Ya gotta GROW UP!

When I was a young actor in San Francisco, I was in a very touchy-feely navel-grazing-ish acting class based on the Lee Strasberg method acting school and a little more. The class not only worked a lot with sense memory exercises, and being in the moment, but also with exploring why we, the actor, did what we do in real life, what our "blockages" were and finding out where unhealthy or destructive patterns came from.

It was a real life-changer for me. I was young, in a new place, newly graduated, eager to prove myself and my defenses were tissue thick. I learned a lot about myself. I learned that being a soft and sensitive woman was not a weakness of mine, but a strength. It is amazing to me now, but that was a HUGE breakthrough in how I deal with life.

After about a year and a half though, I felt stuck, and left the class. The issue was dealing with our "inner child." This concept for self exploration and a whole school of therapy was first made popular by John Bradshaw in his book "Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child" in the late 1980s-early 90s and is still in use in some therapy circles today. The theory goes that inside of each adult, there is a little, vulnerable child who needs nurturing from all the ways your childhood was lacking or damaged or traumatized. (Hint: it's usually your parents' fault. Oh, joy.)

This is my inner child. Be nice to her, she is from Ohio.

There are some valid and exciting things to discover with doing this sort of exploration. You can remember where some negative beliefs or reactions have their roots, you can look at old hurts from a grown up perspective, and learn where it effected you and why they happened. If you get to that point, you can grow from there, change bad patterns, acknowledge and forgive mistakes made by yourself and others, and move on.

The problem is, for a lot of therapists (or touchy-feely acting instructors,) the exploration is so lucrative and can be made so mind-bogglingly complicated, that the solution step of learning from the inner child is either not revealed or not encouraged for years and years. Acknowledgement, forgiveness and perspective does not seem to weigh in soon enough.

The follower of this particular form of therapy can easily get stuck in resentment, helpless frustration, and a culture of victimhood.

The concept of exploring the "inner child" it is laudable that it gives a person working through issues a way to understand the basis of where their decisions came from in a non-threatening manner (i.e. the parents always disciplined by shaming and hitting and yelling and this effected how you saw yourself) but it is too easy to make a false connections (i.e. so you started drinking and became a drug addict and it is THEIR fault!). How you were raised is one thing, what you did with the baggage was NOT their choice in your life, but your own.

It is comforting, but false to make your own destructive choices someone else's doing.
It assumes that you have no free will, and your life was never your own.
Ultimately, it stunts your ability to see that change is up to you, and fixing things is up to you and not in someone else's power.
Blaming never fixed a problem.
Taking responsibility, plotting a course of action and following through fixes problems.

In regular life or in the development of an actor's craft, stagnation is not going to lead to a successful outcome. Growth and freedom cannot be claimed by hiding from change or self-actualization. And wallowing with your "inner child" instead of learning from it will not help you move forward.

In the end, being an adult means being responsible for how you are raising yourself.