Healing


Inner Child


Cards M. E. MacLaren gives voice to the child within.


by Lily Viola


Each of us is born into the world as an innocent, loving, joyful, trusting and powerful human being. Through daily living, we inevitably experience times of connection and happiness, as well as hurt and pain.


Although we may have experienced fear and distress, we have the ability to heal and release any emotional charges linked to negative past memories. Allowing our childhood recollections and feelings to surface is part of a healing process that M. E. MacLaren supports with her Inner Child Healing Cards, a deck of 34 cards she created as a pictorial tool to help give voice to the “child within.” A freelance illustrator, writer and Reiki master, Ma-


cLaren was inspired to create the deck as a result of her own inner child healing work. “Many of the childhood situations pictured on the cards are taken from my experience or those of friends or acquaintances,” she advises. Card 13, for ex- ample, illustrates a small child being tumbled about under a big wave. “This card was inspired by a friend who was afraid to stand any closer than five feet from the water’s edge in the bay because as a child, she nearly drowned,” says MacLaren, whose compassionate heart wanted to offer the woman a way to release the emotion attached to the memory and dis- charge the fear around it. “I didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life being afraid of water,” she explains. For other people unafraid of water, the same card may


26 San Diego Edition


elicit a feeling of being overwhelmed or powerless due to a different experience. “The cards are intended to help us bring up and experience the feelings still held by our inner child, but possibly long forgotten by the adult we have become,” notes MacLaren. She adds that based on her own experience and feedback from individuals who have used the cards, there are often numerous inner children of different ages and experiences, who come forward to “speak.” Some of them have been waiting a lifetime to be heard. MacLaren says there are several ways to use the cards.


“We can use them as a direct invitation to our inner children to dialogue with us. We can also discuss with a friend the feelings that come up for us,” she explains. “Drawing, paint- ing or writing are all powerful ways to move ‘stuck’ energy. Therapists and counselors can also use the cards to elicit par- ticular feelings or memories from clients,” advises MacLaren, who was gratified to hear that one cancer patient found the cards so helpful, she took them with her to use in her oncol- ogy support group. The vibrant and evocative cards show images of children


ranging from infancy up to age 10. Situations pictured may help to elicit a full range of feelings, from happiness and peace to fear, anger or grief.


Visit InnerChildHealingCards.com or email mary@InnerChild- HealingCards.com.


www.na-sd.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56