Discussion with Author Dan Hays About Healing that Inner Child

Viktorya: Hi Dan, this is going to be more like a discussion between you and I. From there I will want to do another separate interview with you covering your work. Is that alright?

Dan: Sounds great! I like that way of doing it. I'm going to just put down my answers as if this were a live radio interview - I think it will help me be candid. The point being - I won't be going through and "editing" my answers.

Viktorya: I am divorced with three children. I currently attend Kaplan University to obtain my Associates in IT. I am an active member of my church and I own my own cleaning business to add to my writing adventures.

Can you tell us about yourself? Do you have children? Are you married?

Dan: I am single, never have married. I knew fairly early I wasn't going to have kids, even before I got into recovery issues. I just intuitively knew I was carrying a time bomb, and didn't want to pass it on. A number of my friends thought that was silly, because in many ways I would be a great parent, but I just knew until I figured out what I was so angry about, I didn't need to be trying to raise kids.

Viktorya: How about Little Danny (your inner child). What is he about? Can you characterize him a little?

Dan: Little Danny is my intuition, my soul, my creative side. He is a vulnerable little boy of 8 or 14 depending on the circumstances. Sometimes I let people see him, or sometimes I will smile and people will see him, but much of the time he is hidden except for my closest friends. He is very gifted, bright and witty. I think my poetry comes out of him. I think he's also the source of my intuition, and has great radar! I ignore him sometimes, and it's to my own detriment! J

Viktorya: That is very interesting as I can definitely relate. My inner child is loving, forgiving but gets angry and furious, easily. She also thinks that she can save the world.

Dan: Yes, I understand the save the world part. It is upsetting sometimes when you can't!

Viktorya: It sure is and can be so frustrating. In what ways does Little Danny upset the man you are today?

Dan: Now that's an excellent question! I once heard someone comment something like this "I hear a lot of people talk about how wonderful it is to get in touch with your inner child and heal them, but I just need to say there's another side of it for me - my inner child can get me into a lot of trouble." That's true for me. When Little Danny reacts like a frightened or angry 8 year old in a setting which requires an adult, it can be very destructive.

Also, I have discovered that my inner child thinks his job is to keep me safe from things he learned to fear as a child. So he will hold me back from doing "dangerous" things. One of the things I was uncovering in the '80s was that I would sabotage success. I walked away from jobs just as I reached a plateau of success, and didn't know what that was about. I discovered that through the violence with my Dad, the message was "if you succeed, it is dangerous. If you succeed, you will die." So Little Danny held me back. I've had to work with him to have him let go of those old roles.

Viktorya: Wow, that is insightful as I can relate to that in many ways. After being torn down by people that I loved, it was difficult for my inner child to trust similar situations. Like close relationships, etc. My inner child upsets me because I get stressed when I can't change a situation that she believes she can. For instance, when a child is hurting and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it, it stresses me out and sometimes becomes oppressing.

Dan: Yes, the inner child sees things very clearly, and I can see how yours would ache over hurting children when there's nothing that can be done about it! It's painful to watch! I have that with one of my nephews when I see him being self-sabotaging, and committed to being that way, and I can't change him. It is very difficult!

Viktorya: Are you wanting to keep Little Danny from interfering in your current life or do you want him to be a part of it somehow? Please elaborate on this.

Dan: As I just mentioned, when Little Danny holds me back, I want to keep that from happening, mostly by letting him know that I, adult Dan, will take care of him, keep him safe, and no longer need for him to do those things he did before to keep us safe. But here's the balance - Little Danny was abandoned as a child, and I as an adult abandoned him a lot by not listening to him when he would try to communicate that he was afraid.

I think that's when I would see the rebellious side of him the most - when he was kicking and screaming trying to get my attention. So what I have been trying to do is let him "retire" from those old things he used to do, but not abandon him and keep him as an honored part of who I am. Let him be free to be that intuitive, creative soul that is such a precious part of me!

Viktorya: For me, I find my inner child very loving. She definitely has the love of Christ and is very much Christ-like. I believe He wants us to be like that. However, I am trying to keep her from thinking she can change every situation or becoming She-Ra and save the world.

