Healing The Child Within

I have recently come across a book called "Healing the Child Within" by Charles Whitfield.   I think it's a great book.   It sold a whole bunch of copies back in the 80s.   Whitfield started in the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) movement and has written extensively about various kinds of recovery and overcoming co-dependence.     He is an M.D. and works as a therapist in addition to being a prolific writer.

Whitfield's premise with this book is that we are born into this world as a spiritual being.   We are each a beautiful child filled with goodness.   As the world impresses  itself on us,  however,  we can learn different ways.  Traumas of all kinds can have the tendency to bury that beautiful child.   What comes up instead is a survival or coping mechanism which is a way we deal with experiences that might otherwise overwhelm us.   Those coping mechanisms can become personality traits, mental habits and ways in which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world.     Often these coping mechanisms,  and all their permutations,   end up blocking us from experiencing ourselves as the beautiful and radiant being we have always been and always will be.

One thing I like about the book is that it carries a spiritual picture of the human being, and one which seems fairly similar to how I try to perceive myself and others.   Another attraction is that Whitfield speaks very clearly and gets right to the point.   It's pretty easy to understand his concepts and to see ways they can be applied.   I find him to be a very good communicator of ideas.   I also think it's cool that his book was a best-seller back in the day.    That tells me that perhaps my own ideas about spirituality are not as wacky and fringe as I sometimes tell myself.

Whitfield speaks very eloquently about how we can heal ourselves.   I am looking forward to taking up many of his ideas and seeing how they may help me in my process.   

As Christmas arrives in a few days it seems like a good time to reflect on the possibility that each of us has a holy child within us;  and that,  no matter how buried it might seem to us,  this child may very well be the truth of who we are.   

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben