Carrying a strong child identity, as an adult, is a major cause of negativity. The child identity is basically the “ego” structure that you had when you were a child. A lot of adults carry this “child ego”, or child identity, in them way into their adult lives because they fail to let go of it as they grow up in the physical sense. The presence of a strong child identity, in an adult, leads to a highly dysfunctional adult experience. The adult life has responsibilities that the child-identity is scared of and hence it stands in resistance to allowing a smooth unfolding of your adult experience. Also, this child-identity disallows the presence of an “adult maturity” that’s required as a pre-requisite for the manifestation of several of your desired realities as an adult.
The hall-mark of the presence of a strong child-identity in you is the presence of “childish” fears in the mind. By “childish” fears, I mean the type of fears which are normal to have in a child but are understandably incongruent to be seen in an adult. Such an adult is also prone to child-like guilt (leading to several hang ups in adult life) and is easily influenced by outside authority. An adult who has a strong child identity is constantly scared of moving in the adult world, with all kinds of day to day fears. It’s also common for such adults to constantly seek approval, and emotional support, from the outside without the maturity to be his/her own person.
What makes the child-identity stay back in an adult?
To be a child is a phase of your human life (I would include teenage years also in the child phase). This phase has its own experiences, enjoyments and challenges. Your physical body keeps growing with age and reaches adulthood, but your being can hold on to the child-ego because of its identification with it. So your ego does not develop into an “adult ego” but stays stuck as a child-ego. To face adult life while holding onto your child-ego is a very scary experience – it’s no different from asking an actual child to take care of adult responsibilities. The child-ego perceives life from its childish perceptions, which were okay when you were a child but are totally dysfunctional when you are an adult. Moreover the child-ego is extremely sensitive because it feels insecure (the way you felt as a child), such a sensitivity becomes a huge source of suffering as an adult where you are exposed to all the nuances of physical life.
Some people just naturally grow out of their child identity as they mix into the adult world. But a majority of us cling on to our child identity (in varying amplitudes) way into our adult lives, either because we never feel the need to let go of it or because we are not able to see the dysfunction of it. There comes a point where carrying a child-identity becomes a huge source of resistance to your life movement as an adult, in which case there is a lot of suffering within. Your life force starts moving towards the manifestation of your desired realities as an adult, but your child-identity stands in resistance to this movement, creating huge inner conflicts and emotional suffering. This is why carrying a child identity makes for a highly negative adult experience.
Following are some common reason why an adult clings, or holds on, to the child-identity
– A strong identification with certain stories created in the mind owing to some negative childhood experiences (since your being holds on to fear-based stories more strongly owing to its sensitive nature)
– A lack of adult role models during the growing years of a child. For example, when both parents have a strong child-identity in them the children don’t have a role model to learn this maturity from.
– Identification with the childhood fears in an unconscious manner
– Having a bad opinion of adulthood due to certain negative behaviors seen as a child. For example, a child who sees his/her father being violent/abusive, develops an anger/fear towards being an adult through associating it with insensitivity.
– Fear of losing their innocence (which they associate with their child-ego)
– Growing up in the company of friends, or siblings, who have a strong child-identity
– Under-development of the brain, due to biological reasons, causing the person to lack reasoning/introspection capacities.
Apart from the last reason, all the other reasons can be rectified to let go of holding on to the child-identity by becoming conscious of its presence in you.
Needless to say the presence of a strong child-identity creates a lot of insecurities, anxieties and irresponsible behaviors in an adult. The adult life requires you to take up certain responsibilities which the child-ego is terrified of, this causes a conflicted adult movement in you.
Consciously allowing the child-identity to dissolve
If there is a presence of a strong child-identity in you as an adult, the resistance that it creates to your life movement manifests as a lot emotional suffering created by fear. This fear/suffering is usually the catalyst, or wake up call, for you to become aware of the dysfunction of holding on to this child-identity. Fear is the fire that burns through the child-identity when allowed in fully. As long as you keep running away from fears, you stay stuck in the child-identity, but the moment you allow the fears in completely it burns through the structure of the child-ego. Remember that a child always pushes away from fear, while an adult has the capacity to develop a maturity/awareness to face the fears in, to not run away from fears. Fear is a huge catalyst for inner transformation if you allow it in fully rather than try to run away from it.