I am trying to convince her that not only can she not change certain situations or even save the world, she shouldn't become angry about it. By her being like this, it affects my family and I both, It can be very stressful.

Dan: I hear what you're saying! That's the other side of the inner child that I think we need to parent as we weren't successfully parented - to not give in to their every action!

Childhood trauma is not fun at all. The healing process can take years. However, for a lot of us it only takes this long because we don't know how to deal with it. It has taken you 50 years and me only about 15.

It does take a long time! Actually, on the issues that I have been working on recently, it hasn't taken that long. I have been carrying those issues around for 50 years, but for 45 of those years, the trauma was buried and I didn't even know it was there. It was only about 5 years ago that I started working on the trauma from my grandmother when I was 8 years old. I had resolved the violence with my Dad by the early '90s, and lived a fairly non-dramatic life for quite awhile in there.

Viktorya: Please tell us about your path to healing your inner child. What triggered the healing process and how are you continuing the process?

It was really in two segments. The first, in the late '80s and early '90s, was resolving the issues around my Dad. I just started seeing a lot of impact in my life that I finally narrowed down to Dad, and which actually are described in the book I published, "Freedom's Just Another Word." I had worked with a mentor in a 12 step program specifically for people who grew up in an alcoholic family, who showed me how to do exercises first to find my inner child - he was hidden in a corner of the room at that time, and didn't feel safe. Then to begin to honor, work with and heal my inner child. I just got better at doing over time.

The next part started when I was living out in Albuquerque, and in 2003 a therapist I was working with said I had something buried really deeply within me. As I started exploring that, my trauma around Grandma came to the surface. The message there was if you grow up and are a famous writer, you'll go crazy and I can have you committed to an insane asylum. Then she reinforced the messages in hideous ways. I've been working through those messages for the last several years. Interestingly, the process of writing and publishing the book forced those issues into the light where I could deal with them.

A lot of inner child work involved. As a matter of fact, that will be the topic of my next book," And Then I Stop", about a writer's block I had that resulted from Grandma! I've done some amazing inner child work this past summer, and powerful healing has resulted from it. I've got that next book laid out now, because I just finished living through the events at the end of that book.

Viktorya: I thought that when I first came to the Lord my inner child would be healed entirely. She was in a lot of ways and it happened when I forgave those who hurt me. Not to mention, it helped with really knowing my real mom and my dad on another level. Also, a big change began taking place a couple years ago when my mom (step mom) and I began understanding one another better and rebuilding our relationship.

Dan: That is wonderful that you have been rebuilding those relationships! Yes, I think it's sometimes confusing because we think as Christians we should be completely healed, and there are still those wounds that need to be dealt with.

Viktorya: My inner child gets hurt and furious when she sees others hurting or in similar situations as she was in. She has a need to protect every child and nothing will stand in her way. Even while writing this, there are a million things running through my mind about children hurting. It's like a compulsion. She has this uncontrollable urge to rescue everyone from heartache. Then she begins making me feel like a child again and flashbacks of my past begin to surface and it affects her.

Dan: I understand about the flashbacks. I had those a lot, and they were very disturbing when I couldn't connect them to today. They've eased dramatically as I have worked through the events with the help of great therapists, so that they don't intrude as much in daily life.

Viktorya: What affects Little Danny in similar instances? What ways have you helped Little Danny with them?

Dan: I think what has affected Little Danny is feeling unsafe - when he sees me in situations where he doesn't feel safe, I've had to reassure him I will keep him safe, but also that I will show him and help him heal so he doesn't have to live out those old wounds again and again.

Viktorya: Getting to the roots of these past hurts and talking about them has always helped me. When I saw a counselor as a child, we would do activities to somehow erase these people from my life. That really helped. Can you give us details of your childhood traumas and I will do the same?

Dan: Interesting you mention those activities to erase those people from your life. I just posted a blog entry about a healing exercise I did this summer, where I walked Little Danny out of Grandma's house, and then had the house bulldozed, like Forrest Gump did to Jennie's house in the movie. It was a very powerful way of letting Little Danny know he didn't have to live inside that house, or under those messages, any more!

