I‘VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD one can never have too many friends, which perhaps was what drew me to the Learning Annex’s Inner Child Workshop. Their ad promised not only to put me in touch with my inner child, but “to heal this child and thus make him/her one’s own best friend.” An avid churchgoer in the conventional sense, I’m chronically fascinated by those who worship at the Temple of Self, larding up bestseller lists with M. Scott Peck and Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra, looking at the world through Gestalt-colored glasses and slogging through bogs of New Age goo. Any doubt that I’d come to the right place was quashed by facilitator Jolen Chang, who welcomed six grown men and women with the words “Oh, here are the children,” as she unloaded her pediatric healing utensils: a tubful of crayons, scissors, Elmer’s School-Girl Gel, and ceramic nurturing sculptures. Chang is a Unity lay minister. The Unity Church has served, historically, as a home for lapsed everythings: Jews fleeing orthodoxy, Catholics avoiding ritualism, Baptists who fear excessive potlucking, Episcopalians escaping each other. All were now searching for a custom-made Lincoln Log religion featuring the most beloved deity–Themselves. One of my new foufy-haired friends explained it thus: “You, in a sense, are the Christ.” This is precisely the kind of dialogue cue that can make a guy turn on his microrecorder, which I did. It was a big mistake. “I think taping is wholly inappropriate,” clucked an assertiveness trainer who’d joined us from down the hall. “I’m very uncomfortable with it” said Reva, sitting next to me. “Erase the tape. ERASE THE TAPE!!” Now is it you who’s uncomfortable,” I needled, “or your inner child?” She didn’t look amused, extending her hand in the manner of a second-grade teacher confiscating a favorite toy–one that I wouldn’t see at the end of the year–as she walked it to the wastebasket, dismembering it with violent ripping motions. Jolen scolded both me, Matt Labash, and Little Matt, as I was instructed to call my inner self. “This isn’t a time for journalism, it’s a time to share,” she said. “Obviously some power brought you here, so leave the journalist behind.” “You can pick it up on your way out,” said Lee, who looked like he’d picked up a few things himself with his blue cords and large feathered flaps of hair covering his ears like he was Andy Travis’s stunt double on WKRP in Cincinnati. From there we were off, with deep-breathing visualization techniques. “Picture your inner child,” said Chang, holding a Cabbage-Patch likeness of herself. “Put it on your lap, stroke its hair, and say, ‘Hi, Little Jolen, do you have anything to tell me today?'” The others had more success than I. The assertiveness trainer pictured herself “in a white dress holding a fish I just caught,” while Reva said, “I was in a red dress and I looked adorable.” My inner snapshot occurred during a rough patch, what I refer to sartorially as my “cut-offs and dingo boots” phase–a tough look to pull off even at four. Our trainer’s intention was to connect our inner child with our nurturing parent, also referred to in the literature as a “child’s rights advocate”–the Marian Wright Edelman within. Not all of us had nurturing parents, as we were reminded by hunchbacked Ben, who had the kind of 12-step facial hair that seems to retain comfort-food detritus (chicken soup driblets, Swiss Miss Mocha powder, etc.). “My father was abusive and I never disconnected from my mother,” he said. ” Our relationship was”–he struggled for words–“too close.” This was no revelation. If Ben had walked into the room attached to a giant nipple, none of us would’ve been taken aback–not as he lay on the floor in a three- quarters fetal tuck, talking baby talk while constructing origami name tags with his “non-dominant hand” and kicking off his topsiders to rub black nylon socks together like he was expecting a spoonful of Blueberry Buckle. As a participant and not a journalist, I went with the flow–snacking on nuts and raisins while arts’n’craftsing with my playmates, observing inner child/protective parent dialogues, primal screaming into accordion room dividers, and otherwise watching the believers peel each other like Bermuda onions, savoring every narcissistic layer until they regressed to sucklings. Then, and only then, could the Big Truths come a-calling. Though some of us know it simply as “life,” Jolen told us that we all experience “dysfunction.” “The important thing to remember is to have a good cry,” she said. “See a sad movie, like Babe.” That’s the one with the talking pig. “I can pretty much judge everyone by how they react to that.” Doesn’t sound very nurturing to me.
