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Issue 85 –

Vulnerability: Part 5

The Neglected Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

We have collected many dreams that poignantly illustrate the neglect of the vulnerable child. They were dreamt by people who have come to our workshops and had just become aware of this part of themselves. The unconscious then picked up the process and showed them quite clearly how they had disowned their vulnerability.

 

Many of these dreams have a similar theme. The dreamers go off to work, or to play, or to be with others, and suddenly remember that they have forgotten the child or children who were left in their care. In each case, the dreamer experiences a feeling of panic and a rush to reclaim the child, with the fervent hope that it had not died or suffered permanent damage.

 

The child is usually in a sad shape – hungry, cold, neglected, dirty, frightened, or ill. In one dream, the child had been transformed into a little animal. Happily enough, the child is usually not dead and, in most instances, there is hope for its eventual recovery.

 

Marie’s dream is typical of this category:

 

I am in a hotel room, up on a high floor. It is warm and comfortable and luxurious. I hear a small sound and look out onto a very narrow balcony. There is a little girl who has been outside on this balcony for a long, long time. It is cold and raining outside, and she is freezing. I feel terrible because I know I was responsible for her and I’d forgotten about her.

 

Marie is a sophisticated, wealthy young woman who enjoys the good life. However, she has been cut off from her vulnerability since early childhood, because vulnerability is simply not a clever or elegant attribute and it was definitely discouraged in her social milieu.

 

So she learned to live her life “high up” and sophisticated, and her inner child was left to freeze outside on the balcony.

 

Sometimes our vulnerable selves are relegated to a secondary status because they are not as exciting as our primary selves. They are overlooked at first, and eventually, as they continue to be pushed aside by our primary selves, they become disowned. After she was introduced to the concept of vulnerability in a lecture, Mandy had the following dream:

 

All my parts (selves) are in a big room, talking and having a great time. They are all trying to get my attention; they are exciting and lots of fun. I love being with them. In the far corner, there is a small child who calls to me and says “Please don’t forget me.”

 

This dream gives a clear picture of how the primary selves can easily distract us from noticing our more vulnerable, sensitive selves. Here, after listening to a discussion of vulnerability, Mandy suddenly notices her own vulnerable child, which has been sitting unnoticed in the corner until now.

Issue 84 –

Vulnerability: Part 4

Using Voice Dialogue to

gain access to the Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

During one of our workshops we introduced the topic of vulnerability and then demonstrated the Voice Dialogue method, using the technique to speak in front of the group with someone’s vulnerable child. This served to trigger the inner child in many of the other group members.

 

That night Jeanne, a participant in the workshop who thought she was in touch with her own inner child, dreamt she received a message that her “grand” child was in trouble:

 

When I heard where he was, I went to the woman’s house to get him. The woman showed me a big fat baby covered with Band-Aids. She said to me: “We’re not worried about the child’s physical condition, but we had no idea who he belonged to. He’s been hanging around here all the time.” I replied “But I don’t understand this because he’s been with me all the time.” Then I knew that I was going to have to take him with me and find out why he was trying to get away from me. I realised that I was going to have to talk to him and that he was scared to death that he wasn’t going to be cared for.

 

Jeanne, realising that she needed to contact her vulnerable child, requested a Voice Dialogue session. She contacted a very touching and extremely sensitive little girl who had experienced a good deal of pain in life. It seemed that Jeanne was in touch with other aspects of her childlike nature – her magical, sweet, imaginative and playful parts – but not the part of herself that carried her vulnerability and neediness.

We will now give a brief section of the interaction with this child to show what a vulnerable child sounds like when it speaks directly.

 

Facilitator (to Jeanne): I’d like to speak with your little girl, the one who’s scared, not the playful one who has just been talking to us.

 

Jeanne, who has had Voice Dialogue sessions before, moves to another chair and turns her back to the other people who are watching her.

 

Child: (looks up at the facilitator and does not speak.)

 

Facilitator: It’s kind of hard to talk isn’t it?

 

Child: (nods her head and says nothing but maintains eye contact.)

 

Facilitator: Well, you don’t have to say anything; I’ll just sit here and keep you company. Do you want me to keep talking to you?

 

Child: (nods again.)

 

Facilitator: O.K. you look pretty little to me. Jeanne is pretty grown-up and she always knows what to say and how to make people feel good. But you’re different, aren’t you? (Child nods again.) you look pretty quiet to me.

