Reparenting: A Path To Trusting Yourself

Reparenting yourself can be challenging work. After all, if parenting were easy, it probably would have been done 100% right the first time. As it stands, our upbringings are imperfect at best and traumatizing at worst. So for the untold many who have suffered either imperfect or traumatizing childhoods, there lies the great work of reparenting one’s self as an adult. 

This work asks you to step into the role of the caregiver you may have needed but didn’t have. It isn’t glamorous, and it doesn’t happen in a single breakthrough moment. It is a return to the child inside of you that wants to be seen, understood, and cared for.

“Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.”  — Erik Erikson

What is your inner child? 

Carl Jung is often referred to as the originator of the inner child through his descriptions of archetypes. He believed the inner child is a universal presence that lives within all of us. It reflects who we are at our most authentic, unguarded, and essential level. This part of us holds our original sense of self, before the world told us who we needed to be.

In addition to that, Roberto Assagioli says that each developmental age forms small parts of who we are. The child within us doesn’t disappear as we grow up, and our inner child isn’t just the memory of our childhood. It is something that continuously shapes our identity.

The inner child often surfaces in unexpected ways. It may show up in moments of joy and spontaneity, when we feel free and open. But it also speaks through our pain, especially the kind that reactively pops up when we are  being ignored or feeling misunderstood and unseen. These reactions are clues that a younger part of us is asking for your attention, care, and healing.

The more you are able to be with your inner child without trying to fix or change it, the more space you create for your true personality to emerge. 

What does it  mean to re-parent your inner child?

 When you nurture and take care of your inner child, you will feel more compassionate, curious, creative, adventurous, spontaneous, etc. However, when your inner child is neglected, you will likely feel disconnected, unfulfilled, and defensive. You might notice that you play out old dysfunctional patterns from your childhood that no longer serve you. Re-parenting your inner child heals the insecure attachment wounds created by early caregivers. 

When you give the wounded child within you validation and understanding, you give yourself the love and protection you may have needed when you were younger. You are the mother, the father, and the little baby. You learn to be the one who loves you unconditionally, nurtures you, and protects you. Instead of seeking this from external sources, you learn that you can trust and rely on yourself. 

What does it mean to be a good mother to yourself? The mother archetype is best represented by The Empress in Tarot. She is nurturing, compassionate, and loving. Being a good mother to yourself means listening to your body when you need rest. It is making yourself a nourishing and healthy meal. It is loving all parts of yourself unconditionally, even the parts of you that are hard for you to look at. When you  When you mother yourself, you allow space for your emotions to unfold without shaming yourself and making up stories. You also become a home within yourself.

What does it mean to be a good father to yourself? The father archetype is best represented by The Emperor in Tarot. He is assertive, disciplined, and a protector, BUT he is not rigid or controlling. Being a good father to yourself means pushing yourself to do the things that you don’t want to do because you know that it will give you security and stability. It is standing up for yourself and setting good boundaries. It is having structure and discipline in your life so that you can be free. The emperor creates the secure container so that the empress, their children, and the rest of the kingdom can be safe and thrive in doing what they do best.  When you become this presence for yourself, you stop waiting for someone else to give you permission to feel safe, grounded, and worthy. You become your own protector.

What do you do when your family is dysfunctional and you want to be different?

• How did you learn to connect with others through your family? Much of what wounds the inner child has to do with connection. When empathy and safety were missing during our formative years, we may have internalized the belief that our emotions were too much, or that love had to be earned. But the same way that emotional wounds happen in relationship, they also begin to heal there. Being seen, understood, and held with compassion can restore what was lost. Recognizing your attachment style is the key to understanding how you relate to others and how your family’s emotional climate shaped your expectations of love and connection. When we become aware of these unconscious patterns, we can begin to shift them and create healthier connections with ourselves and others.  
• What needs to be forgiven? Blame is one of the best ways to stay in dysfunction. When you blame other people, you are giving away your power. When you forgive and understand, you take control of your life. As Louise Hay writes in You Can Heal Your Life, “Your parents were doing the best they could with the understanding, awareness and knowledge they had.” Thinking of your parents as children might help you be more understanding of why they did the things that they did, and by having that understanding for them, you will feel more compassionate towards them. Forgiveness is for you and for your own freedom. It’s not about excusing what they did, or shoving your emotions down, it’s releasing yourself and others from the shackles of shame and perfectionism.
• How well do you listen to others? How well did your family listen to you? Not being seen and listened to by your parents can create a wound and create what is called a “survival personality.” This is your false self, which is shame-based and essentially the mask that you wear in order to protect the vulnerable child within you that didn’t feel seen by your parents. This can cause you to act defensively in your relationships, because you are operating under the narrative that people don’t care about what you have to say. You might either fight to be heard and find yourself talking over people, or decide not to contribute nothing at all, both of which are detrimental to forming close, healthy bonds with others. Take a moment to slow down and notice what is coming up for you when you are interacting with loved ones. Give the child inside you the love it needs. While you may have grown up in a dysfunctional family, you can give yourself the love that you didn’t receive as a child and meet your needs without relying on partners and friends to do it for you.  In order to be listened to and understood by others, you must first listen to and understand yourself. 

“It is crucial for the development of a human being to be recognized, acknowledged, and understood.” 

How Can Therapy In St Petersburg, FL Help You Recover From A Dysfunctional Family? 

• Therapy Can Help Us Accept Failure.  When you grow up in a home where making a mistake felt unsafe, failing at something can feel very shameful. Therapy can help you begin to separate your worth from your performance. You start to see your mistakes as a beautiful part of the human experience and you learn to be comfortable with the discomfort, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, regardless of whether you fail. If you never failed again, you might as well not be having this human experience right now. 
• We Learn How To Set Boundaries In Therapy. In dysfunctional families, boundaries are often unclear, ignored, or punished. If you have experienced that, you may struggle to speak up and protect yourself. A good therapist can teach you how to set healthy boundaries so that you can protect your energy.
• Therapy Is A Chance To Heal Our Family Stories. Many of us carry unspoken beliefs inherited from our families. Maybe its that llove must be earned, that our needs are too much, or  that conflict means danger. In therapy, you get to name those stories, understand where they came from, and decide which ones no longer serve you. This isn’t about blaming your parents or rewriting the past. It’s about empowering yourself to take control of the narrative and re-write your story.

If you are going through a transition and find yourself needing support in accessing and reparenting your inner child, I am your guide. Through somatics and creativity, I can help you find your way back to your child-like wonder so that you can heal from your past and discover, love and respect your authentic self.

Click here to schedule a free fifteen minute consultation to see if it’s the right fit for you.

Starting with a creative written voice and a BA in English from ASU, Alli Cravener has become so much more than Integrative Counsel’s voice! Not only is she a writer who is passionate about connecting concepts and content, Alli is our Counseling Intern. She specializes in inner child work, identity work, shadow work, and helping you get in touch with your spirituality. She is also the editor-in-chief, office manager, AND intake specialist at Integrative Counsel. When you call us, you’ll talk to Alli! Alli’s interests include painting, history, learning about other people, and wearing the color pink. She likens herself to a “mouse in a palm tree”, and she loves it that way.