The Death of the Inner Child occurs through social conditioning in reaction to traumatic events and/or negative experiences. They can be put to use to cause us to permanently alter our natural behavior as we progress through life and age.
Parents usually condition their children by giving them affection when their behavior is deemed “good” and withholding affection when it is deemed “bad.”
We do this because the overwhelming majority of cultural influences they are exposed to tells them it must be done or we will not grow up to be “civilized” human beings.
The action of conditioning, when it first occurs, will cause the mind to repress – to block awareness of what is or has happened. This will reoccur the first few times the action of conditioning, for instance, slapping, occurs.
Then the mind will learn that in order to avoid being slapped in future, it must undertake the change in behavior required. However, in order for conditioning to take place, the memory and pain associated with the original act of conditioning must remain repressed within. In this way it is being blocked from our awareness.
The intention of the mind, in blocking our awareness of events and repressing any associated emotions, is to protect us from emotional damage in our formative years.
Each time something happens around us that in any way reminds our subconscious mind of a repressed memory, we receive a little burst of anxiety as repressed emotions are being processed.
As repressed memories build up, whole areas of natural thinking and behavior begin to become painful to us. The mind deals with this by learning subconsciously to avoid situations that remind it of repressed memories; and it is this “need to avoid the pain” that allows the conditioned mind to be so easily controlled.
By creating a culture in which repressed pain is not released from the system and instead, can be avoided through social conformity, we become emotionally dependent on our programmed society and culture to feel secure.
People conditioned in this way can easily be directed to both do work and follow a lifestyle that slowly disallows the desire for living outside of programmed parameters. This is the death of the zeal for life first made aware to the little child.
Having grown up in this type of abusive conditioning myself; I can clearly see how the corruption of current political practices are directly destroying, not only our children but ourselves as well; even more so as we age and degress into this stuper of conformity. The result? The loss of our individuality and actual loss for the desire to live.
Understanding how this programming is still active in me, makes me disappointed and yet I am happy that I am still aware of what is going on inside me, therefore I may be able to change these negative conditionings, not through denial of their exhistence but rather through their acknowledgement and the determination to break their hold on me….To Be Free.
As a Child is born as a blank; all knowledge is only an manufacture of knowledge that has been expressed prior to that child’s exhistence… Individuality occurs when minds are free to experiment and explore new teachings and new realms of consciousness
Thank You Elaine
Hi Elaine,
All of us have these repressive mechanisms within from our childhood onward as we begin reading Mark Hamilton’s writings. These are further impressed upon us by a suppressed civilization…So we have to deal with all of this when we begin our journey to becoming FREE of fear from breaking our programing and conditioning and free from our baloon of suppressed/repressed jumbled reactive emotions that we are also afraid of that might burst and overwhelm us!!! This requires seeing ourselves head on and questioning what we are really afraid of…NOW. Passionate pursuit and courage to experience whatever “horrors” might arise from within us can break the cycle of further abuse…You have Heart, I know…You have immense creativity already, and a drive to “give”!
Love,
Elaine