Vol. 36 No. 16 - I AM the Witness

Vol. 36 No. 16 - I AM the Witness - April 18, 1993

I AM the Witness

My Therapy with Cathryn Taylor

Dear Mother,

After nearly ten years of staff service, I left the ranch on December 10, 1992. El Morya advised me to be in group and individual therapy for six months. Three days after I left, he gave a dictation that was subsequently published in the Pearls of Wisdom (vol. 35, no. 68). On the last page of the Pearl was the Bonding Prayer to his heart. I remembered your teaching that the reason we could not experience the bonding with El Morya or Jesus was that the inner child, or soul, was separated from the loving inner adult, fashioned in the image of the Holy Christ Self.

I contacted Cathryn Taylor, author of The Inner Child Workbook. The events that unfolded certainly were not just coincidences: Cathryn’s publisher does not give out author phone numbers but did for me. Her phone recorder is usually on, but when I called from Montana she answered and I arranged to meet with her the following week in California. She normally would not allow new entrants to her class (a combination of individual and group therapy) but because there was a Christmas break she allowed me to catch up to three months of prior work. The remainder of the class would be six months (ending on my birthday), and she had no intention of leading this length of a class again. El Morya had left many clues!

My first meditation was visualizing my Higher Power and inner adult going to an empty movie theater to view a scene from the past. I saw El Morya sitting in the row before me. I recognized the turbaned Master by his Zen comments. Wow! What a boost to start inner child work with the father’s kind attention in reviewing my past!

Although Cathryn is highly skilled, she believes she is not the healer; the healer is one’s Higher Power. She strongly opposes a sympathetic tie to the therapist. As a facilitator, she merely teaches lifetime tools to “process” emotions–that is, to resolve one’s psychology. She recognizes that we have to strengthen our tube of light (she calls it the “cylinder of light”) and go vertically to our Higher Power to meet our needs, rather than horizontally to others.

The term codependent was coined for those addicted to being caretakers of alcoholics. But, by definition, codependency is meeting one’s needs horizontally, so many people have this problem.

Most encounter groups engage people horizontally by having participants give feedback to each other’s emotions. In our group, we each stayed within our own tube of light because each person must ultimately rely on his own Higher Power and inner adult to process emotions. Being within our tube of light, we can make the choice as to whether we want to act out our desires or whether we want to set a boundary.

I, as well as others, had fears about being exposed in a group setting. However, we all found that a camaraderie develops because whatever one’s background is, growing up has its similarities–whether one was abandoned, hated by one’s schoolmates, or fell into drug addiction to avoid coping. Group work helps one to open up and receive support.

We learned of each developmental stage: infant, toddler, young inner child, grade-school child, young teen, adolescent and young inner adult. One exercise was for each group member to isolate and express an internal criticism such as “I’ll never succeed because I’m fat and ugly.” Then the others in the group would take turns saying it, and the person would have to counter it each time. Week after week, we challenged and defused the internal dialogue. As El Morya said in his December 13 dictation, “You may have forgiven, been forgiven and shaken hands,...but the hurt must be gone and the impressions it has made upon you.” Cathryn explains that although the inner adult may have forgiven others, the inner child may not have.

Early on, I became stuck in therapy, stuck in the mud. Did I want change bad enough to get out? You can be weighed down by bitterness or a lack of forgiveness and not see the end result of therapy as becoming a new person. Thus, you won’t work on your key issues and won’t reveal your deepest pains to another. In one of my meditations, I found that the dweller-on-the-threshold did not want to lose control, which would happen if the inner child and the inner adult were to connect and take control.

Having come out of the mud, I began each week to write out a list of issues and make the calls to El Morya and Lanello to help me. When I couldn’t think of anything to write, I would become anxious. But once I was in my session, the most glaring problem would surface. The Masters never failed me and would also lead me regularly to study a certain book or movie. And perhaps this daily tuning-in to El Morya helped me to get to know him. The I AM Presence also directs the healing. I noticed that each week situations would come up in our lives that would trigger issues for the particular childhood stage we were working on.