 

Child: I am quiet. Noise scares me. Big people scare me. You’re okay; you talk very softly. But I can’t look at the other people. They scare me.

 

Facilitator: (Nods and remains silent because the child is talking.)

 

Child: My Mom scared me a lot. I used to be scared a lot when I was little because it was noisy a lot. I like quiet. My ears hurt when it’s noisy. My heart jumps around a lot too.

 

At this point, the facilitator goes into an exploration of Jeanne’s childhood. There is great emotional intensity to the interaction. At first the vulnerable child is quite tense and holds onto her knees tightly, looking intently into the facilitator’s eyes for any sign of disapproval or inattention.

 

She is extremely sensitive to any distraction. Gradually her grip loosens as she tells about the things that had frightened her during Jeanne’s childhood. The experience is quite moving, as buried, emotional memories surface. Then, after quite some time, they turn to more current issues.

 

Facilitator: (Begins to question what aspects of Jeanne’s current life bother the child.) So, you don’t like it when there’s a lot of noise and you’re really sensitive when people are angry or rough. What else don’t you like in Jeanne’s life right now?

 

Child: I like to be in my own room with the door closed, and I like to open it to let my friends in one at a time. She never closes the door. I don’t like it when she leaves the door open and the others always come in. I don’t like it when I mess up her room. I don’t like having children in her room. I only like grown-ups there because they’re quiet and they don’t mess things.

 

Facilitator: I see. So you don’t want other kids around a lot.

 

Child: No I don’t. I like her grandchild, but I don’t like all the other kids she takes care of. I only want her to take care of me. I’m tired of her taking care of everybody else. She promised me that when her own kids were grown up, we would have fun together and she would stop worrying about everybody else. Now it’s time. I want her to spend time with me and buy me pretty things and brush my hair and let me just sit by myself and look out the window at the trees and dream and not do anything. And I want to sing.

 

I like her daughter. I want to go for a walk with her and just hang out, and not run errands and not talk about important things. And I don’t like it when people leave her their children to take care of and they go off and have fun. And I get scared when they get annoyed with her if she’s too busy to take care of the children.

 

I don’t feel good when people don’t like her. It makes me feel terrible. I want everybody to like her. But I want to tell them to take care of their own children anyway! Even if they do get mad at her. She’s not their Mum.

 

The facilitator continues to talk with Jeanne’s child for about two hours, and the child relaxes more and more. She literally blossoms like a flower. Jean becomes quite fond of this child, as does everyone else who was observing this particular Voice Dialogue session. That night, Jeanne has a second dream:

 

First I dreamt that my “grand” child was lying down all wrapped up tightly. The next moment I saw her lying there unwrapped and beautiful, with her blonde hair lying on the pillow. I loved this child dearly and I wanted her to be as happy as she is beautiful. I awoke feeling very happy.

 

Jeanne’s discovery of her vulnerable child meant a great deal to her. She felt much love for it and welcomed it as a beautiful addition to her life, as her dream demonstrates. She began to pay attention to the child immediately and to meet its needs, rather than to automatically meet the needs of the people around her and neglect her own, as she had in the past.

Issue 83 –

Vulnerability: Part 3

Disowning The Vulnerable Child
by
Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

Most of us have learned early in life to disown our vulnerability. Instead, we have identified with other selves that bring with them more power in the world. It is usually in relationship, whether a love relationship, a therapeutic relationship, relationship to a guru, or a very deep friendship, that there is a chance to learn for the first time about this very sensitive vulnerable child that lives deep within each of us.

In our travels around the world, we have had the good fortune to meet many beautiful vulnerable children within people. It is amazing to see how similar they are, despite great differences in culture. The neglect these vulnerable children have faced as a result of being disowned is graphically illustrated in the dreams that often follow the first awareness of their existence.

Nothing gives the picture of the disowning and neglect as well as these dreams, which have come from all over the United States, from Australia, Israel, England, Ireland, Wales, Switzerland, and Holland.

In the following dream, Jim’s disowning process is shown quite clearly. Jim sees his vulnerability as ugly, something to be resented, and, most of all, something that threatens to keep him from an adult sexual relationship:

I came into the room and there was a big double bed covered with white sheets. I was planning to get into it. I saw a little bit bed next to it, and on the bed was a heap of white bedclothes with a little bit of hair sticking out. I went over to look at it and saw an ugly little child, 4 or 5 years old. I didn’t want to go near it, and I resented it. I felt that it was going to keep me from getting into the big double bed.

