Healing from the Inside out: Our 'Baby' Selves. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) brings to our higher consciousness the remarkable human journey of spiritual beings coming to earth and the extraordinary changes that occur throughout various life phases of each of us who have chosen to manifest on earth.

 No where is this miracle more apparent than in the life stages: age 0- 7 and age 7 -14. A child known at age 0 is hardly recognizable at age 7: a documentation of the enormous physical changes that occur in the young human coming into physicality from pure spirit being.



Mostly unconscious willing into being is becoming present through arms and legs; through bodily systems of intake and elimination—a child grows! The first 7 years are essentially devoted to physical presence in the world and the systems required for a human to sustain healthy life. Therefore, Steiner recommends that we devote our attention to a young person’s safety, calm, sleep and healthy food intake, allowing a child to similarly focus full attention upon that part of self manifest in that age stage of his/her development.


Indeed, this is the primary basis of Steiner’s recommendation that we not teach children to read until age 7 or at the change of teeth. In Steiner’s view, the change of teeth is the culmination of a child’s physical manifestation into the earth plane. At that point, the extraordinary energy devoted to physical growth can be somewhat diverted to thinking or mind development. Up until this age, children primarily imitate their parents and siblings and surroundings.


Age 9 represents the beginning of another crucial life stage development in that the feeling life begins to be activated in a child, following the culmination of physical development completing around age 7. Steiner noted, “In the ninth year the child really experiences a complete transformation of its being, which indicates an important transformation of its soul-life and its bodily physical experiences.”[i]


At age 9, a child has a waning of his/her powers of unconscious imitation and becomes more observant of outer world events. Nine year olds begin to experience themselves as separate beings and have a sense of difference from others. It is at this age, when a child’s emotional/feeling life is activated. Once a child’s initial growth phase is complete which allows him/her to sustain life on earth, then a child’s emotional life is activated.




After an initial period, around age 2, at age 9, a child’s ‘I’ ego penetrates more deeply throughout the child’s bodily and feeling systems. It is this quickening that gives the human individuality as a life force. Their new sense of self identity can be challenging to children, parents, teachers and friends alike.


Depending upon temperament, a child can become fearful, argumentative, demanding, withdrawing, melancholic—all feelings related to experiencing a new awareness of separateness in the world, newly observed.


The goal is to integrate this heightened sense of self with a higher sense of connection with spiritual self and all that exists.


Age 9 is a human’s first deep thrust toward this worthy goal.


If you think back to experiences you may have encountered in family life, among parents, siblings, relatives and friends, it is easy to see breaches in foci during these crucial life change areas.


This is where, now, as adults, you can give yourself what you may have missed then. Find ways to nurture the 9 year old inside you: i.e. the one who feels separate, abandoned, unacknowledged; the one who sees in the world, unfairness, a place to fear, demand or withdraw from in a futile attempt to protect self.


This little person inside needs your loving attention and strengthening. A look at all that gives joy, comfort, a place of belonging, an awareness of heroes overcoming obstacles for the greater good of all--these are areas that heal our Baby Selves within.


I just might need a hug today and so, I sit and rock my 9 year old within. A bit of tender acknowledgement goes a long way toward bringing myself back into my own connection with all that is Good.
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[i] Rahima Baldwin Dancy, “Parenting the nine year old,” Mothering, Summer, 1989, reprinted Reflections from Golden Hill, Winter, 2007.