Reparenting Yourself: A Step-by-Step Guide
When you experience some form of abuse or neglect in your childhood, a part of you is still stuck in the past as that child. You don’t have to have experienced trauma to benefit from reparenting. If there are issues from your childhood that are affecting your current life, reparenting may help. In this article, I will discuss what reparenting is, why it is important, and the step-by-step process on how to parent yourself. And remember, as a parent should, try to be compassionate and patient with yourself as you go through this process.
What is Reparenting?
In psychological terms, reparenting often refers to a type of psychotherapy that is somewhat controversial. But that’s not the type of reparenting we’re talking about. In this post, reparenting means meeting the needs of your childhood self that you never had. This simply means giving back to yourself what you did not receive from your parents as a child. Learning to be your own parent allows you to heal from bad parenting you may have received in the past. Wherever and whoever you are, it’s not too late to re-parent yourself. It may take work, but every little improvement helps.
Why Should You Parent Yourself?
Many psychological problems arise from a child growing up with his or her needs unmet. When a child grows up not feeling safe or loved, he or she becomes an adult who has difficulty managing his or her thoughts and actions and navigating his or her relationships and life. Every child deserves to be seen, heard and loved. Unfortunately, not every child gets this while growing up. Being able to re-parent yourself allows you to give yourself the love and attention you may have missed in your childhood. It allows you to be the parent you never had. In a way, it’s like you’re having a different ending to your childhood self…
How to Reparent Yourself
Step 1: Find out what you were deprived of as a child and how it affected you
What needs were not met as a child? Were they physical, emotional, social or psychological?
Your childhood experiences determine your self-image and perception. It affects your self-esteem, confidence and self-worth. It shapes how you perceive yourself, your relationships, and the world.
How do you react when difficult emotions or situations arise? Do you tend to blame others, blame yourself, repress, or act out?…
These coping methods are how you learned to calm yourself as you grew up. However, just because the way you cope doesn’t mean it’s healthy, and just because you’re using it to self-soothe, doesn’t mean those methods actually work.
To heal, you need to learn how to soothe yourself healthily and effectively when difficult emotions and situations arise.
Step 2: Connect with your inner child
We live in a world that basically forces us to suppress our inner child and “grow up.” But really, most adults are not “adults” emotionally or psychologically.
Abuse causes trauma, and with trauma, it’s like you’re frozen in time. And because you experienced this as a child, a part of you is still stuck in your childhood.
To truly heal means to heal your inner child.
Acknowledge your childhood self and let them know you’re there. Counsel yourself by treating yourself with the love, kindness and respect you deserve. Find your inner child and learn how to care for him/her in ways your parents can’t.
Step 3: Let go of the burden, shame, and guilt you may feel
You may feel awkward or immature for showing interest in yourself. But there’s nothing wrong with giving yourself the love you’ve been missing.
I know how difficult it can be to be kind to yourself with a harsh inner critic. But think of it this way – see yourself as the child you once were. Would you criticize them harshly? Would you tell that kid all this? ….
As you continue this process, try to approach yourself as if you were approaching your child’s self. Try to let go of the guilt, shame, and burden you feel. Every child deserves to be treated with love and compassion. If you’ve missed out on growth, you deserve to make up for it yourself. You have the right to show yourself the love and attention you are missing.
Step 4: Learn what your parents couldn’t teach you
Sometimes your parents may not have given you what you needed emotionally, and they may not have prepared you with the skills necessary to survive in the outside world. This may have left you lacking important social and emotional skills you need to live a healthy and fulfilling life.
I will discuss in more detail what some of these skills are and how you can learn them.
– Creating Healthy Boundaries
When you have abusive parents, you may not have any boundaries, or your boundaries may have been violated repeatedly. Therefore, you may not know what healthy boundaries are or how to set them. Being able to set healthy boundaries means drawing the line between what you’re okay with and what you’re not. It also means determining what the consequences will be when boundaries are violated.
– Emotion Management: Being able to identify, express, manage and accept your emotions
“You can’t heal what you can’t feel,” says McBride, author of Will I Ever Be Good Enough .
Being able to appropriately identify, express, accept and manage your emotions allows you to build more meaningful relationships. It also allows you to be more objective about your emotions and situations.
You will be able to step back, observe, and process what is happening. It allows you to learn more about yourself and the world around you, which helps heal you. Learning how to manage your emotions appropriately will lead to many beneficial changes in your life.
– Communication skills
Good communication means expressing yourself effectively while listening and understanding what the other person is saying. In addition, nonverbal communication such as eye contact, body language, facial expressions and tone of voice significantly determine whether you communicate well.
When you have effective communication, you can resolve conflicts more easily. It means you know how to be assertive rather than being passive and/or aggressive. Communication skills also help you socialize better and build more meaningful relationships.
The ideal way to improve communication skills is to practice. Start with people you feel more comfortable with and gradually expand. Try to notice where you can improve.
Effective communication is an exchange from all people involved. It’s not just about the ability to speak clearly and coherently. It’s also about being able to listen to what the other person is saying and responding accordingly.
– Durability
Resilience is the ability to endure, overcome, adapt and bounce back from challenges. This is what gives people the strength to cope with stress and difficulties. Improving your flexibility will help you better cope with challenges and adapt to changes.
Having healthy coping methods and habits helps build resilience. Learn to reframe your thoughts so you can look at negative situations more objectively. Focus on what you can control, not what you can’t control. Learning how to practice gratitude is a great way to build resilience.
– Frustration/Frustration tolerance
Frustration tolerance is the ability to accept that things do not always go as planned and to respond in an emotionally mature way. When things don’t go your way, rather than overreacting, catastrophizing , or feeling like your life is over, perhaps you can remind yourself that surprises and changes are inevitable.
