rebellion

The Inner Child – Healing and Healer

by Marc Itzler

 

When I connect with my inner child, seeking to heal and grow, I sometimes wonder, who is really doing the healing? Am I saving my inner child or is he saving me?

Have the skills, resilience, and experience that I have gained as an adult, come at the cost of childhood’s long-lost qualities?

Qualities like Spontaneity, courage, wonder, trust, and curiosity. The thirst to learn and experience new things. A purity of spirit, sensing life as an enchanted and magical experience. These all still exist within the deepest part of my being, my uninhibited and unrepressed self. In connecting to my inner child, I am looking not just to reassure and reconnect with what may be a lot of fear and repressed emotions but also, to reconnect with the wonderful simplicity of being a child and bringing that essence into my adult life.

I was never a ‘difficult’ child. I was not a troublemaker, but I was a rebel.  I questioned authority and power, even when, with great resistance, I would comply with demands and instructions.

I would do as I was told, eventually, but often my inner disagreement remained. In school, I was excellent at subjects I enjoyed, but crap at those that I found too demanding or simply boring. I would confront teachers and staff without hesitation if I felt that I was being called out for irrelevant or pedantic issues like school uniform or losing interest in their mind-numbingly boring classes.

Perhaps, being raised by very alternative thinking parents, instilled in me a sense that the whole education thing was about conditioning me to become a pawn in society’s game and was something to be wary of, something to push back against, to preserve my natural dignity as a perfect being. I don’t know.

What I do know is that it did not win me many friends. In fact, I suffered chronic bullying all through my school career, due to my being an unusual type of person, with a different take on life, living in a fairly provincial, small-minded environment.

I have always loved my rebellious nature. It feels intrinsic to me, something that I brought with me into the world. I did not learn it or cultivate it. It is a part of what I am. Honestly, I have always had this feeling that I am somehow meant for greatness. Destined for something meaningful and important. For better or worse it has had me on occasion, act with an entitlement and audacity that can leave those around me a bit shocked. I’m not saying that I am special, but somehow I act as if I am. I admit it, I fancy myself big time and yes, I have come down crashing on many occasions. I have to really work at accepting criticism and often fail, especially if I feel judged as well. But at the source of that is a strong energy. A force of wisdom and understanding within me, my inner child is not going to take any nonsense and I love him so much for that because, often he did have to take it and just put up with being abused, accused and targeted.

Born of this innate quality, there has arisen in me a realization; an understanding that has changed my inner state, more than any practice, epiphany or insight ever has. It takes the form of an intention. A statement. I have decided that I am through with feeling scared about life. Yes, I learned to feel fear as a child but I also learned to find courage in the challenges of youth.

As a ten-year-old, I remember the first time I jumped from the highest diving board at my local swimming pool.  I recall having to mentally force one foot in front of the other as I slowly approached the edge of the board, looking down at the water and just freezing with fear. It was so much higher from up there. My heart thumping, feeling totally petrified. One half of me frantically trying to find a way to back out without looking a coward in front of my friends, the other half knowing that this challenge was actually doable and that I would survive.

I had to do it. But how could I gather the courage?  In the end, it came down to a moment – a single moment of commitment. I had to push myself to go beyond the point of no return and just trust.  With my toes touching the edge and looking down at the distant water, I knew that all I needed was to feel strong enough and brave enough for just one second in time. One instant to change everything!

Forcing myself forward, fighting against my survival reflex, I jumped.  Dropping… gasping in as I pinched my nose shut.

I slammed into the water, a chaotic bomb of bubbles and noise. I sank all the way to the bottom, pushed off and headed back up. The moment I surfaced, fear was replaced with an elation and empowerment that only comes with a major victory against a perceived limitation. Almost like a birth – a new part of me.  A released capacity, a new self-appreciation. The realization that I can do this thing and from now on, I will always be able to do this thing!

That memory and many others from my childhood and teenage years have helped me to understand more about how fear moves in my life today. How it affects the choices I make and the consequences of those decisions. It has become such an essential tool for breaking out of my comfort zone.

Marc and his son Jerome aged seven

So I cultivate and encourage this two-way relationship within me. As much as I seek to heal that young boy, I also seek his counsel, his courage and together we push through our barriers. It is not a denial of fear, nor a delusion that I have no fear but more of a joyful rebellion. It’s a bit like calling the bluff on the automatic fear response. When it comes, I immediately connect with the boy.  I reassure him that all is well. I talk to him with tenderness and love, never criticizing, never judging, just loving and accepting. Then my inner child gets his face on. He steps up and says, “Is that all you’ve got?  Bring it on!