Week after week, burned bridges between the inner adult and inner child were reconstructed, so that later this inner connection became instantaneous. As I began to reparent the inner child, El Morya appeared in my childhood stages as the protector. In my meditations I saw him rebuke my parents, remove me from a dangerous scene, and so on. I often wept as I came to know him as my new father.

Surprisingly, I found that my inner teenager carried scars from not finding the Path. Jesus went to India as a teenager, but my teenager had her idealism crushed when life taught that the Guru was nowhere to be found (or that the twin flame was not to be found).

In inner child work, the inner adult seeks out the abandoned child and reparents him. Both grieve one’s past, and the loving inner adult dismisses the unloving inner adult, who was created through experiences with one’s parents. I found that my three most significant problem areas were shame, low self-esteem and anger.

The shameful sense of “not being good enough” leaves one feeling helpless, defective and unlovable. I have felt shame just looking into the eyes of El Morya in his portrait. The inner adult may see El Morya as loving but the inner child, who carries shame, feels unworthy.

When the inner child’s need is not met, it will meet it subconsciously by engaging in disobedient or self-destructive behavior. Once an unwanted act has been committed, it is the adult who suffers the shame. Shame manifests in a destructive cycle along with compulsive/addictive behavior. Inner child work gives us tools to stop that cycle, heal and transform our shame.

Continuing to shame ourselves about a past event reflects anger toward God. We don’t allow God to forgive us. Cathryn gave us exercises to clear up the constant self-criticisms. However, some shames are so deep that only our Higher Power can heal them, and one can be guided to clear these also.

I found that low self-esteem comes from the repression of feelings. When you don’t acknowledge and deal with your bad feelings, you don’t acknowledge your good ones either; then you feel increasingly worthless.

In my meditations, I saw a cobra coming out of my solar plexus. I called to Archangel Michael and he removed it. Then a black magician appeared. Low self-esteem is like an open wound. Dark forces occupy that hole in your aura until the Archangels come to heal it.

We disown ourselves by denying our feelings and not respecting the voice of the inner child. As I began to uncover my emotions, I found that I would not become angry when I should have at an injustice. I was unable to express anger in the moment but carried it inside of myself so that later a small incident would trigger repressed anger. As El Morya said in his December 13 dictation, “Your unloving inner adult may contain it [and unleash it upon just about anyone].” Repressed anger is anger toward God, whether it manifests as a livid rage or suicidal depression.

I had come full circle to understanding El Morya’s message on anger against God! I saw the necessity to tackle it now so that I would not miss the ascension and have to face this anger in subsequent embodiments. El Morya said, “Thus, beloved ones, in the matter of unconscious anger and your dealing with it, I would suggest that when you are far enough along in your group or individual therapy, far enough along in the healing of your inner child, you tackle this.”

It indeed did take a qualified therapist to help unleash that anger. One should not just express anger to others. It can be released through inner child techniques. Additionally, one needs to give the call for the binding of the dweller-on-the-threshold and lots of violet flame.

For three weeks I was assigned to some exercises in which I felt I was literally pulling out the repressed anger. I remembered El Morya’s words: “You will not transmute it if you do not let it go.” For me, this anger was the cause of my passivity and physical and mental problems. At some point in childhood I gave up dealing with my anger. El Morya said, “[Your failure to deal with anger] is an avoidance tactic....It is the soul’s responsibility to deal with her own reaction to what has been done to her.” Now, as I am strengthening my loving inner adult, I am learning to deal with it!

No doubt El Morya saw the end from the beginning. Overcoming this anger allows one to begin taking responsibility for oneself, the Church and the education of the youth.

Although this work is serious, our group had a lot of fun too. We pretended we were two-year-olds throwing temper tantrums, acted out being at a slumber party, blew bubbles in the park...and came to love each other fondly.

Each person can discover as I have that the bonding of the soul to El Morya’s heart is possible not only because it is God’s will but because it is El Morya’s will.

In gratitude,

The Inner Child Workbook by Cathryn Taylor is available through Summit University Press.

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