long as the other person is playing their role 'properly', the relationship seems to function well. But as soon as one or both parties neglect the needs of the others child, things turn sour.

This involves powerful bonding patterns (see Issue 7 for more explanation), which can mean a very caring relationship in a very parent/child way for some or most of the time, but then a very hostile environment when the bonding pattern switches from positive to negative.

For a more satisfying relationship on all levels, with a much deeper intimacy, both of you having contact with your own Vulnerable Child is necessary.

---------------------------------------------
BABY DIALOGUE

Examples from my experiences with my 22 month old daughter to illustrate how I try(!) to use Voice Dialogue in my life.

Athena's Vulnerable Child isn't around as much as it used to be. She's usually being the Playful Child, the Adrenaline Junkie (when her father spins her around and pushes her really high on the swings - she squeals with delight and shouts 'more, more'), a Nurturing Mother to her toys and dolls (wrapping them up, singing to them, pretending to feed them), and a Good Student (she loves having books read to her and everything in the pictures explained to her).

Now and then the Vulnerable Child comes out full ball, especially if a sudden loud noise (such as aircraft noise or renovation noise from next door) occurs. It also comes out while I'm driving her to day care, which she's just started for 2 days each week. When we arrive there she wants to be hugged by me non-stop and squeezes me so tight I can hardly breathe. And she cries when I leave. The thing I have found interesting is that she'll say to herself 'It's alright' over and over again, as though she's comforting her own Vulnerable Child.

Another thing I've noticed is that with day care, if I act as though it is all okay and there's nothing to be afraid of, Athena just seems to be more afraid. So one day, on the way there, I contacted my own feelings about going to school (which I hated at the time) and told Athena about them. I remembered how awful I felt, and instead of pushing it all away, I decided to comfort myself about it. Athena's response was amazing. She just sat in the car silently and then started singing to herself.

When it was time for me to leave her, again she cried and did not want to let go of me, but for the time I was in contact with my own feelings, she seemed okay with the situation.

There are many selves all having their feelings and thoughts as you go through your day, so when I was saying goodbye to Athena, who knows what was going on unconsciously within me, especially with my own Vulnerable Child. For I know that I also feel sad leaving Athena at day care but I put on a brave face as I leave.

What is going on with us internally as parents definitely affects how our children feel and act.

---------------------------------------------
NEXT ISSUE

TOPIC OF THE MONTH: The Playful Child

---------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTE

This newsletter is not to be taken as psychological or medical advice. If you require such advice you should seek it from an appropriate health care professional. This newsletter is also not intended for you to use in making life-altering decisions without communication between you and the appropriate health care professional.

Copyright 2000-2001 - Astra Niedra. ISSN 1444-6022. PO Box 979, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia. No part of Daily Voice Dialogue may be reproduced, in any form, without the written permission of the author, Astra Niedra, except for forwarding an issue, in its entirety and complete with copyright information, to a friend.