Reparenting Our Inner Child For Greater Self-Love

On the journey to love ourselves more, it's important to love and accept ALL of ourselves, not just the parts that are easy to love and accept. As we better understand the inner child and how to become our own inner parent, we can tap more fully into how reparenting is the path to true self-love. In this space, your heart and inner child will be nurtured and you'll feel more connected to yourself. You'll also better understand HOW to reparent yourself, too.
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Transcript

Welcome to this inner child meditation.

I'm Deb and I'm so glad that you're here.

Before we get started I just want to tell you a little bit about the inner child.

What I think happens in our childhood is that we very rarely get all of our needs met and that's not because our parents aren't good enough it's just because everyone has very specific needs and our parents would have to be pretty remarkable to meet every single need.

In addition in the process of conditioning you to be a person who can function in the world you probably got a lot of messages that said that certain parts of you just aren't okay.

And one other thing that happens to most of us is that we really never have anybody that can fully handle all of our emotions.

Usually our emotions are pretty confronting to our parents and they tend to want to suppress them or to fix us or to somehow not fully just be present with our emotions.

Now in their defense it really wasn't known how important it was to feel our feelings until somewhat more recently.

But the best news of all is that even if we didn't get our needs met as children we can take care of it ourselves.

And the invitation is to begin to do what is called re-parenting.

Re-parenting is the act of parenting ourselves.

I know it's crazy but what I have come to understand is that for the most part whatever needs were not met,

Whatever emotions were not held,

Whatever circumstances we were in where we weren't fully seen and understood and taken care of in the ways that we needed to and any parts of ourselves that we had to put aside in order to be accepted and to stay safe.

All of those parts of us,

All of those feelings and all of those needs they still exist in us and we can actually become detectives and start to find those parts of us and go back and give ourselves the love that we needed or to meet the needs that we didn't get met or to hold the feelings that couldn't be held by others or to find the parts that we put aside and exiled in order to become an acceptable person or at least who we thought would be most acceptable.

Now all those things we did as children they were really really smart.

They were very wise and they are the reason why you are here today because it is your survival mechanism to do that but most of us aren't happy enough just living in survival mode and we would much rather be in the mode of thriving.

Would you agree that you would much rather thrive?

I would say so.

Now the act of re-parenting is a journey and one of the most important things we can do is reconnect with our inner child.

The inner child is actually made up of many many many parts of us but we're going to just say that there's this one entity called the inner child and it is the younger parts of you.

It is also the essence of you.

It's the part of you that is the truest you.

It's the many pieces of you that make up all of who you are and over the years you've had to cover that part of you up because it was vulnerable.

The world isn't that friendly toward radical authenticity.

So we learned that some parts of us weren't acceptable and we learned how to put on masks and to create barriers so that we wouldn't get hurt.

To wear cloaks of armor to protect our hearts and each one of those things that we did created distance between the person that we show up in the world as and the truth of who we are inside and what may begin to happen and you may be feeling this yourself is that you become increasingly insecure because you feel like maybe this sense of I don't even know who I am or maybe this just a feeling of lack of safety this sense of that you just don't fully feel safe in the world or maybe ungrounded or an untethered feeling or a sense that life just isn't happening the way that you expected it to happen.

You could be noticing yourself being more triggered and more sensitive to other people and what they say and do and all of these things have happened because we've created an external orientation.