Most people who have strong child-identities in them resort to escapist methods as soon as they are faced with fears that come up during their journey into adulthood – they try to deny/escape the fears (usually by drowning themselves in some distractions like entertainment, drugs, alcohol, spiritual escapism etc, in worst cases some even resort to suicide). The child-ego thrives on escapist methods. This “escape mode” of living causes you to live in fear all the time and this fear causes the attraction of some fear-based realities as an external reflection. When you finally decide to stop escaping fears and allow yourself to bring an open awareness to the fears in your being, letting your being be penetrated by the all the fears that arise, it starts dissolving the child-identity in you and what emerges is the mature you (the adult version of you that was always present below the child-identity).
Spiritual literatures have a name for this movement in your life force, where it brings you in touch with realities that create fear in you so that it can burn off the child-identity you are holding onto – it’s called “fierce grace” of life, where it puts you through some fears for your inner growth (Scientifically, you attract these fear-based realities through the presence of the strong vibration of fear that’s present in the child-ego). You reach a point where you can no longer run away from your fears, and hence you just surrender to them, and in this moment the child-identity is dissolved completely. The dissolution of child-identity allows you to live your adult life in a positive manner, allowing you to take up the responsibilities that are required of you in this realm, this maturity also rids you of inner resistance allowing the manifestation of personal realities that you desire as an adult.
Sen,
I am really getting a lot out of your blog and am so happy to have found it; it makes sense to me.
Can you address the subject of expectations and the problems it creates in having them? Is having expectations a symptom of having a child-identity?
Thanks.
The way I define a true adult is someone who is self-sustained in his/her wholeness and is not putting the burden of expectation on someone else to make him/her feel happy/whole/fulfilled. An adult with a strong child-identity is always dependent on others for emotional gratification and is rarely comfortable experiencing his/her inner space in an aloneness – because of the fear of facing the inner conflicts. Unless an awareness is brought into the inner space (which requires you to be alone with yourself quite literally) and the inner fears are allowed to be touched by this awareness, without being put off by the initial discomfort that arises when your awareness touches your fears (which requires an adult like maturity), these fears continue to fuel the child-ego and keep you identified with it. Thanks for suggesting the topic of “expectations”, I may discuss it in the next post or a subsequent post.
so in phase 4 – return of focus, what kind of expectations do u have?
is it simply a state where u have expectations but not being discontent even if it wasn’t fulfilled ?
how do u see expectation in phase 4
U mean to say that if u can confront your fears head on, then in that event your child like behaviour would come to an end?
Confront the fears in your being by allowing them to arise in the space of your awareness without trying to escape/distract yourself from them – such an allowing is only possible in an adult maturity and it causes the child-identity in us (that’s always trying to escape fear) to start dissolving in force.
I have made some huge strides lately with all of this.
The same things seem to come up, though.
I have a hard time trusting when I think I see logic in a situation.
For example, if I meet someone that lives 100 miles away from me, yet wants to date, do I bother? We live too far away to have a close relationship. Let’s say I like this person and compatibility isn’t the issue. The distance is.
My lifestream would urge me to date and see what happens before saying no initially? Being open to my lifestream?
When you are free of the vibration of “neediness” within you, which is rooted in lack-based thinking (where you feel that there is a lack of opportunities to go around and hence feel fearful of losing the limited options your mind perceives) you will not be deciding things from a place of uncertainty and fear but mostly on the basis of what brings you an enjoyable experience in the moment. It’s only out of neediness that we start projecting into the future trying to secure it, instead of just allowing/trusting your life-stream to keep taking you towards incremental manifestations of your desired realities. Decisions are made easily when one is not coming from a needy place but from a place of just allowing what’s enjoyable at this moment – as long as you are dependent on an outside manifestation for the feeling of wholeness, you will be constantly making decisions from a place of insecurity.