Jim was so disgusted by his own vulnerability that he would have nothing to do with it. He had identified strongly with his achieving selves and pushed himself in his work to such an extent that he finally became ill. It was only through illness that Jim’s vulnerability could be expressed, and that he could finally allow himself to be cared for. He found he enjoyed his convalescence very much, because it was the first time he had been allowed by his overactive pusher to stop and rest.

For people like Jim, there is a distinct negative reaction to the first discovery of the vulnerable child.

Steve felt much the same as Jim did about vulnerability. After contacting his vulnerability for the first time, he had the following dream:

I’m in a houseboat. I know that this is the life that I’ve created and I’m happy with it. I like being strong and self-sufficient. As I realise that I really don’t want to change my way of being in the world, I see two men, a large strong man and a smaller one who is naked and has a beautiful body. The large one tells the other one to run. As he begins to run, his beautiful body becomes deformed. Then he has a heart attack. He continues to run as he was told, and then becomes sick and throws up. Now I think that he may be too damaged to live.

In this dream, Steve is given an objective picture of his reaction to the discovery of his vulnerability. His dominant power side, in the form of a strong pusher, holds onto its primary position, refusing to allow the newly discovered, smaller, less powerful, but beautiful side to live its life undisturbed.

In the disowning process, the powerful pushing self drives this less powerful part until it is almost completely destroyed. This pushing self continues to hurry Steve mercilessly through life keeping others at a safe distance. It has absolutely no time for relating.

Issue 82 –

Vulnerability: Part 2

The Vulnerable Child

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

Vulnerability is much maligned in our culture. It has been seen as a womanly trait, unworthy of a man or a truly successful and admirable human being. For the more spiritually orientated, it has been viewed as a lack of trust in one’s spiritual commitment, a serious impediment to growth and transformation. To be identified with one’s vulnerability can, indeed, make one a victim to the world.

 

We have all met people who have been identified with their vulnerability. They react with an excess of sensitivity to all situations and are powerless to either protect themselves or to get their needs met appropriately. They are quintessential victims, constantly being hurt or exploited by others. They have no awareness of their own power, therefore they have no power in the world.

 

We do not in any way feel that elevating one’s vulnerability above all other selves is a good idea. However, we will say categorically that for any relationship to remain alive and Intimate, to grow and to deepen, the awareness of one’s vulnerability is absolutely necessary . The aware ego must have at its disposal an awareness of the feelings, perceptions, and needs of the vulnerable child in order to be able to relate to another in a genuinely intimate fashion.

 

It is this child that carries the deepest feelings in our hearts and that can recognise the feelings deep in the hearts of others. It makes a contact that is palpable. It creates a physical warmth between two people that is totally delightful. This child cannot be fooled by words or by reason because it responds directly to energies or feelings. This child is also unbelievably sensitive to the slightest indication of disapproval or abandonment, is likely to react catastrophically to its fears of either.

 

If there is no access to vulnerability, then our lives are dominated by our primary selves that, in turn, are relating to the primary selves of others. We are well protected, but alone. The sadness of this condition was beautifully conveyed in a dream that was told to us rather wistfully at a workshop. “Hal reached into my bag and pulled out a book of poems. He started reading them aloud. I remember thinking that they weren’t mine. This made me feel “safe” but it also made me feel sad. Since my vulnerability wasn’t revealed, he couldn’t disapprove of me – but couldn’t really approve either”.

 

The vulnerable child is the actual self within each of us that carries our emotional reality. It is this child who remembers all of the experiences that have touched us deeply or have caused us great pain. It’s memories are far more complete than those that are usually available to our primary selves. It often has full recall of specific traumatic experiences that have been otherwise repressed.

 

The child will also remember beautiful love filled experiences. Alice’s vulnerable child, for instance, was able to sing the hymns that she had sung years before with a beloved grandmother, long since dead. The loss of this grandmother was so painful, and the reality of living with an emotionally withholding mother was so unpleasant, that Alice’s vulnerable child was completely disowned at the time of her grandmother’s death. A cool, rational, judgemental mother took over, which buried Alice’s vulnerability completely. With this as her primary self, Alice experienced only irritation and discomfort with hymns whenever she heard them and spoke disparagingly of the singers. She took great pains to avoid any contact with what she termed “fundamentalist Christians” and she did not even like Sundays.

