My Scientist Friend Could Not Get Over This Meditation

The Invisible Psychology Wounds Make Visible, It’s Finally Our Time to Heal

When I tried to support my scientist friend through his mental health journey during the pandemic, it became very difficult for me, a social anthropologist.

I didn’t think the differences in our academic backgrounds will make such an impact in terms of how we approach things.

But it actually makes sense, an IT guy tends to see things in 1 and 0s, a humanity graduate is usually connecting dots, a scientist educated in the West focuses on substances with a form.

However, this scientist friend, let’s call him Faraday for funny’s sake, tried a specific type of meditation called inner child meditation. His life was changed completely.

If you don’t know what inner child meditation is, and why is it so impactful, and you need some healing, this article is for you.

The ‘I’ is never a single entity

Although I am quite annoyed with people using the ‘they/them’ pronoun (purely because my first language is not English), it’s actually quite insightful to our discussion today — although that was obviously not the intention of the non-binary gender movement.

We use “I”, “he”, “she”, “it” to represent ourselves and others. In turn, our linguistic tendency leads us to believe that each person operates as one single unit.

But I believe you are aware of the angel and demon in yourself when making difficult decisions, or when you speak to yourself in the head(sometimes harshly). There is always another voice inside us.

Over the years, religions, spiritual leaders, and scientists have tried to understand this. For the angels, Jesus called it the Holy Spirit, Buddha called it Mother Earth. Eckhart Tolle called the duality the being/ego divide, and today, we will call it our inner child.

Our wounded ego remains as a child

Faraday did an inner child meditation with the guarding voice of his therapist. What he found was a five-year-old little Faraday hiding in the corner of his old house in fear.

What happened at five for Faraday? Turned out that was the year Faraday’s dad was fired from work. His family ran into shambles with insecurity and fear. His then-pregnant mother ended up with anxiety and depression, not knowing how to afford the arrival of the newborn.

Little Faraday wishes he wasn’t born so that the family would have one less mouth to feed. He was scared of the arguments between his parents too, as he didn’t know what to do with this thing called “little sister” in his mum’s belly.

The problem is, little Faraday, during that time, wouldn’t know how to process these complex emotions. It’s very hard, even for an adult, to talk and face these overwhelming feelings.

So what happened 25 years ago was that Faraday used his survival instinct to go through each day, bottled up these unprocessed emotions, and moved on.

Then suddenly, during his adult life, something drastic pushes all these buried emotions up to the surface. Not only Faraday but many people were triggered by the confinement at home during the pandemic.

Faraday once again, found himself shivering and crying in the corner of his home now. Trying to make himself as small as possible, like when he was five years old.

It’s all neuroscience

Faraday was shocked by the experience. It felt a little crazy to say that, as a scientist, that he found access to another him in a parallel timeline.

Is that imagination? Or is that some psychological trick? He rang me with confusion and scepticism.

My response was that I don’t think it matters. Being able to see an inner child, or buddha, or ego, or demon, or even the Holy Spirit, are all purely awareness. By recognizing the plurality in us, we become aware (hence transcend) of our automatic feeling and thinking process.

The important thing is what we are going to do with this awareness. Some people become obsessed with talking to the inner child, some people become obsessed with crystals, angel numbers, and Tarot cards.

For Faraday, the scientist, and I, the social scientist, we decide to seek explanation through neuroscience, so that we can finally heal.

I have discussed in the past how memories are biased and don’t serve the romantic function we thought it does. As we build a new way of relating to ourselves, we become authentic, vulnerable, and ready to be healed. This is really what matters, heal and move on.

Neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart has gone through a similar experience and seeks to answer these questions with science. This is her book and I recommend anyone with a scientific mind, but going through some extraordinary experience on self-development, to read this book.

It’s been three years since I have accessed my inner child. A lot has happened to my life and my healing process has been phenomenal.

Recently, it has come to my awareness that, I’m ready to be in a healthy and long-term relationship. So I did a visualization meditation (this one if you are interested) this morning.

What I didn’t expect is that my inner child, an eight-year-old anxious girl, suddenly came to join me in my visualization (I know!). Little Midori seemed quite chilled, in fact, a lot more relaxed than we first met three years ago.

The meditation called for some actions of pouring something into the ground, symbolising letting go of old, stale relationships that are toxic. My inner child did it with me. Afterwards, she’s laughing like the happiest kid in the playground.

This is the first time I saw her that happy.

To all sceptical scientists: something might be invisible and formless in reality, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and have an impact.

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