If it feels right to you to pursue this relationship, go ahead with it without thinking too far ahead in the future. You should have the wholeness within you to be able to allow any results to come through (trusting that your life-stream has the bigger picture) from the decisions you make in the present.
Thank you. I am slowly getting it and making real progress at this. I think I knew the answer to this before you responded…
Dear Sen,
I have lately experienced some personal realities/desires with joy/peace/love. My awareness and relaxation is most definitely improved but I still feel some resistance. Am I getting too impatient or is this inner child refusing genetically to let go because I still fear people somewhat. Thanks to your enlightenment I still see the need to surrender. But can you give me a better view of people since all my life I misunderstood the view/need of them in my life?
Additionally I’m viewing my spouse differently now and that kinda concerns me. I sense an attraction physically but now I’m wondering how to relate mentally.
Thanks!
T
The release of resistance happens in layers, as the momentum of negativity keeps ebbing away from your space. You will see positive shifts in your reality as this process keeps unfolding, but the point is to reach a place where you sense a permanent anchor in the space of your being. Whatever arises, let it arise and stay allowing of it in a space of open awareness without coming to any hasty conclusions about it. A lot of suppressed emotions can surface and some thoughts of meaninglessness, boredom, dullness about certain aspects of your life (like relationship or career) can also arise – don’t get identified with these thoughts, and just stay as a relaxed awareness to this whole movement – all this is part of the momentum of negativity ebbing away. Once it’s done you will automatically sense a positive focus in your being towards your physical life.
Thanks! Yeah, I’m totally experiencing those surfacing thoughts. Is this also part of the detoxing? I was wondering if my organs could still be releasing stored toxins as well? Before you explained some uncomfortable physical feelings would also come temporarily and they have come and gone, but can stages of that continue to occurred in layers as well? I just experienced a caffeine like high which followed an apparent releasing of negativity and then an even greater release of negativity later? Which I got totally lost in. But got out of faster too!
So when i sense the permanent anchor in the space of my being, anything negative or physical aliments in me and/or that are still in this world and/or from {unenlightened (?) people} ( my next food for thought) will not bother me at all?
Thanks again,
I am getting there,
That is my desire,
Leaving my childhood immaturity,
Yahoo!
T
As you stay open to allowing what arises to arise, staying in a state of relaxed awareness, this process continue to unfold in layers, starting with intense negativities and moving into more and more subtler patterns. It’s true that the as negative momentum keeps ebbing away you will see some very positive changes happening in the body including healing of various diseases & disorders that were manifested in it through resistance, allowing for more bodily wellness. This process continues till it releases all the patterns of negativity that you were holding onto (patterns of self-hatred, lack based thinking, guilts, resentments, hangups and immaturity) – it puts you in touch with the truth in everything and all patterns of thought that are not in integrity with your wholeness is brought to a dissolution (which manifests externally as the dissolving of in-congruent realities). Basically it seeks to bring the vibration of your human consciousness in alignment with your natural vibration of joy/peace/love and it continues deeper and deeper touching all vibrations within you that are not in alignment.
In the place of wholeness you have access to be sensitive to the outside but you are not pulled into any negativity. From this place you will be able to express positivity into any situation that you touch with your awareness.
Yes, my difficulty is trusting my life stream. Which is an unfamilure force thats been standing there all my life!? And I guess the “why” is not important, so I’ve been told? I wish rewiring my brain was easier. It’s like growing up all over again? Im still facing trust issues, I will keep facing them and viewing them as a positive way on my journey towards uninterrupted peace/love/joy. I just dont understand! But learning something foreign Can be a good thing! Why is Change so hard!? Why do i have to have so many layers of negative patterns! its not fare! I feel a hatred for my upbringing. (I know, not good) That’s my immaturity of my inner child coming out cuz I never did good at anything, never enjoyed much and always scared of something. There was no communication growing up and so much was overlooked! Grrrrrrrrr! Go away you mean bad miserable other life! So my parents are yet to be enlightened and they are almost eighty, how sad is that?! I really desire a better future but I hate my past and wish it would go away from all memory! It’s a no wonder I never wanted or had kids! I really have some resistance to let go of huh? I’ve told myself it’s only hurting me, so why keep holding on to negative patterns!? Trusting the unknown is so hard, what if it turns out bad again!..? That can’t happen because the past has been proven, it doesn’t work, so try something else and if that doesn’t work move on! Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere!