We have oriented ourselves to believing that the outside world the people our experiences the circumstances that all of that needs to happen in a certain way in order for us to feel loved and safe and accepted and that that means that it's a combination of we need to be exactly what other people need that what we believe that other people think we should be so that they can feel comfortable and they'll like us and accept us and that we want others to do the same we want others to act in a way that makes us feel loved but that is a hustle it's exhausting and it's unsustainable and it most likely isn't getting you the results you're hoping for and that is because at the core of everything the core of all pain all suffering the core of not feeling like you're enough a core the core feeling untethered purposeless a lack of meaning disconnect from other people the core is the disconnect from your essence from your inner child from the truth of who you are and as that divide becomes greater as your persona or your social you the parts of you that you show to the world as that part is gaining greater and greater distance from the true you the essence of who you are the more discomfort you will feel the less safe you will feel the more insecure you will feel the more grasping the more triggered because you are literally untethered from yourself yeah and that is an uncomfortable place to be so the first step is to recognize that to be true there are all kinds of ways that life sort of calls us back into connection with ourselves I even believe that our triggers when we get triggered I believe that is actually a pointer to a place inside of us that is ready to be seen and to be held and integrated I believe that any time we're suffering there is some way that we are being called to see that we're not acting in alignment with our truth that we're either not hearing it or we're ignoring it and disregarding it so the first thing is to acknowledge that we have this part of ourselves this inner child this essence this aspect of the true us the truth of who we are and that we are being called to come back into connection with that now that part of us may be young because it's often been ignored and it hasn't been really cultivated in us and so there is a journey of of healing of reclamation there is a way that we will be called to find and remember the truth of who we are it's there it's always been there it's just been covered up by layers and layers and layers of protection and masks and guarding and barriers and ways that we have sort of banished parts of ourselves away so now we're being called to reconnect and part of that journey will be for you to step into a role as the parent of yourself and to love yourself the way that you weren't loved as a child now your parents may have been wonderful parents or they may not have been either way no parents completely meet every need of their child and very few parents have been able to really meet their children emotionally and most parents gave their kids the impression that they do have to be different than they are in order to be acceptable the good news is you don't have to stay stuck there you can learn how to love yourself the way that you weren't loved when you were young the way you deserved to be loved when you were young and the way you needed to be loved now this journey might seem a little nebulous unclear a little esoteric like what is she talking about I get it and it isn't something that you can just decide that you're going to learn today and you're gonna have it all figured out by tomorrow it is truly a life path I call it the whole soul way it's the way where we go back and find all the holes in us the emotional holes even the holes of parts of ourselves that we put aside the holes in the way that we were loved and we go back and we fill those holes through the act of re-parenting through the act of growing up our nervous system through the act of courageously showing up more and more as our true cells through the act of recognizing our ego and our egos deep desire to protect us and desire for survival and learning how to relate to our ego without our ego running us seeing all the ways that life shows us where we need a little attention and love places where we didn't get those needs met when we were young wounding and childhood hurts that life is always showing us and it's our job to understand that and to see that we actually know the way back home that we are always being given breadcrumbs along the trail that guides us back home to ourselves but sometimes we just need a little help in finding them that's my gift for sure in the world is seeing those little trail heads and the breadcrumbs and helping people to continue over and over and over to reclaim parts of themselves that have been lost along the journey of life and to come back into wholeness and to discover the truth of who they are and to love themselves so much that they're no longer dependent on the validation and love from others yeah of course it's icing on the cake and it always feels good to be validated and the irony is the more that we love ourselves the more the outside world will reflect that for us but it starts with us it starts with re-parenting and healing and loving ourselves and treating ourselves the way that we wished we were treated treating ourselves the way we wish people would treat us now yeah yeah that's it so many of us were raised with parents who were a little bit more dominant and expected compliance or perhaps they were way on the other end of the spectrum and they were very permissive but very few parents really parented us in the conscious way that most of us need most humans would need and that's just true but what I see happening is that then when we get older we tend to treat ourselves like a dominant parent we're very critical of ourselves and demanding and expect more from ourselves and even reasonable and we put pressure on ourselves and we we act in ways that we think we should act and we put ourselves in situations that are not really caring toward ourselves or loving toward ourselves and we do these things because that's what we learned and so re-parenting ourselves means that we learn how to be with ourselves in a really truly supportive loving and even unconditional