Key Concepts
Many times when a person experiences a traumatic event they can become emotionally and
developmentally “stuck” in that traumatic event. When an infant is continually subjected to CIO they too can
become emotionally and developmentally “stuck” in the trauma of being abandoned.
The effects of being abandoned have been medically proven and it is a common medical fact that sick
infants who are left in hospital nurseries without much human contact in the past have died because of
this.
When an infant is frightened and left alone they will feel that their lives are in danger. They don’t posses
the maturity level to determine other wise and the only thing that will relieve this fear is attention from a
family member, most importantly the child’s Mother.
I’ve personally experienced the terror that I felt as an infant when I decided to process the trauma and
damage done by CIO and while I was processing I did feel as though my life were literally in danger even
though there was no threat to my life at that time. I realized that what I was feeling were repressed
emotions associated with past traumatic events that were finally surfacing. Fortunately, I was able to work
through the feeling of terror in a short amount of time.
Many infants, as they grow and out of needing to survive, will suppress and eventually forget the traumatic
events. The important thing to note is that although these experiences, emotions and beliefs behind the
traumatic events have been suppressed—they are still there. This concept is of the utmost importance
because it holds the key to a person correcting their lives when they’ve been traumatized by CIO.
Because the trauma and core beliefs associated with CIO are still there, a person will many times
“recreate” the traumatic event throughout their lives either by attracting abandonment or abuse into their
lives or by living their lives through impeding core beliefs. Sometimes a life event will trigger the feelings
associated with the CIO damage and damaging behaviors and events will manifest in a person’s life,
although they won’t know why this is taking place.
Again, this is a very important core concept to understand as it will relate to the examples that I’ll be
elaborating on.
Core Beliefs Created
From the outset, I think it’s important that we all understand that aside from the trauma infants go through
when subjected to CIO, there are impeding core beliefs that are developed by the infant in regards to what
they’re experiencing.
The reason this is so important is that these beliefs are what an infant, child, adolescent, and adult will
build their lives upon. Their very emotional, developmental, and human relationship foundations will be
built on the beliefs that they develop while experiencing CIO.
These core beliefs will dictate the experiences that they have in their lives. In other words, they will begin
their lives with a damaged view of reality and live their lives accordingly. A person will also build beliefs on
top of core beliefs (layered beliefs) as they go through life.
Before we move on to the symptoms and the damage that the CIO methods cause, it’s vitally important to
go over these beliefs as they are what’s created by the trauma caused by CIO and the damage that is
done.
The following are examples of core and layered beliefs that “can” be caused by CIO:
Note: This list may not be complete as there may be other beliefs that were unrecognized by the author.
Core (developed by the infant)
• I don’t deserve to be loved
• I’m not worthy of love
• My parents don’t love me
• I can’t count on those who love me for comfort and support
• I have to comfort myself
• I’ll never find comfort
• I’ll never be happy
• I have to feel better
• I don’t deserve to be happy
• My life is in danger
• I have to find my Mother
• I deserve to be treated this way (Abandoned, abused etc…)
• This is the way life is
• I’m not good enough
Layered (developed as the child grows to adulthood)
• I’ll never have the love of a woman, man or significant other
• I need to find something to make me happy
• I’m a victim of my past/society/my family etc…
• I’m a terrible person
• I don’t deserve success
• I hate my parents
• I hate my Mother/Women
• Something bad always happens
• I need (insert a dependency) in order to feel better
• People don’t like me
• Life is bad/terrible/horrible
• I’ll never be happy
• If I just had this person in my life I’d be happy
• Comfort is happiness
• Everyone I love will leave me
• My Mother will never accept me
• I have to have people’s ( translated: my Mothers) approval
• Comfort and/or pleasure is a replacement for love
As mentioned before this is not a complete list. People are different and develop their own set of beliefs
based being left to CIO. The important point is that an infant can develop core beliefs based on infant
trauma and these beliefs can and do manifest in behavior patterns, a person’s outlook on life, as well as
affect their life as a whole.
