Would you abandon a child?

This morning the Arizona Republic captured a disturbing story about a 14-year-old Iowa girl abandoned in a Nebraska hospital.

It's a mirror of many others, including a father who recently surrendered 9 of his 10 children (ages 1 to 17) at Creighton University Hospital. His wife had died, and he could no longer cope with the burden of raising them. The oldest child was not abandoned.

Officials have attributed such events to the misuse of "Safe Haven" laws, intended to prevent infanticide and babies being left to die in trash dumpsters or elsewhere. All 50 states but District of Columbia have adopted these laws, which can unfortunately have unintended consequences in these hard economic times.

In the Creighton University Hospital case, other family members were upset about not being asked for help before surrendering the children. For whatever reason, the father felt he had nowhere else to turn but the hospital.

I can imagine what the teens and children might feel as their parents walk out the door. Fear, grief, anger, shame, guilt, and more are probably in the parents too. It's also easy to judge the "abandoners", especially when we're ignoring something in ourselves.

Ho'oponopono (which means "to correct errors") posits our having a "subconscious" inner child part, the Unihipili. Housed here are all our emotions, instincts, and body functions, as well as memories that have collected for eons. Imagine how ponderous all this can become, layer upon layer, tangled with so many others' memories too. Ho'oponopono offers a means of unraveling this.

In both live and tele-seminars, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len often relates that most of us have abandoned our inner child countless times. We do this not realizing that far from being a burden, it contains the energy of manifestation for the rest of our being. Our inner child has been neglected, abused, and unloved for generations. Perhaps in our busy adult lives, we don't even acknowledge its presence. From all of this, it suffers.

Not surprisingly, this neglect has consequences. We may live our lives severed from from our deepest strengths. Our inner child contains not only our pain, but also potential solutions; it has a direct connection with the spiritual part of us, the Aumakua. And this is always in perfect balance and synchrony with Divinity.

Who among us wouldn't want to be in synch with Divinity?

Dr. Hew Len has shared his morning routine of sitting on the floor talking with his inner child about how things are going, and what's coming up later in the day. He educates it about the "cleaning" tools he uses to dissipate age-old repetitive data showing up as current problems. As he does this, he believes his child learns to clean on his own.

"I talk to my child, and tell it 'I love you," he says. The key is in letting it fall in love with you; in love, it will work with you rather than cause more chaos. "When I sometimes have a back ache," says Dr. Hew Len, "I say to my inner child, 'We're experiencing this back pain now. Can we please let go?" It's all a part of his daily Ho'oponopono practice.

Though Ho'oponopono is much older, there's a whole genre of psychotherapy aimed at "inner child work". It's highly applicable for anyone experiencing trauma, abuse or neglect in one's life. Many therapists attend to these aspects in what they're already doing.

Through a warm, connected relationship and dialogue with one's inner child, the inner child may also help us avoid problems -- if we listen! In an interview with Cat Saunders , Dr. Hew Len tells a story:

"The Unihipili can be really fun. One day I was coming down the highway in Hawaii. When I started to head toward the usual off-ramp, I heard my Unihipili say in a singing voice, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you." I thought, "But I always go there." Then when we got closer, about fifty yards away, I heard, "Hello! I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" Second chance. "But we always go down there!"

Now I'm talking out loud and people in cars around me are looking at me like I'm crazy. About 25 yards away, I hear a loud, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you!" I went down there, and I sat for two and a half hours. There was a huge accident. Couldn't move back, couldn't move forward. Finally, I heard my Unihipili say, "Told you!" Then it wouldn't talk to me for weeks! I mean, why talk to me if I wasn't going to listen?"

After many years of neglect, some people experience difficulty connecting with their inner child. Patience and loving attitudes are needed, as a good-enough parent might hold. If we haven't had healthy previous examples for this, we may benefit from additional training, therapy, or coaching. Hence "inner child work", or learning Ho'oponopono can help.

Interested in further information about caring for -- rather than abandoning -- your own inner child? The downloadable recording of a 7/15/08 tele-seminar with Dr. Hew Len and Mabel Katz tells more. You're welcome to click here to purchase it.

Peace begins with me,
Pam

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