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Chapter 3: Dumping Negative Garbage
Growing Down:Tools for Healing the Inner Child
By: James J. Messina, Ph.D. and Constance G. Messina, Ph.D
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I. What negative garbage needs to be dumped in order for you to grow down in a healthy way?
You need to dump any or all of the following garbage of emotions, feelings, and attitudes in order to grow down in a healthy way.
A. The garbage of abuse
The anger, pain, and hurt from childhood experiences of being abused physically, emotionally, verbally, or sexually.
B. The garbage of neglect
The confusion, resentment, chip on the shoulder, the nurture neediness of being emotionally and/or physically neglected in your childhood.
C. The garbage of invisibility
The numbness, lack of focus, fear, insecurity, and lack of trust from being ignored and isolated from others as a result of being invisible to others in your childhood.
D. The garbage of violation of boundaries
The anger, resentment, defensiveness, mistrust and guardedness of having your emotional and/or physical boundaries violated and/or ignored as a youth.
E. The garbage of disassociation of feelings
The confusion of not being able to label your feelings about past or present experiences in your life due to the survival mechanism of disassociation from the painful, humiliating, offensive, abusive, painful violations you experienced in your early life.
F. The garbage of sick family life
The myriad irrational, unhealthy, sick beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, emotions, feelings, behaviors, and actions which were the result of your being raised in a dysfunctional, sick and emotionally unhealthy family. Laying the Foundation by James J. Messina, Ph.D. explores the full range of issues resulting from being raised in a dysfunctional family.
G. The garbage of being overcriticized
The defensive emotional and attitudinal barriers you have set up to defend against the barrage of criticism, non-reinforcement and negativity you received in your formative years.
H. The garbage of loss
The emotional turmoil from recognizing the magnitude of the losses in your life which are a result of being raised in a dysfunctional family, losing a healthy childhood, losing a fantasy family life, losing loved ones to death and/or addiction and/or mental illness. Tools for Handling Loss by James J. Messina, Ph.D. explores these issues fully.
I. The garbage of being unloved
The pervasive sense of never being loved or accepted unconditionally for who you are but rather feeling that no matter what you did it never was "good enough'' for others to love and accept you.
J. The garbage of anger
In Tools for Anger Workout by James J. Messina, Ph.D. the many faces of anger are explored. They include: rage, hatred, revenge, resentment, hostility, sarcasm, cynicism, pessimism, jumping to negative assumptions, silent withdrawal, depression, self-destructive behaviors and passive aggressiveness.
K. The garbage of control
In Tools for Handling Control Issues by James J. Messina, Ph.D. the many faces of control are fully explored. They include: intimidation, manipulation, the need to fix, caretaker behaviors, powerlessness, overdependency, helplessness, suicide, and survival behaviors.
L. The garbage of unhealthy relationships
Tools for Relationships by James J. Messina, Ph.D. covers the issues in unhealthy relationships which include: conflict, barriers, problem solving, rejection, need for approval, victimhood and martyrdom, power and control, competition, lack of intimacy, fantasy relationships, lack of forgiveness, and forgetting and lack of clarity of goals.
M. The garbage of low self-esteem
In Tools for Personal Growth by James J. Messina, Ph.D. the issues arising from low self-esteem are explored. They include: guilt, lack of trust, insecurity, vulnerability, inability to be a risk taker, disabling fear, fear of failure, fear of success, perfectionism, pride, lack of patience, lack of spirituality, lack of personal responsibility, high levels of stress, burnout and inability to have fun.
N. The garbage of poor communications
In Tools for Communications by James J. Messina, Ph.D. the elements of unhealthy communications are explored which include: over content-oriented, ignoring of feelings, lack of empathy, lack of understanding, poor responsivity, and lack of healthy problem solving.
O. The garbage of the struggle
Recognizing that recovery is a lifetime project can result in anger, rage, and despair. The recovery lifestyle as outlined in The SEA's Program Manual by James J. Messina, Ph.D. recognizes that you must always be prepared for relapse in your life. This reality can be a stimulus for negativity and loss of hope unless it is dealt with in a rational manner.
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II. How do you dump garbage?
You can dump the garbage which prevents you from growing down and healing your inner child by:
- Anger workout.
- Overcoming blocks to anger.
- Overcoming depression.
- Eliminating hostility, sarcasm, and cynicism.
- Overcoming pessimism and negativity.
- Overcoming hatred.
- Eliminating resentment.
- Eliminating silent anger withdrawal.
- Eliminating revenge.
- Eliminating rage.
- Stopping self-destructive anger responses.
- Overcoming irritations.
- Eliminating passive aggressiveness.
- Handling angry confrontations.
All of these are described in the fifteen chapters of Tools for Anger Workout by James J. Messina, Ph.D.
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III. What forms of anger workout assists growing down?
You can dump garbage for growing down by the following anger workout:
Step 1: Identify the type of garbage which is hindering your growing down and the healing of your inner child.
Step 2: Accept that you are angry that this garbage is holding you back.
Step 3: Name the garbage and visualize this mess on a weight bag which is either seated on a chair or hanging from a ceiling hook.
Step 4: Begin to beat the identified garbage with a “growing-down garbage-dumping bat” and yell out and scream all the anger, hatred, disgust, and bile you can so as to dump this garbage from your soul, mind, heart, and body.
Step 5: Once you feel energized and are no longer able to dump, conclude your garbage dumping for the time being, recognizing that some form of garbage dumping will be a lifelong process.
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IV. What are some useful tips for garbage dumping?
Garbage-dumping tip 1: Get angry at behaviors and attitudes of people so as not to stay angry at the people.
Garbage-dumping tip 2: The purpose of anger workout is to grow in self-esteem, self forgiveness, and the ability to forgive people even if you are not ever able to fully forgive their unforgivable behaviors.
Garbage-dumping tip 3: Yell, scream, ventilate your emotions. Emotional release energizes your inner child's healing powers.
Garbage-dumping tip 4: Crying is a silent anger workout. It hinders the healing process. Cry at first but get ready to convert it eventually to vocalization for a good healthy emotional dump.
Garbage-dumping tip 5: It isn't pretty to dump all this emotional garbage so dress appropriately.
Garbage-dumping tip 6: Dump this garbage in your own space; don't ever dump it on people. No one deserves to have your garbage dumped on them.
Garbage-dumping tip 7: Use all of the Tools-for-Coping Series books by James J. Messina, Ph.D., to help you identify the issues to be dumped.
Garbage-dumping tip 8: Schedule a dump session at least daily for the first thirty days of your efforts at growing down so that this garbage doesn't interfere with your inner child healing efforts.
Garbage-dumping tip 9: Use your heart, feelings, emotions, and gut in the dumping. Get out of your head. Try not to rationalize why you shouldn't be angry. Remember growing down is emotional release work and not intellectual fertilizer spreading.
Garbage-dumping tip 10: Full recovery and healing of your inner child requires that you take up the cause or case of your inner child and need to dump all the garbage which has kept your inner child lost, hidden, ignored, abandoned, and isolated from you.
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V. How do you make a growing-down, garbage-dumping bat?
Materials needed: old newspapers, a role of transparent plastic packing tape, scissors.
Procedure: Roll up a newspaper into a bat and then use the tape to secure the rolled up paper. Keep wrapping the rolled up paper bat until it is fully secure. Be sure to tape the ends of the bat well. Make several of these rolled up paper bats since you have got so much garbage to dump over the next thirty days that you'll need several of these bats to accomplish the initial major dump. Make the bats on an as-needed basis after the first thirty days.
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