Being that it’s the core and layered beliefs that affect a person to this extent, it is logical that a person
wanting to break free from the effects of CIO will need to learn effective tools for managing their beliefs
including the discreation (releasing or deletion) of the beliefs that are causing undesirable results in their
lives.
Infantile Shift in Consciousness and Perception
An infant who is left to cry alone repeatedly will begin to experience shifts in their consciousness and their
perception of life due to the damage that continued traumatizing causes.
Instead of the experiencing life through healthy beliefs, thoughts and behavior patterns which develop
naturally in a nurturing environment, the child eventually shifts their beliefs, thoughts and behavior
patterns toward ways in which to comfort themselves. In fact, the infant will shift so completely that their
entire existence will be focused on finding comfort.
Some of the reasons for this are the fact that the infant will experience not only the trauma of
abandonment but will also experience the feelings associated with abandonment including extreme
sadness, rejection, despair and terror just to name a few.
The trauma the infant experiences causes their emotional and mental development to become “stuck” in
the traumatic events of CIO. As the child grows, literally “everything” in life is filtered through one question
and that question is, “What can I do to make myself feel better?”
Eventually the child forgets, or blocks out, the trauma that they’ve experienced, but the important fact is that
the damage, the memory of trauma along with the emotions produced during the experiences are still
there in the child’s mind. These underlying suppressed memories and emotions can continue to affect
the child. As they continue to grow, the question of comfort continues to play repeatedly in the back of their
mind affecting every action and decision that they make. A child in this state can develop obsessions that
can stay with them for their entire lives.
Belief Disturbance
Beliefs are concepts that are created in our consciousness, or mind, and transcend the spoken word. The
American Heritage Dictionary defines a belief “as a mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth,
actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.”
For many, beliefs are more than simply a mental acceptance or a conviction. It is common place for most
people to assign emotions or judgment to their beliefs. A person may have such a deep emotional
attachment to a belief that they are ready to die, or in some cases, kill for their beliefs.
Of course, not all emotional attachments to beliefs are this extreme but most of us have experienced an
emotional response to having our beliefs challenged. Having our beliefs challenged can come in many
forms such as (to name a few):
• Verbal disagreements
• Seeing or hearing about some action taking place that we don’t agree with
• Personal actions that go against our conscience
When we experience these things, the emotions that we’ve attached to our beliefs can become
“disturbed” causing us to react emotionally. We may become defensive or even angry due to the
disturbance of these emotions.
An infant who has been damaged by CIO develops beliefs based on what they’ve experienced. These
beliefs become the “core” or foundation of the infant’s personality and can stay with the child into
adulthood. Even though they’ve been forgotten, they are still there in the person’s mind creating their life
experiences.
Some of the beliefs created by the traumatized infant are centered around not being worthy of love or
happiness. The infant may also create beliefs of self loathing believing they are the reason why Mommy
isn’t coming to their aid. An infant in this situation will many times attach very powerful emotions, caused
by trauma, to these beliefs and these emotions can continue to affect the person into adulthood.
Many adults who were damaged by CIO as infants and toddlers have difficulty moving forward in life due to
belief disturbance. As adults, they’ll know what they need to do, and they’ll know what they want to do,
however, many times they will be unable to accomplish either.
As an example, a person may decide that they want to improve their quality of life through personal
development. They’ll purchase a book that deals with some area in their life that they want to change or
improve. When they get home, they’ll read a little of the book but never pick it up again, all the while
honestly believing that they’ll read it later. Or, the book goes straight to the bookshelf and is never read.
What is unknown to this person is that the very decision to improve their quality of life has disturbed the
beliefs they created as an infant regarding their self worth and/or beliefs centered around not being
deserving of happiness. Their desire has taken them as far as buying the book, but the emotional
response of the disturbed belief will keep them from following through with reading it. For a person
damaged by CIO, this is the root of self sabotage.
A more extreme example of this is the person whose foundational beliefs are so self sabotaging that they
are unable to maintain steady employment. Eventually, a number of these individuals may be unable to
provide the necessities of life for themselves and may become homeless. As mentioned earlier, they
know what they need to do, but the self sabotaging beliefs created during the trauma of CIO will keep
them from moving forward and helping themselves.
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