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Danielle worked as a scientist at the NIH. Her boss agreed to be her faculty advisor for her Ph.D. at a local university as long as she did 40 hours/week of labwork. The other requirement was that she be a full time student to qualify for a student loan. Danielle didn't think these would be serious problems, so she happily enrolled in 4 courses/semester, worked 6 days/week in the lab, and spent every evening and Sundays doing homework. Three months later Danielle experienced continuous sharp stabbing pains in her stomach. The doctors could find nothing wrong and suggested antacids. We interviewed the part of Danielle that was generating the stabbing pains and found that it wanted her to quit graduate school because she was only eating one meal/day and not getting enough sleep. The stabbing pain stopped instantly when Danielle promised to eat 3 meals/day and get 8 hours of sleep every night regardless of unfinished homework.

In our busy world of ambitious people and out of balance lives, we often forget to take care of our bodies, our creative artistic or musical side, our adventurous side, our inner child selves, and other parts of ourselves. People who were raised in dysfunctional families find it even harder to function in life because they often do not form strong healthy internal adults. They experience life as children in adult bodies, faking it (i.e. adult children of dysfunctional families). The inner children end up running the show from time to time even though they are not equipped to do this. In addition, the inner child parts don't trust the inner adult and are constantly looking for someone else to be their parent, take care of them and tell them what to do.

Over time I realized that beyond needing to develop into a mature healthy (internal) adult, you need to actually be the boss, i.e. the CEO of your life. You need to take charge of all aspects of your life in a loving, nurturing, attentive way. Coordinating your conscious mind, unconscious mind, and body with your soul, you need to plot the course of your life, hold the vision, and acquire resources to enable all parts of yourself to do their jobs, etc. A good CEO creates a company culture in which every person is a valued member. The CEO is the one responsible for making things happen and for the quality of your life. When there is no responsible CEO it creates internal feelings of anxiety, betrayal, and abandonment.

In reaction, the parts of you that feel uncared for can generate a variety of seemingly inexplicable emotional, physical, behavioral, mental, spiritual symptoms including body pain, headaches, acid reflux, depression, anxiety, and isolation. When we interview these parts to find out what they need from the person, the requests are surprisingly simple and easy to accommodate. Such requests include stop insulting yourself, take care of basic body needs, listen to music, have more fun, take time to create, etc. Once the person hears these parts out and agrees to do what thesy ask, the symptoms spontaneously disappear!

TAKE CHARGE EXERCISE

Muscle test the answers to all the questions.

1. Are there any parts of you that feel that you don't love or care about them?' If yes:

' 'Are any of these parts inner child parts?' If yes, 'Do your inner child parts want somebody else to be their parent besides you?'

' 'Are any of these parts other kinds of parts besides inner child parts?' If yes, how many and what parts are they?

2. Where in your body are these parts located?

3. Interview each part (the inner child parts may be interviewed as a group) and ask,

' 'Why do you (parts) feel that he/she (client) doesn't love or care about you? What is it the he/she (client) does or doesn't do that makes them feel that way.' List the reasons.

4. 'What are the reactions and symptoms ' emotional, physical, behavioral, mental, spiritual, or other that these parts are causing because of this problem?' List them.

5. 'What would he/she (client) have to do or not do to convince you (parts) that he/she really does love and care about you?' List them.

6. Is there anything these parts need to know?

7. Ask yourself, 'Will you now commit to doing what these parts ask of you?'

8. 'Do you have all the skills, resources, and capabilities that you need to do what these parts of you need in order to convince them that you do love and care about them?' The answer is usually yes. If no, build skills.

9. Is there any interference to doing what these parts ask of you at the conscious, unconscious, body, or soul levels? If yes, find the interference and clear it 'usually with an energy psychology technique.