This is an injunction where the child can be treated as a grown up or their free child energy is squashed by being told that certain play or fun is silly.  It is difficult for parents who have experienced a serious childhood not to convey as long as you act sensibly you are acceptable.  Engaging in free child, or natural child energy is something that is part of ones socialisation process in development and if this did not happen having fun can be uncomfortable.  If you feel awkward relating to children you may carry this message within yourself,  This can also be conveyed magically by a child who  told themselves they need to parent their little sibling.  In some families if a child is having fun it can be considered lazy or irresponsible.  Individuals with this injunction often feel stiffened up when at parties or certain gatherings.  Or don’t get mindless humour and judge the waste of time “past-timing” is that some adults may partake in. This can include hobbies, sport or social engagements.  They may not be able to enjoy trivia or just” Being” but feel a need for having objectives on a daily basis.  However, being a child all through our lives at times is important for free child energy release which keeps us balanced and can feel joyful.  Otherwise individuals can find dysfunctional ways of engaging in this.  In addiction i have seen individual journeys of using alcohol to loosen up and not be able to engage socially unless lubricated.  This can be because the alcohol can get rid of the critical parent in ones head that holds the negative messages.  Or the individual who works so hard and is always responsible and in a parent role needing a substance to get away from the pressures of the expectations they hold inside.  This is why looking at injunctions is personal inventory can have a impact on ones awakening to self.

This is about not feeling that what you are or who you are is right, enough, ideal, lovable, worthy or even acceptable.  People can often feel not okay in their own skin and even get a sense of wanting to keep running from something but never quite finding out what this is.  Its important to know this as running from the self is a never ending cycle of despair and dis-satisfaction which can be a painful struggle.  We need to feed off positives about the self which help emotional health .  With this injunction absorbing these positives are difficult because much of the self can be dis-missed because you don’t actually feel being you is okay.  It forms a human conundrum where living with “The You” can be a relationship with self that holds much discomfort.  I see this a lot now in my work where people construct a cyber them because the real them is not enough or acceptable.  There are many reasons why children pick this up from being a boy when the parents wanted a girl, to not being attended to positively when little.  The parents who thought to much attention may make their children boastful and precocious.  The parent who compares their child to much with other children in a negative or expectational way.  Or the favouritism of a child over its sibling from parents and the child adapting to the situation as they often do..  Again our sensitivity can mean messages collected by magical thinking.  for example, one or the other sibling not really being favoured in comparison but the child’s experience being this because they were the only special one before the next baby took the attention away.

If you have ever contemplated suicide some of what is carried may be a struggle about existing and the relevance of your life and self.  I do see addiction as a form of suicide though some of this is based in deep denial and compulsively set up out of awareness and due to deep vulnerability.  It is also significant if you have ever felt worthless, useless or unlovable which is often in the personal inventory of the addict.  The message may have been conveyed for many reasons.  If a parent feels threatened by having a child around thus neglects.  Living in a household and feeling lonely when young and profoundly scared in-case there would not be enough attention as this is one of our early primal needs.  A mother who struggled with bonding and nurturing thus, conveys rejection.  Where a parent physically or mentally abuses a child the Don’t Exist message is conveyed more overtly.  The “Don’t Exist turns up a lot in analysis which is surprising considering its death-laden implications.  I believe our early attachment sensitivity can relate to this message being collected relatively easily and does not necessarily mean a difficult childhood and neglectful parents.  I have seen this if a parent is ill and the child is cared for by grandparents for sometime, In post natal-depression and early life, or if the child is ill and experiences trauma and separation. The interpretation can be that the parents don’t want its survival.  The work of John Bowlby was significant to this in the 1970’s where he identified the devastating impact of children being separated from parents in early life.  With research the laws were changed allowing parents access to sick children in hospital.  This is why early life and existential exploration is so important for personal inventory analysis.  Afterall,  the system of someone’s environmental influences is really relevant to finding out about some of the profound message that can be collected unconsciously.  The real positive about human beings even with dangerous injunctions  is that people are extremely ingenious in staying alive.  In early years and with dangerous injunctions the child is likely to make compound decisions to defend against fatal outcomes.  These can be in the form of “Its okay for me to Exist as long as I” Keep being good, keep working hard, don’t get to close etc etc etc.  Here existence and life is based on conditional ways of being which can be difficult to sustain in adult life and get ones needs met without uncomfortable feelings being attached.

