What does this day have in store for me? Waking up, I remember how it felt to wake up on a birthday, when I was just five or six. A happy occasion. All at once, I may also remember many sad times, a flood of memories when I was disappointed because it turned out that what I anticipated was spoiled by one of my relatives pitching a fit of some sort, or by somebody's rage, acting out. Painful old "facts of my life." I don't let myself sink into this pool. Instead, I reach back, to a time when I looked at a day with happy anticipation, enthusiasm, zest, a place in my memories where I wasn't afraid, wasn't sad, wasn't worried or angry. Where nothing bad happened. It doesn't have to be a big place or an experience that lasted a long time. Just a little quiet interlude is enough. I anchor that feeling in right now, like tapping the "bring forward" command in a graphics app where I'm building an image. It is my conscious choice. My inner child is comforted and today I can make my child safe and well. I am free and empowered to do this in 12-Step recovery.
Every time that I do this, I am giving my inner child a kind of "active imagination" therapy, like hypnosis, or EMDR, or like healthy children do, when they play. My inner child and my Higher/Inner Power/Life Force appreciate my reaching back for them, bringing them into my present, today. There's a magic in this that shows up in what happens today and brings real change to my life. This is a Steps Six and Seven exercise; I take charge of "becoming willing" to let go of my sadness by finding and welcoming my authentic self.
Kathleen S