This child within you, which is the core of what we call the ego or the personality, feels totally alone without these comforting objects. This child comforts itself with all kinds of blankets, transitional objects, teddy bears, and soft things to help it feel that things are okay. The ego-self, or the inner child at its core, is not enlightened; it does not know it is okay to let go of the blanket. This part of your soul is scared, angry, hurt, and full of doubt. This inner child needs to be educated. Your essence is the educator, the teacher. This perennially infantile part of the soul will not listen, let alone learn, unless there is enough compassion, love, and acceptance. The child is scared and doesn’t know whom to trust. It doesn’t know whom to turn to. So when it hears you or me talking about ego death, it thinks, “Uh-oh, now they are going to kill me.” This deep part of your personality doesn’t understand what ego death means; it hears death and gets terrified. – Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery, ch.3
The compassion and open-heartedness of the soul were not there in the environment at critical times for you as a child, and therefore, those qualities were not recognized or encouraged to arise within you. But open-hearted compassion is the quality that will truly comfort you now. Getting others to hold you and give you attention feels soothing but tends to support your belief that you are still that child. Your hurt child is an inner place of stuckness that prevents you from relaxing and feeling fully. Touching your own suffering can take you beyond the temporary relief of being comforted by others. It will penetrate the stuckness, open your own compassion, and allow your soul to deepen into the spaciousness of the heart. – Soul Without Shame: A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within, Ch. 15