The injunctions in script are the main works of Bob and Mary Goulding (1978) who detected themes in peoples life script decisions.  Their work as therapists was about changing lives through re-decision therapy.  However one first has to understand, honour and acknowledge the decisions that were made in the first place.  Injunctions are a kind of negative prohibition that lie in the deep intrapsychic areas of the mind, body and soul.  It is so analytically profound what we write in our early minds that relate to life script that i see injunctions as only verbal labels we apply for convenience in script analysis.  The main ones discovered are “Don’t Be” “Don’t Exist”, “Don’t Be You”, “Don’t Be a Child”, “Don’t Grow up”, “Don’t make it” “Don’t do anything”, “Don’t Be Important”, “Don’t Belong”, “Don’t be Close”, “Don’t Be Well” “Don’t Be Sane”, “Don’t Think”, Don’t Feel”,  We absorb much from our attachments, environments and experiences in life that convey powerful non-verbal messages .  These are stored within us unconsciously and are non-verbal but then can be lived out in may different and diverse ways.  This i see as a very deep and profound level of personal inventory.

In relation to step 4 and personal inventory i see script awareness as taking a deeper look at self.  A lot of ones script is out of awareness and therefore personal inventory can only really be engaged with at a certain  level. This is not a problem but its really amazing at what can be discovered about the self after a more deeper analysis.  This can reinforce further understanding and compassion about the decision one has made and then help to let go of old stuff that holds people back.  Script is a life-plan and directed towards a pay-off.  It is like a young child that writes their own drama, this process is decisional but not in a way of deliberate thinking which we associate with adult cognitive awareness.  The earliest decisions result from feelings and are made before words.  Therefore our reality testing as adults is influenced by script decisions from the past governed by feelings.  Here we see how individuals are compulsively driven by feelings that are out of their awareness which can result in pay-offs that can be difficult and not always productive. In grown up life we interpret reality in our own frame of reference that holds many messages about the self.  The inner child can compensate for feelings of powerlessness by imagination and magical thinking.  This relates to early attachment and our whole need for dependence and with this we as children naturally feel powerless because we are.  Therefore, the script can be written by our early experiences on self. With this our early personal inventory is also relevant as these decisions are based on the messages we give to ourselves from our needs, urges, experiences, rejections, attachments and traumas.  The work of Erikson, Piaget, Daniel Stern are really useful in the investigation of child development.  To get a feel of what it means for you as an adult to get near what it was like as a child with the potential and inevitable hostilities that had to be experienced.  D Stern “The inter-subjective world of the infant”.  All of these are relevant to the decisions we have made about ourselves.  Therefore all of this is relevant to our personal inventory.

In working with analysis i have often been fascinated by the contradictory processes that happen in human thinking, feeling and behaviour.  We have to in our development be invested in self preservation because of what we need.  This is with primary needs, food comfort , attachment, shelter and warmth.  This is something we need to develop and flourish.  However, we also experience fear in these processes whether we are aware of this or not.  Human beings are so sensitive that even a experience that was not  life threatening or damaging can still be internalised as significant and traumatic.  I will never forget the distress of my 3 year old son when i had moved my car of the gravel drive and drove round the corner rather then waiting on the side and in view of him.  This was to let someone else out that i was blocking in.  My experience was logistics and i knew i had asked the other car driver to wait till i got back into the drive so my son would not be alone.  My sons experience was that i had drove off out of view so he could not see me and therefore “I had gone”.  His attachment and security had been compromised and he was distressed and inconsolable for some time.  He has never forgotten this incident that was completely innocent and actually safe in reality.  This is why i think its always important to recognise human sensitivity in a general sense that started a long time ago in development.  This is rather than make comparisons on who was impacted more because of a  difficult background.  This is not to minimise the significance and level of trauma of a difficult background.  This is considering that human beings in a general sense are fear based in one way shape or form.  This is relevant in addiction where step 4 inventory can look at selfishness with being closed-minded and hearted, impatience, intolerance, laziness, revenge and injustice.  That the obsession can show itself in forms of arrogance, boasting, control, envy, excess, gossip, jealousy, perfectionism, prejudice, justification.  In some ways obsessional defences that really protect a lot of fear, loss and pain.  This can impact self worth and escalate cheating, deviousness, cowardice,  dependency, exaggeration, insincerity, lying, self-condemnation and thrill seeking at others expense. Again what may lie below all these powerful defences that keep someone spiritually unwell is a fearful human being.  This is why looking at step 4 and person inventory is so important to get a handle on the complexity of the condition of self.

