Parenting is difficult yet most people become parents just as a natural next step to being an adult. Even with the best intentions, parents will make mistakes, they will mess up. Then there are other parents who are batting their own demons and are unable to be good or even adequate parents. Whether good or bad, our childhood forms the foundation of our thoughts and beliefs that dictate the way we live our lives. As we go through our lives our experiences will usually strengthen our beliefs (more on this below). Of course, there will be times when we have an unexpected and life altering experience in our adulthood or face something that forces us to change, but for the most part, we retain our beliefs unless challenged. The good news is this foundation can be altered so that you can create your beliefs more intentionally to ensure they are working for you.
If you’d like to be a part of my brand new 6-week live course on Reparenting Your Inner Child to get unstuck and create the life you want, click here.
What or who is our inner child? The inner child is the child version of you that still lives within you as a a part of your subconscious mind. It is the part of you that has been around since you were born, exposed to joys, traumas, ups and downs but before it was old enough to process any of these experiences. In its limited capacity, your inner child formed ways to keep you safe, it created rules and beliefs to ensure you did not get hurt.
To put this in perspective, imagine that you grew up in a household where appearances were important - how others saw you and your family. In that household no one spoke about what they needed, or never mentioned what upset them. They might yell at you at times and encourage you to bury your feelings, so you don’t appear “weak”. As you grow older you find relationships are great as long as they aren’t all that serious. If you do end up in a long term serious relationship, you still might find it difficult to really express how and what you feel or even need. You think about it as valuing your independence but in truth, you are scared that if you do talk about how you feel you will be ridiculed, abandoned or punished.
Another scenario is if you grew up with parents or caregivers that were experiencing their own trauma or living through abuse. Perhaps they were addicts, abusers or just unable to manage their own emotions. In this home you might receive a lot of love one minute followed by sudden bursts of no affection or withdrawal . You might learn to be scared about people pulling away from you and you address that by letting them know how much you really need them. You might get anxious if someone doesn’t answer your calls for a day or says they need space. You’re worried that the affection will go away and believe that everyone will eventually leave you.
There are also those whose parents or caregivers are affectionate one minute and abusive (including verbal and physical) in the next. This could be intended as disciplining or punishment but as a child you'd realize that you cannot trust anyone. In this case you might desperately need attention, love and companionship but you might steer away or intentionally sabotage these relationships. These experiences have a tremendous impact on our self-worth.
As children, we are dependent on our caregivers not just to have our physical and emotional needs met but also to learn how to regulate our emotions, how to react to situations, and even what to believe. When our caregivers punish us for "being bad" we learn our worth is not internal but tied to our actions, this can lead to many issues as we get older.
These are perhaps more extreme, for most people reparenting is just about reprograming your brains to ensure they serve us better. Think about it, have you got issues with money, relationships, your career or health? Do you find it impossible to save or spend money? Do you believe your relationships (including family and friends) are not meant to be happy? Do you have a job you dislike, or are you unable balance your work with your personal life? Or perhaps, like a lot of people I know, you have a complicated relationship with food – unable to control your intake or believe that not eating is a healthier choice for you.
So often these are patterns we form in our childhood. Perhaps we were told we had to be good to be loved and we heard money makes people bad, so we made a subconscious promise never to make or save money. Perhaps we saw our parents struggle and we decided that we had to be careful not to spend any money. What we see in our childhood homes and our families is what we consider normal and safe. This does not mean our parents or care givers need to explicitly tell us anything, these are unsaid insights we get from their behaviors and interactions with each other and the world.
It is important to note that all these promises and rules we create are with the intention of keeping us safe. If your parent scolded you for wanting attention, you’d learn that it is better to be quiet and not ask for anything. That is what your brain decided is safest and you go your life assuming that is really your personality. In fact, it is a learned behavior specifically with safety in mind. Now imagine, you want to be in a healthy, loving relationship but you find it impossible to talk to your partner. Or you tend to be too needy believing your partner will leave you and you ignore all their boundaries because they make you too anxious and afraid. It is like you want to send an email but instead of getting on your laptop or smart phone, you’re off to send a physical letter via snail mail – you’re running an old program expecting new results.
A lot of these programs run deep but that does not mean they cannot be changed. All these programs and patterns can be changed, it is about understanding and practicing. That is what my 6-week live course on Reparenting Your Inner Child is all about. If you are interested, click here for more information.
If you'd like to read more about why it is important to Reparent ourselves to be Better Parents read my guest blog on the site Mamma's Got Baggage.
Comentarios