When we venture into the unknown, balance is key. … Well, important! Credit: Giacomond by Quint Buchholz
Having been reminded yesterday of the mind’s ability to divide itself into parts, sides, or voices, (1) I identified three persistent voices that were key in forming my everyday life experience.
I’ll use Eric Berne’s terms for them: a child, parent, and adult ego or consciousness state. Berne explains:
“‘That is your Parent’ means: ‘You are now in the same state of mind as one of your parents (or a parental substitute) used to be, and you are responding as he would, with the same posture, gestures, vocabulary, feelings, etc.’
“‘That is your Adult’ means: ‘You have just made an autonomous, objective appraisal of the situation and are stating these thought-processes, or the problems you perceive, or the conclusions you have come to, in a non-prejudicial manner.’
“‘That is your Child’ means: ‘The manner and intent of your reactions is the same as it would have been when you were a very little boy or girl.'” (2)
In this regard, the Arcturians have said two things in readings that relate to the formation of my sensitivity to criticism and blame:
“Because you were to work with Ascension, you were called upon to create a reality in which you went to the depths of the depths [with your Father] while you also experienced great love [from your Mother].” (3)
“You’ve been trained since childhood to hear the faintest whisper of darkness.” (4)
This resonates with me. My child’s discouragement and my critical parent are strong. I have both recordings. (5) I have to emerge from both.
This morning I awoke at 6:00 AM, telling myself that I should get up (parent ego state). I wanted to sleep more and so felt guilty and dismayed (child ego state).
But this was the first time I’ve ever woken up and seen the dynamic of a guilt-inducing parental state and a dismayed child. I watched myself actually walk through those steps. And the truth set me free from the upset.
My life has been about climbing out of playing these two roles: a critical inner voice (the parent) and a beaten-down inner voice (the child). I now see that the way out is to let go of both of these and to summon up a third and balanced inner voice (the adult).
That’s what started this whole exploration. I noticed an adult voice that took command of a situation (lost on me what the situation was now). I had never heard this voice before. I recognized it as an adult voice and that immediately threw into stark relief the two voices I’d been listening to. I now saw them as my parent and child ego states, arguing.
What Berne calls “adult” Sanat Kumara and Archangel Michael call “balanced.”
Sanat Kumara said that achieving balance was what the universal laws are all about.
“The purpose of the law, the foundation of the law, is balance. It is to assist you, to guide you — and all beings — to the place of balance. That is the reason for Universal Law.” (9)
I’m beginning to see why.
Michael defined “balance” here:
AAM: We … want you to be balanced.
Steve: What does it mean to be balanced?
AAM: It means to be in your heart only and completely. It means to have your feet firmly planted in this dimension and Earth, because that is where the work is. And it means to refer to your head and not to be led, and certainly not to be influenced by fear or false reality. (5)
He stressed the importance of balance in building Nova Earth.
“Everything in balance. Everything in moderation. That is how one proceeds in creating Nova Earth and Nova Community.
“It is the paying attention to what is truly important and that is what you have been doing, by the way. There is not a distraction of bringing energy or the energy of judgment or criticism to that which is not vitally important.” (6)
The balanced or adult voice does not judge, he says.
“[The balanced voice] does not judge. It does not condemn. It does not choose sides. It comes from a place of equality and openness.” (7)
The Company of Heaven can play hardball when they need a certain outcome to come about. In 2018 Michael, for example, confessed to clearing the decks around me so that my ability to make balanced decisions as a pipeline would not in any way be compromised:
“One of the things we have done with your consent … has been this clearing up of the space around you. …
“We don’t want you to feel or to be beholden – financially, emotionally or spiritually – to anybody. …
“We are setting up ways in which this, can we almost say, removes you from those heartstrings so that there is wisdom and balance and an understanding of the higher good [in your decision-making].” (8)
Tough love. But it shows us that the Company of Heaven are serious about our post-Reval work. They want to see us balanced.
It’s ironic that I should end up accepting Eric Berne’s terms for this important work of emerging from childhood trauma into balance. Berne was the author who first set my feet on this path of personal growth and emergence from childhood patterns.
When I read Games People Play, I had a tremendous “Aha!” and knew that I had found my life’s work. This was 1974.
By then I’d already completed a career as an historian and was looking for what was next. After reading Berne, I ended up on my final adventure as a budding academic, becoming a Sociology grad student, ever searching for the meaning of our patterns of behavior.
I now see that what Berne called “adult” and what Michael calls “balanced” are one and the same and the desirable state for a lightworker to be in.
Later
Now that I’m aware of this distinction and dynamic, I find myself going through the day identifying “child ego state,” “parent ego state,” “child,” “parent,” whenever they go off, and then letting go. Prior to this I wouldn’t have known what was happening to me; only that I felt dismayed. Now I know.
My wounded-child consciousness seems always expecting to be put down. It despairs of things being different. This is its programming.
I’m discouraged – and dismayed. I then feel depressed over feeling dismayed and on and on the daisy chain of thoughts and emotions goes.
Rather than feeling depressed all these years, I can now observe the child or parent ego state arising, experience any part of it that needs experiencing, and let it go. I’m no longer it. I’m no longer in it. I’m outside of it. The almost-automatic identification of me with those feelings was doing me no earthly good.
However, unless I’d had an explanation, which Eric Berne provided, I’d have gone on forever in a cycle of dismay and depression. Now, having a reliable map (transactional analysis) to the terrain (vasanas, early childhood trauma), (10) I can traverse it much more easily and quickly.
Footnotes
(1) “The Caring Mind, the Adult State,” March 6, 2020, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/?p=306851
(2) Eric Berne, Games People Play. The Psychology of Human Relationships. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books: 1971; c1964, 24.
(3) The Arcturians in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Suzanne Lie, March 16, 2013.
(4) Ibid., July 22, 2014.
(5) That may explain why people say underneath an angry man lies a frightened child. The way I see it is that we have both recordings in our mind’s library: Our role and the angry parent’s role.
(5) Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Feb. 18, 2011.
(6) Ibid., Oct. 18, 2017.
(7) Ibid., March 3, 2011.
(8) Ibid., May 2, 2018.
(9) “Sanat Kumara: You’re Ready to Build Societies in Adherence with the Law,” April 23, 2013, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/04/sanat-kumara-youre-ready-to-build-societies-in-adherence-with-the-law/.
(10) I realize I’m not doing Berne’s original theories justice. The parent ego state is not uniformly negative; it can be nurturing and compassionate as well. And so with the child ego state.
I’m focusing mainly on the hurt and harm that people wrestle with as a result of early-=childhood trauma and I’m very selectively borrowing from Eric Berne to provide a model for dealing with one aspect of it.
An example of another tool not linked to Transactional Analysis? Jesus provided one: He said that the truth shall make you free. That maxim provides a useful way of measuring if we’re on the right track in what we see about a vasana. If what we see is true, we should be experiencing increasing freedom. If not, then we’re barking up the wrong tree.
The spiritual basis of my work with vasanas lies in the writings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. See for instance Anon., Who Am I? The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sarasota, FL: Ramana Publications, 1990; Sri Ramana Maharshi, Spiritual Instruction of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Eighth Edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1974; and Sadhu Arunachala (A.W. Chadwick), A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1961.