The Ways a Person Can Change

As part of Tim Westfeldt’s work as a “smart mirror”, he reflects certain aspects of a person back to them, which encourages them to change. One type of change a person can do is developmentally, which can happen at any time in a person’s life.

The analogy Tim likes to use is that of a lawnmower. To function properly, a lawnmower must have a solid foundation – a frame and four wheels.

The lawnmower doesn’t move without a frame and four wheels. The first two years of a person’s life are like the frame and wheels. In that time period, a child learns they have needs and knows someone else must to meet them. They become “professionally competent at being needy,” Tim says.

Kids in that age range make sounds and expressions to indicate they have needs and start to develop agency because they make the link between their actions and their needs getting met. For instance, crying gets them food or their diaper changed. Also in that age range, a child learns to trust their caregivers to take care of them. However, not everyone has the experience of their needs being met consistently and that is the reason for insecure or disorganized attachment. Much of where Tim’s work comes into play is in the realm of reparenting to create a secure bond for a person’s inner child. To teach a person they can be the parent now that they needed then as a child but didn’t get. How does reparenting happen?

For people who have insecure or disorganized attachment, Tim advises purchasing a stuffed animal that represents the inner child. There are two positions for holding the stuffed animal: cheek to cheek and like football, tucked into the crook of a person’s arm. In the cheek to cheek position, the person delivers mothering messages to the stuffed animal. They say to the stuffed animal, which represents the young part of them, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not ever going anywhere. I’ll meet all your needs. There’s nothing about you that will keep me from meeting your needs.”

In the football position, a client repeats the fathering messages: “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not ever going anywhere. I’ll protect you. You can do it! Go ahead and try.” The inner child needs to hear messages like those that they didn’t receive growing up and eventually the messages sink in. 

After the early development stage, in an ideal world, a toddler come to expect their needs will be met and they consider the idea of meeting their own needs. That’s when autonomy and boundary-setting skills come into play. This is when children start to engage with other people because they have social needs, which are critically life important. Kids engage with rough and tumble play and they learn the value in winning and losing. 

To go back to the lawnmower analogy, this is like adding a blade and a motor to the lawnmower. Each stage of development adds a feature to the lawnmower. 

“Once a person has all the development stages and they gained all the minimum structural skills, they go out and start learning what it means to be human, to experience what they experience,” Tim said.

If a person didn’t to finish a developmental stage because there was some interruption, that’s when dysfunction arises, not only in terms of insecure or disorganized attachment, but also in relation to the self and others. For the self, it can mean self-loathing and intense personal criticism. Instead of learning discernment, a necessary skill in life, a person can segue into becoming a judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.   

In terms of relating to others this is the application of boundaries, knowing where the self ends and the rest of the world begins.

“It’s something that can end up in varying states of high and low function and injury depending on how well the developmental stage went,” Tim said. 

For people who didn’t learn healthy boundary-setting skills, they have trouble with the word “no,” and become people pleasers. They are more concerned with how other people feel or will respond to them than how they feel. Fear of abandonment plays a large role when a person has difficulty setting and maintaining boundaries.

Tim’s work also addresses psychological trauma, or experiences a person wasn’t ready for but experienced anyway. Those experiences include violence and abuse of all kinds (emotional, sexual, financial, etc.). 

By teaching a person the skills to reparent themselves and also finish each developmental stage, a person is able to transform themselves and live what Tim calls a “birthright life.” Or in other words, a happy, fulfilling life.