How can I just cement in a good and positive attitude and not look back?. You say i will eventually be put in truth of everything so what do i do about not believing so many other things in life? Ex. I won’t repeat anything someone tells me because I question whether its true or not? Grrrrrr! Should I never trust anyone again, find things out for myself…….its just seems like a crazy process.
Thanks again, you truly are making my journey easier! I don’t know why but I’m glad! I hope I will be comfortable in my own skin soon!
T
The past momentum of negativity can ebb away at its own pace, that does not stop you from being aligned with the knowing of your truth and aligning with your life-stream. To just stay dis-identified from the mind (by not showering attention to its negativity) is itself a huge step in the direction of alignment with your life-stream. The pointer for alignment is really simple – if a thought feels bad to you, it means its not in alignment with your life-stream, if a thought feels good to you, it’s an indication that it’s aligned with your life stream – it’s that simple ultimately. Your feeling is your guidance, a good feeling indicates that the action you are undertaking or the thoughts you are thinking are in alignment with your life-stream (thus in the direction of the manifestation of your desired reality). Use your feelings as the truth meter to trust or discard the information you get from outside.
Thanks!
Sen, what about identification with the childhood fears in an unconscious manner? How could we bring these fears into awareness if they are unconscious? I understand about fears that can be felt and known, what about other fears and conditionings from childhood that come from the unconscious, the ones deeply rooted who have a sort of automatic manifestation because they come from a deeper space of consciousness. I have good feelings remembering some aspects of my childhood but it is always the dark memories of a long time illness, physical punishment and than rewards, pain , fear, superstitions and restrictions that seem to steel bring some disturbing emotions in my life as an adult. I think that for some time now I held on that child identity and I didn t know how strong was this influence. Now I want to go back and remember with detachment but there is nothing for me there. All I can see is the low level of awareness in my gradparents that raise me after my parents divorced. I think they didn t know better and I love them, it is nothing to forgive but to understand that it was as it was back than. I grew with all sorts of anxieties (since I was 10 yers old), irational fears and insecure feelings and mostly the guilt. It is the first time I am not trynig to escape them. It is hard but is like I am gaining a certain stability and force instead. Maybe is the force of the adult. But is a certain fear that comes sometimes about not being able to bring into awareness all of it. That is why I asked you about unconscious fears, the subtle ones that can slip sometimes without being seen and who affect your actions, decisions and behavior in adult life. How can we bring everything to awareness and than release everything. And the second question: there is nothing in child identity worth keeping? I think about those fresh eyes, that joy and desire to play with everything, not taking everything so seriously and that inocence of being before all the conditionings. Maybe we keep these things too and they are more in harmony with our lifestream or maybe we have all these positive attitudes still fresh in us as adults with no need to hold the child inside. Maybe we didn t lost anything that it is part of our well being. I am saying this because some spiritual teachers are talking about bringing the child back, the eyes of inocence , the pure state of being. Thank you.
