Kid 101 - part 3

"The real voyage of discovery
consists not of seeking new landscapes,
but of having new eyes”
~Marcel Proust~
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Everything is very simplistic

Notice this. Another difference between a child and an adult, in addition to powerlessness, is that everything in this child’s reality is very simplistic.

A child is on or off, yes or no, black or white, all or nothing, and there’s a simple reason for this. It’s the development of the neurological system in tandem with the access to a variety of experiences, which are limited. So, the child’s experiential world is limited and the neurology is limited. Put those two things together and you have a black and white, simplistic system that gets universalized and extrapolated upon from this itty-bitty corner of black and white. So, you can proceed by understanding that and understanding just these main components.

Ghost Children

What creates a problem for people, that extends into their adult life in such a big way, is usually something incredibly simplistic. The child is not getting something intrinsic that it needs. That’s why it breaks off and becomes this ghost child, so that the rest of the being can go on and hopefully find a way to overcome the problem.


All of the adults that we work with who are dealing with a Kid from the past, have child-parts that basically died. They’re "ghost children". What makes a child want to die, and then actually die (break off from the whole child) is that they recognize that within their environment there is no support for something that is intrinsic to their nature. The child/Kid broke off and died at the point when s/he recognized that one more assault on that place inside of you that required that-intrinsic-something would be so overwhelming that it was possible that the entire being would die. The child/Kid checks out right at that point and takes that intrinsic need with it.

That’s, in a nutshell... the basics of why all of the Kids that we deal with, are ghost children rather than integrated into the being. Because a very important, natural, and intrinsic part of them was not going to be received in their environment. And to have something that is so important to you not recognized and not supported is so painful that you cannot go on, you can’t keep trying. You see, the rebuff, for a child who is powerless, is the equivalent of being run over by a steamroller again and again and again, and you can’t make sense of it.

“Why not? Why can’t I be me? Why don’t you love this about me? Why don’t you think this is important? I think this is important, why don’t you think this is important? There must be something really really awful wrong with me and I’m too stupid to get it.”

That is so painful that continuing to go through that is impossible. So, there’s this little mechanism. It’s kind of like an exit. It’s a little trapdoor; that part moves out and then you can deal with it. You just make that less important. It kind of goes over there and you can forget about it.

It’s very useful for you to see this big picture so that when you get lost in the small picture, (because you get overwhelmed by the Kid's energy coming in and confusing you with his/her brilliance and his/her stratagem) you can get out to the big picture where you can find yourself on the map and notice there are two places to be....Kid or Adult. And then you can make a choice to go to where you are as an adult rather than go to where s/he is, and you once were, as a child.