This is often in addiction seen as the great offender which destroys life emotionally ,  This is because with addiction resentment invites using which then means one is mentally and physically ill.  I see resentment as a spiritual disease whether attached to addiction or not.  I have seen this process in my own family which depletes ones spirit and leaves a bitter and twisted soul.  Who eventually has the potential to live out a life script of early death through stress and being alone because they have pushed others away.  The substance just makes this process much quicker and obvious.  Therefore , resentment is a kind of killer of the heart as it closes it to love, compassion and warmth.  It leaves the heart exposed to selfish pride, jealousy, envy, selfishness, dishonesty, greed and hate etc etc.  We cannot flourish emotionally and evolve as human beings in a healthy way with resentment being in the way.  Through life and as children we have possibly collected resentment because of life, situations and love with our attachments “in some way not being fair”.  This could be because a sibling was favoured, or we did not have as much as other kids and were considered poor.  We could have suffered abuse and therefore our relationships are fragile to paranoia and not believing in others kindness and love.  Or neglect and we resent those who do well and blame the system for our lack of life vitality.  Others are perhaps having bullying in our background and then having issues with any authority ,thus, dis-missing any advice which could even be of benefit. Even with backgrounds that would not be considered particularly difficult a child can collect resentment.  Human beings seem predisposed to collect resentment through life not going the way they want.  Theorist Piaget wrote about “egocentrism”  in development and the age of 7 when one realises that life is not all about them.  If this process is successful  this lesson is learned and helps with our self absorbed neediness.  However, the process no matter how its experienced does not go without pain.  As we discover that we are not central to the universe which can be frightening, painful and cause dis heartening.  Perhaps in addiction its a way of finding a centre to go back to in gaining the importance and feeding ourselves to soften the pain.  There is a conflict and discrepancy between being selfish as in early life we had to  survive in attachment thus, could be considered self preservation and  needy, ego centric drives that feed the loss of importance.  If the loss is so painful is it any wonder that children carry resentment that can have emotional consequences.  The list of what effects resentment can have is endless and powerful in how it makes people behave and see the world with often disregarding what can even be beneficial.  The sad thing is often situations that created pain in the past can then present themselves in adulthood as resentment.  The actions are vast were this can be see from dishonesty, self seeking, and inconsiderate.  However, often under all of this there is a frightened person who really wants to be free of all this contamination of the soul yet does not know how to.  This is where Step 4 on personal inventory is really important as we can look at the self.  The objective is to get to the causes and conditions and fears..

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This is about personal housecleaning and taking vigorous action with this process.  To really look at the self in a  “warts and all” way is a powerful way of engaging with self intimacy even if painful.   One can see in life the roles that have been acted on and the distorted perceptions that have impacted the self and others.  All of these relate to ones self esteem and self worth which in turn affect behaviours and situations. In the therapy that we do we look at distorted beliefs and how these have manifested themselves in the life path of ones actions.  With this there is also an invitation to look at what has been ignored, dis-missed or discounted in an attempt to keep the story fitting with ones own idea of what went on.  It is amazing what people will do, say and even feel in an attempt to keep a mindset in place.  I call this a frame of reference, a way of experiencing and seeing the world , others and self which fits the decisions one has made about life.

We can really feel stuck with certain ways of being that are uncomfortable.  For some its an enmeshment that feels like “I’m dammed if i do and dammed if i don’t”.  Its an impasse that can take time to work through and process or  develop beliefs in other things.  It can seem like a juncture “what way do i turn and go” or “I will sit on this fence for a while as i am scared to move”.  These are really fearful places to be and that is why i see step 3 as being about the important start to being open to learning.  This in itself means we are then open to evolving which is a life long process. It is not about giving ourselves up and jumping off the cliff but a surrender to care which even if uncomfortable is much safer then what we were doing before.  Its an opportunity to put down what is holding us back and work on overcoming any negative beliefs or unproductive preconceptions we may have about life and higher power.  If this process evolves then we can develop and react differently to what goes on in life.  Its rather like the film the wizard of ozz,  with the lion wanting courage, the tin man wanting a heart etc.  However, the ending is much more real and not a con.  As being open hearted and putting down defences allows us to ask for what we need to survive life.  We may then find that vulnerability is a strength and not a weakness.  That is okay to love without fear, give without expectations of exchange and have joy without fear of repercussions. If we become more open to the process and create the space to develop rather then keep on carrying the baggage from our histories then we can also receive what we ask for..  We can mature, gain peace and serenity, feel courage and that our lives have meaning.

I see the above as going hand in hand in my work.  If i understand the little professor, or the parent in the child, or the defences, or the sense of the beliefs , or the reasons for behaving in certain ways to the individuals i meet.  Then i have compassion as i see that why would children not make the decisions they do to get their needs met and survive, be important, be loved, hide behind false pride etc.  This understanding of child logic within us all is seeing the earlier decisions and why they were constructed in our life scripts.  This then allows for compassion which invites tolerance and patience.  This is relevant to step 3 being in small chunks rather then overwhelming change which could create fear.  This i visualise is like inviting out a frightened child from the corner of a room gently, kindly and with care and creating safety in the relationship before you take each others hands and the child then coming in to the adult to be hugged and held for comfort.  Rather like surrendering to the care of the higher power, the nurturer, Handing over “the will” “the structures that no longer work”.  Its handing over and not giving oneself up to further hurt and pain.  Trust and belief and hope can come if we offer understanding and compassion.  If we offer this then we can look at what earlier decisions in ones life script don,t work any-more in adult life.  With safety we can surrender and get to know ourselves more and more.