My traumas were really in two groups. Until I was 11, my Dad was very supportive, but then he turned away from me, and as his drinking got worse, started taking out his frustrations on me. He was first verbally abusive, later physically abusive. It culminated at age 17 when he threatened to kill me with a hunting rifle, and I walked out of the room expecting at any moment to be shot. Then spending the rest of the night waiting for him to come to my room and finish the job. This was at the end of his drinking, and he sobered up not long afterward. I am convinced he was in a blackout when that happened, and never remembered it.

The second area, as I mentioned, was with my Grandma at age 8. She said if I grew up and was a famous writer, they would call me crazy and lock me up. She was a nurse, and told me that she had checked with the doctor she worked for, and he had said he could have me committed to an insane asylum. Shortly after that, Grandma shut me up in a closet late at night to show me what it would be like to be in an insane asylum.

**It is significant to me that as bad as the damage with my Dad was, the Grandma stuff only came to the surface 17 years after I worked on the issues with my Dad. In many ways, I think what she did was more damaging, and that's why it was more deeply buried. As a therapist said this spring, "You know, don't you, that as an 8 year old, you never had a chance to see the insanity of what she was saying to you. You couldn't rationally counter those messages."

Viktorya: My childhood traumas were at ages 5, 8, 10, 14 and 16. It really got worse and almost became a way of life during my 11 year relationship with my ex husband.

I was molested at the age of about 5 or 6 by a friend of my mother. There was another trauma that kept me in fear for many years. Here is a link to that story Unknown? When I was about 8, I was molested 14 times by my mother's boyfriend at that time. I also looked up to him as a dad. My dad was absent a lot overseas trying to provide for us. This same boyfriend threatened to kill me if I told anyone. I lived in fear for a year before I told my dad about it.

Dan: Oh that is horrible! I can't imagine how unsafe you felt with that going on. I can't say I relate - I don't think a man can, as to how damaging that type of violation is. And of course, the threat of death if you expose their abuse is so, so debilitating!

Viktorya: My parents divorced when I was 10 and we moved with him to Germany. My baby sister moved back to the states with my real mom, a year later when my dad remarried. I didn't see her again for three years. When I was 14, I moved back with my mother and sister, leaving my dad, step mom and brother. They moved to Hawaii and I didn't see my brother for a couple years. My mother was dysfunctional with drugs and multiple boyfriends.

When I was 16, I was raped by her boyfriend. I was almost 17 when I met my ex husband who also had and has many issues. This made my inner child even worse because she tried to save him as well. Nothing I did seemed to please him. He even damaged her more with things he said and did. When she couldn't help him, she would retaliate with anger. He also controlled me in many ways.

That was a very stressful and an unfair relationship to both us and our children. My children and I are now doing a lot better, even though they never hear from their father. I do what I can to keep hurtful people out of their life. I show them as much love as I possibly can, to try and ease the pain.

Dan: I am hearing this sort of thing more and more, of women struggling with the aftereffects of sexual abuse, and how it still flavors their world. I have to say, the way you talk about it sounds like you have gotten a lot of healing - but I'm sure it's still painful to think about. I'm so sorry.

Viktorya: Thanks Dan and yes I have been healed so much by the Lord. I feel that a lot of times, we just have to encourage ourself. I pray that our discussion may somehow reach out and help someone who may be in a similar situation. It helps when we try our best to heal that inner child and keep them around for the good things in life. Everyone has an inner child and if they don't, they need to find them again. Thanks Dan, for the opportunity. I am looking forward to your interview covering your books and aspirations.

Dan: Yes, I do hope that this can be of benefit to people who are dealing with similar issues. I have seen an enormous impact as I laid my story out there through my book, when people say I've given them hope by sharing things that they've struggled with, but felt like they were the only one dealing with them. I just see this groundswell happening as these issues come out into the light where they can be resolved, and it can lead to enormous freedom.

Dan Hays Website