way unconditional love doesn't mean that all behaviors are okay unconditional love means that I am open to seeing you and understanding you and loving you for exactly who you are I can still not like a behavior I might not like the way that you do something but I can still love you now I just want you to take one moment I want you to take your hand and put it onto your heart and if it feels good for you keep your hand there if you prefer to move your hand somewhere else then do that right now just trust yourself on this just move your hand to somewhere that feels good and connecting and somehow nourishing I often hear that it's either putting your hand to your heart or putting your hand on your belly but anywhere that works for you is good it could be arms around you or could even be holding your hands this gesture is going to become your gesture of connecting to yourself so let's imagine that you're in a situation and you're either noticing you're really activated or you're feeling really sad something feels painful somebody said something and you're taking it personally if you were putting your hand to your heart you would take your hand put it onto your heart take a nice breath and you would remind yourself to connect because remember the deepest wound the most suffering we experience the deepest pain is the separation from ourselves and it happened when we were very young when we learned that in order to be safe we have to be somebody that our parents or primary giver caregivers believe is acceptable and that got validated and reinforced through our friends and through teachers and clergy and workplaces we have been given that message over and over and over again there are certain ways you have to be in this world in order to be acceptable I just want to give you one maybe comforting thought that this does not be mean you will become a person who is unacceptable in fact I would say it's the exact opposite so often we're not even accurate with our interpretation of what's acceptable and what's not it's based on a young child's perception of the world so when you go through this journey of reclaiming the truth of who you are you still can choose you are not going to become impotent in your life in fact if anything you will be more empowered more effective more confident than ever and you will still choose your behaviors it's just that you'll be able to choose a behavior without having to reject yourself you will live more in alignment with the truth of you who you are and that will feel more right it actually is like the effort of pretending and trying to be somebody or not is truly exhausting it is energy zapping it is literally taking your life force away from you the more we live in alignment with the truth of who we are even if that means some people decide that that's not for them anymore for the most part you will then find where you really belong and then you will be able to be at ease you will be able to be you and feel safe being you and I like to think of it it's almost like wrapping yourself into a cozy warm blanket and it just feels right one of the other things I was afraid of is that I would have to lose friends that I would have people who would either I would grow out of them or they would not want to be my friend anymore and I will say that it did happen a little bit but it took a long time and it only happened when I was ready for it to happen and you always are in control of your journey this doesn't mean that you have to make major changes instantly you're always in charge of your journey but until you turn around and stop looking outside of you for that validation until you turn around and start walking inward back home to you and until you begin to connect with yourself with all of the parts of you that you put aside with all of the feelings that you were never allowed to feel with all of the needs that you suppressed because you didn't want to be needy with all of that when we connect and then we come back into relationship with the essence and the truth of who we are that's when we feel like we're home maybe you have somebody in your life where you feel like you can be that way with them imagine being that way all the time imagine that you don't need to pretend now of course there'll always be times when we have to for a bit here and there masks are useful and not everybody will feel safe and so we don't need to go out there in a reckless way we'll always want to be discerning but the question is can we feel so safe within ourselves that that's okay but that's okay to even do that so what is the journey it's the journey home to ourselves it's the reconnection to our inner child it is the re-parenting and the providing to ourselves that which we didn't receive when we were little it's finding those parts and and being for ourselves all that we wish that we could have in this world let's take a breath and if your hands not still on your heart then put it back on your heart for a moment and just feel what it feels like to have your hand the skin the warmth of your hand against the warmth of that other body part wherever your hand is notice that is you actively intentionally connecting to yourself now it's a physical connection it's even an energetic connection but you can expand it to be an emotional physiological spiritual connection you may want to close your eyes you may even want to do something like rock a little bit soothing yourself this is a way to soothe and to come back to Center to tether yourself from within you may even want to imagine yourself with an actual connection like a tether like a rope that actually connects you internally ground you within take a nice breath and I say thank you for being here today and I want you to thank yourself for being here for yourself today and I assure you that your inner child is thanking you your soul is thanking you namaste my friends

Reviews

Thank you for such an interesting, informative explanation of our inner child's needs and sharing such a helpful explanation of how and why our inner child's needs are unmet.
I am very grateful.
Blessings 🙌 and Love
Namaste 🙏 ✨️

Beautifully chosen words. Caring voice. I needed this meditation talk. Tether to my heart I shall. Thank you 😊

Excellent! A perfect talk on understanding how reparenting works.