Fads Sometimes Contain Truth

Quote of the day:
"Much as I resented having to grow up in Des Moines, it gave me a real appreciation for every place in the world that's not Des Moines."
--Bill Bryson

We devour, collect and discard self-help notions about as often as we change cell phones. There is an unfortunate fact that dooms most self-help systems.

In order to sell books, CDs and videos, a self-help system must tell us what we want to hear. If we don’t want to hear it, we won’t buy it. Yet, as all of us know, there is no “easy” way to help ourselves. If we want to change ourselves, some kind of pain, anxiety, depression or some negative emotion will be part of it. So, by telling us what we want to hear, a “successful” self-help system is ensuring that it won’t work.

In spite of this, some of the self-help systems of the last 30 years or so contain nuggets of very useful information. One of these nuggets is John Bradshaw’s notion of the inner child.

This idea continues to be the butt of numerous jokes and put-downs. But it is a useful way to understand ourselves--especially how we react to difficult situations. Somehow, we faced a similar situation as children, and the emotion we had at that time was imprinted on us. This “inner child” comes into our lives unconsciously when we face a tough time. Whether we know it or not, and whether we like it or not.