 

When we talked to her about disowned selves, Alice was sceptical that she could have disowned anything to do with hymns, the whole matter seemed quite foolish to her. Later, when we then contacted her vulnerable child, the child tearfully reminded Alice of the great peace and happiness that she had experienced as a very young child, when her grandmother played the piano on Sundays and they sang hymns together. Once Alice realised that she had, indeed, disowned something that had to do with hymns, her inner child was in a position to bring back to her some of the lost happiness and warmth of her childhood, the memories of singing with her beloved grandmother. She had also moved from an operating ego dominated by her “judgemental mother” self to a more aware ego that, for the first time, had some access to her inner child.

Issue 81 –

 

Vulnerability: Part 1

The Key to Intimacy in Relationship

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

The Importance of Vulnerability

 

As we have clearly stated in the previous chapter the entire development of personality, or primary selves is aimed at protecting one’s vulnerability.

 

When we discuss falling in love, we will show how the actual act of falling in love allows the vulnerable child, the carrier of this vulnerability, to surface and to make an intense contact with another human being, without the usual protection of these primary selves. This ability to be vulnerable with one another, to allow the emergence of every feeling, thought and reaction, and to cherish all of them, makes the process of falling in love a wonderful experience.

 

It is one’s vulnerability which makes intimacy in relationship possible, and conversely, it is this same vulnerability and apparent lack of power that the primary selves most fear in relationship.

 

Just as it is the inclusion of vulnerability in relationship that allows intimacy, so it is the disowning of this vulnerability that later destroys intimacy.

 

Over the years we have found that in our own relationship and the relationships of those around us, it is disowned vulnerability that is the catalyst of all bonding patterns that, in turn, destroy true intimacy.

When we disown our vulnerable child, we do not attend to it properly. Since it is imperative for this child to receive adequate care, it will look elsewhere and bond into the people around us, requiring them to provide the care that is otherwise lacking. We will not be aware of this process because we do not know about our vulnerability. So, in an entirely unconscious fashion, we’re automatically drawn into powerful parent/child bondings over and over again.

 

Sometimes these bonding patterns feel positive, and sometimes they feel negative. These bonding patterns are of the upmost importance in relationships.

 

How might this denial of vulnerability and subsequent bonding look ?

Let us say that Larry and Lauren are driving to dinner. The night is dark and stormy and the road winds along a cliff. Larry is driving, as usual, but tonight he is tired, the day’s been difficult, and he’s feeling uneasy but does not know why.

 

Larry, however, does not know about his vulnerability and so pushes his feelings of uneasiness down, moving instead into his judgmental father self and becoming more and more critical.

 

He questions Lauren about what she has done during the day and becomes particularly irritable when he discovers that she spent two hours at lunch with a friend.

 

“Why don’t you take care of business, why are you wasting time at lunch when you haven’t finished our tax preparation yet?” he finally shouts at her. And off they go. An evening that was supposed to be a pleasure turns into a miserable affair with both people feeling dreadful, neither knowing what has happened.

 

What actually has happened is that Larry has denied his vulnerability, and his needy child is automatically and unconsciously bonded into Lauren. This child needs her to be taking care of Larry even though Larry is not aware of it.

 

Larry has also bonded to Lauren from his judgmental father, who criticises her for not meeting the needs of this child.

 

How might this be different if Larry were aware of the needs of his child and had some choices of how to behave? Larry would be in touch with his vulnerability, he would know that he was tired and uneasy. He would then be in a position to take some action through an Aware Ego. He might suggest that Lauren drive to dinner so that he could relax, he might suggest that they go someplace close to home, or he might just take the opportunity presented by being in the car alone with her to talk about his unhappiness and exhaustion.

 

In this way he would be dealing directly with the underlying vulnerability and taking responsibility for the care of his own vulnerable child.

 

Caring for this inner child through an Aware Ego gives a feeling of real strength. It represents, in our way of thinking, real empowerment. When the Aware Ego is caring for the vulnerable child, there is no longer the need to rely solely on the automatic protective devices provided by primary selves, even though this has given a sense of security in the past. Nor is there the need to rely on others to assume responsibility for this child.

 

It is important to know that each one of us is ultimately responsible parenting the vulnerable child within. When we are caring adequately for our own vulnerability, we are in a position to relate deeply and effectively to others.

 

When we do not care adequately for our own vulnerable child, it will seek this care elsewhere and bond in deeply and unconsciously to the parental side of others. In order to care for the vulnerable child, we must understand how it operates within us