Continue reading “The Inner Child – Healing and Healer” →

From Seriousness To Sincerity. JoinThe Laughing Rebellion!

by Marc Itzler

Do we have to be angry to have strong feelings?  Do we have to be upset to show that we care about the madness of the world?  And do we have to inhibit our humour and joy, to show that something is really important to us?

This tension, this apparent contradiction in our lives, when we feel the pain of those suffering, both around us and in distant lands, and yet we know, that to dive into that space, makes us feel dark and contracted, heavy and negative. We feel guilt and shame and frustration.  So we look away, we scroll down or we switch off and get on with our lives. But inside, we still care, we still ache.

It is only human to feel empathy, to go into an experience of another’s pain, in order to know it and be there for them. It is a loving act but, it also feels like it spreads the pain out. It expands the very suffering that we anguish over.

This vicious cycle can be so overwhelming, that many of us choose to avoid or ignore the reality of life as it is for us as a global village, as a species, sharing our beautiful little blue ball hanging in infinite space. It’s just too much to let it all in. The corruption, the cruelty and torture, the suffering and the despair of our fellow humans and creatures of this paradise.

We struggle to even work out how we got to this point, let alone where we go from here.

What we do know is that we are in a serious situation.

But are we served by making that state of affairs our state of being?  Is our seriousness actually empowering us?  Or does it send us into a state of collapse, of defeat, of resignation?

How can we not cry tears of sorrow?  How can we not hang our heads in despair?

When we face our greatest fears, the loss of our life or the lives of our loved ones, the loss of our liberty or maybe even worse, the loss of our very hope, then what are our choices? Where is our power?

What happens if, at that moment, we decide to let go of seriousness and yet, remain deeply sincere in our truth?  What if we can stare fear in the face….and begin to laugh, really laugh, to know that at our deepest core we see the truth and choose to remain free?

Laughter is so often seen as a lack of capacity to understand the gravity of a situation.

It’s frivolous, it’s selfish, it’s a sign that you’re not getting it!

But when we really try to understand laughter, when we get real about what laughter and a sense of humour actually is, then we begin to see that it is, in its purest form, the greatest expression of understanding that we have. Laughter is our bodies reaction to a moment of ultimate clarity, it is how we express the recognition of truth itself. It is what makes satire both deeply funny and deeply moving all at once.

This is because laughter is Intelligence! It is the ultimate expression of rebellion!

A rebellion against guilt, against shame and self-doubt. A rebellion against fear itself.

A rebellious person is a dangerous person. Dangerous to the system, to the status quo. They will not be easily controlled and they will not be easily silenced.

Un-hindered by the fear of condemnation and judgment, the rebel is not playing by the book.  Not keeping to the script.  A rebel will laugh in the face of their own fear, even their own demise. But an intelligent and awakened rebellious and joyful person is always, always sincere!  They are led and guided by a bigger picture, a bigger perspective. and that creates an immense freedom. The laughing rebel lives a liberated life. They live an authentic life and a life of courage and truth. Laughter relaxes us, it unites us, it connects us and it heals us.

That is why we must move from seriousness to sincerity. From emotional enslavement to personal power, where we can care, more than ever before!

We can desire and fight for justice, equanimity, and dignity for us all and we can stand strong against the headwind of corruption, against the mass insanity and indoctrination, that would have us on our knees in a state of futility, worn out by the sheer size of the challenge.

The dark forces of this world want us to take it all very seriously.

When we are serious, we are open to their message of hate and division. Open to the script of tribalism, nationalism, religious separation and isolation. When we are serious, we are open to dis-ease and disinformation. We can be controlled because seriousness is fear. It is blind faith and blind action.  The serious and scared are easy to control. They are easy to manipulate and indoctrinate.

So if we want to be a part of creating a new world, a new way of living, then we have to renounce seriousness and embrace the power of humour and laughter as a force of vision, of perspective and as an expression of our true authentic being.

Laughter is the expression of this powerful state. It is the manifestation of our deepest truth. That is what the sages and great mystics of history have always taught. Laugh in the face of fear, celebrate, dance and sing in gratitude because that generates power and conviction in ourselves, it engenders individual thought and values and right now, more than sorrow, more than sympathetic sadness, this world needs sincere, laughing, courageous rebels!