Whether we like it or not, many things are out of our control. It’s normal to be disappointed. But try to work through these feelings and remind yourself that the only thing you have control over is your own actions. So take a deep breath, do your best, and if all else fails, know that you tried.
– Take responsibility
Being able to apologize and make amends when you’ve done something wrong is an emotionally mature skill that many abusers lack. They often blame everyone and everything for their behavior before considering self-reflection and taking responsibility for their actions. Therefore, you may not have learned how to be responsible for your own actions.
Being accountable means being aware of, accepting, and taking responsibility when you’ve done something wrong, hurt someone, or made a mistake. When such situations arise, stand back and observe.
Try to see your role in what happened and understand it from the other person’s point of view. Acknowledge, accept and apologize for your mistakes.
But remember that being accountable doesn’t mean you have to harshly criticize or punish yourself for what you did. You don’t need to beat yourself up all the time about this. It’s okay to reflect on your actions to learn so you don’t make the same mistake again. However, it’s also important to move on after you’ve done your best to fix it.
– Loving Yourself
If you have abusive parents, you are probably missing the love you deserved as a child. But now that you’re older, the only person who can love you unconditionally is yourself. When parenting yourself, it is very important to be able to take care of yourself and be kind to yourself.
Loving yourself means doing nice things for yourself, making yourself happy, and encouraging, cheering and supporting yourself.
When you’re so used to hating yourself and the harsh inner critic in your head, self-love can seem like an impossible feat. It may take some time, but you can get there. Just take it slow.
Start by trying to accept yourself. Accept your qualities, characteristics, flaws and everything that makes you who you are. To do this, try to silence that abusive voice in your head.
First, learn more about where negative self-talk comes from and how to stop it .
Once you get the hang of it, start focusing on the positive things about yourself. Try to stay objective and discover what you like about yourself. Try to be proud of these positive things. Learn to see the value and worth of who you are.
Where do you start?
This list is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you need to learn, which can be a little daunting. Start where you want to improve the most and work your way down the list. And if you can’t handle everything, that’s okay. Please be patient and kind to yourself as you do this. There is no need to rush. Learning to re-parent yourself is a process; It’s going to take time.
Don’t expect perfection . No one can manage their behavior, thoughts, relationships and life perfectly. Mistakes are bound to happen. Accept setbacks and relapses when they happen.
Healing is a two steps forward, one step back process. It’s never just a linear progression. So try not to lose motivation or get discouraged when this happens. Just go ahead and practice, practice, practice.
Step 5: Create meaningful relationships and build a support network
When we have unresolved issues from our past relationship with our parents, this is likely to show up in our future relationships. You may have explored harmful or traumatic aspects of your past relationship and re-created them with your current relationships. You won’t be able to heal until you realize this.
Relationships should be based on mutual respect, trust and other important elements.
Additionally, just because you have to parent yourself doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.
Social support is crucial for emotional health. It is extremely helpful to have people around you to support you as you recover. They can offer compassion, validate the pain you are experiencing, and remind you that the abuse you are experiencing is not your fault. It also helps you feel less alone.
You may also consider therapy. A professional can guide you as you go through this process of reparenting, helping you process your experiences and develop healing tools.
Step 6: Meet needs your family isn’t meeting
It is important that you learn to identify and meet your needs. Do not minimize or zoom out. You’ve been through a difficult time. It’s okay to sympathize with yourself and feel bad. But you should also be proud. Be proud of yourself for trying to be better.
– Be kind to yourself
Keep the promises you make to yourself. Allow yourself to heal and actively try to do so. Even if there are relapses or regressions, that’s okay. As I said before, healing is a back and forth process.
Stop abandoning, bullying, sabotaging and abusing yourself. You know you probably did. When you catch yourself doing hurtful things, try to stop it. Dream about little you again. Would you treat them this way? Be kind to them.
– Practice personal care
Self-care is being able to identify and meet your needs. When you already struggle with accepting and loving yourself, practicing self-care can be very difficult. So start small.
Pick something from the list of self-care practices, add it to your daily routine, and try to stick to it. Once you understand this, add another.
Being able to practice self-care means you are healing. I know it may seem strange to show positive attention to yourself when you were raised differently. But you just have to get used to it. And you will see that it will be worth it.
Step 7: Be yourself
Being yourself can be really hard. Much of who you appear to be now probably reflects who your abusive parent wanted you to be. But do your best to separate yourself from your parents. Don’t let your experiences and background define who you are. Learn to be yourself.
Competent parents enable their children to be their own people. Therefore, try to develop the individuality in you, as a parent should do with his children.
- Separate yourself from the effects of abuse
- Reflect on your values and beliefs
- Find out what your interests, passions and hobbies are
- Think about what you want from life
- Do what you want to do and be who you want to be
Don’t let anyone else tell you who to be, how to feel, or what to want. Accept and embrace your own identity, emotions, and desires.
It may be a lifelong journey, but every little discovery adds more meaning and pleasure to your life.
You can keep a journal to help you as you go through this process of reparenting.
Try to pay attention to your thoughts and actions. Encourage and support yourself regularly. Add more self-care to your daily life. Celebrate every little step you take, no matter how small they seem.
If you make a mistake or something doesn’t go as planned, give yourself a break, take a deep breath, be kind, and try again.
Solution
Anyone can learn how to re-parent themselves. However, it takes time, commitment and patience. But remember, re-parenting yourself allows you to heal. It allows you to let go of the past, live in the present, and look forward to the future. It gives you the opportunity to live a healthy and fulfilling life despite the negative aspects.
You deserve love, freedom and happiness in your life.