Anca, awareness keeps going “deeper” and unearths all the unconscious patterns that are present in your being – nothing remains hidden. This process of “unearthing” happens in layers, and does not happen over-night, but over time, gradually but steadily. The more openness you have to allow what arises, the faster the unearthing happens – the very movement of awareness is touch everything that’s suppressed, everything that’s in imbalance, everything that’s in delusion, and bring the light of “truth”, wisdom and balance to it. It’s an inevitable movement, all that’s needed is that you be open to allowing what arises in you. The childhood innocence has no real place in the state of “balanced living”, it is replaced by a different form of innocence where you are no longer trying to manipulate anyone/anything but you are not ignorant or naive either, you have a wisdom which is not present in a childhood innocence. The joy of a child mindset is based in delusion-based awe, whereas the joy of an aware individual is based in the sense of the ordinariness of life and the beauty of its ordinariness, and limitations, just as it is (there is no deluded joy anymore). In truth, the dissolution of child-identity dissolves its mindset entirely, including its innocence, and it’s replaced by the “aware mindset” which has its own dynamics of innocence, wisdom and balance.
this is all great help. im 24, still live with my parents and with my 5 year old…trying so hard to be a more grown up role model for her.
I heard somewhere that now we should consider ourselves 10 years younger, by reason of society being differently and our maturity enfolding differently. I just don’t consider a 24 year old an “adult.” I definitely say, that I, at 32 am an adult now and this problem is mine. However, trying to force your adult ego in your twenties will not be good. You still have child in you and perhaps a way to help the child ego cool down is by letting it get some more satisfying experiences in while also exposing yourself to adult maturity.
Nina – this may be true on the material level but is inversely true on the conscious level. In other words, while people are now maturing a lot later from the material perspective of work-life, family-life, social-life etc. they are maturing far faster on the conscious level. I meet so many teens and pre-teens today who have a depth of inner maturity and perspective that I only had in my later twenties. And if I look at my own life, I am far more conscious an individual in my 30’s than my parents ever were even though on the surface they seemed to “have their material life in order’ better than I do. So its all a matter of perspective.
Part of the reason for this inverse relation may be the fact that the the values we uphold in society of what is the right and wrong way to live life often directly contradicts what we know to be true in our inner selves. And so while the laws of this world may demand that we conform, obey and follow in a predictable manner our inner compass directs us to be individual, to express and to act with spontaneity. And so the youth become more and more conscious and begin to adhere to these inner principles, they simultaneously also begin to appear less ‘worldly’. The inward focused mind always needs more time to find its bearings.
Remember, there was a time when 13 year old kings were leading armies and conquering nations and girls at the age of 11 were running entire households.
Should we simultaneously stop behaving like a child as well. For example, if we have a childish personality and a child like sense of humour, should we let that go as well while at the same time man up and face obstackes head on?
Thanks for the beneficial post, Ive been facing intense fear of adulthood lately thats been putting me in slight depression. Its hard when you are not used to being disciplined and well organised type of person so its a harsh reality to suddenly face.
Layla, childhood is a phase free of responsibility mostly because you are not really held responsible for most of your actions, and you can get away with anything (you can see how juvenile laws allow a juvenile to even get away with murder). However a child also lacks a freedom in terms of the freedom to live life in his/her own terms, there is a dependence on the adult for survival and other needs, along with a certain lack of brain/body development that’s needed to provide a resourceful contribution. As an adult you have the freedom to live independently based your own choices (if you choose to exercise this freedom), but it also comes at the cost of you having to stand on your own shoes in terms of earning your living through your contribution or work. Adulthood allows for the experience of responsibility and self sustenance, it’s just that some of us are not willing to explore it fully and keep trying to stay with our old patterns that we exhibited/enjoyed as a child. Of course adulthood comes with its own challenges, especially the challenge of making choices and being your own person, and the challenge of being responsible for contribution and support (of elements dependent on you), but this challenge can be enjoyed for the growth experience that it provides. The fear of adulthood is simply the child-momentum that’s afraid of the new territory, the new experience – eventually you can make the choice to let go of being identified with this past momentum of child identity and move forward towards embracing the challenges that adulthood avails, and as you become open to this growth you can see that adulthood has its own charm and enjoyment, and the challenges are a part of it. An adult can enjoy life as an adult in terms of exploring adult experiences, there is no real need to keep reiterating the same child-identity based experiences – change may look scary but it’s always an adventure when you are open to explore the opportunities that it brings.