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Reparenting is a path to wholeness.
In our developing and formative years in childhood nature executes on a Divine plan to get us from a human baby, completely dependent on its parent for survival, to interdependent and resourced for survival.
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Between the ages of 6 and 12 years old, the dominant brainwaves of children are rising by about 1Hz each year, until they reach the level of conscious beta brainwaves by around age 12.
During this time frame our brains undergo rapid development. Like supercomputers being coded with everything needed for survival, our formative years are all about the programming of the subconscious brain. It absorbs every infinite detail in the environment through the sensory experience of the child. In a stroke of nature’s genius the child’s brain waves operate at the frequency of hypnosis. Children are super receptors. All detail goes in. There is no filter of perspective or logic or reason. Everything goes in, to be used by the conscious brain in the years that follow, in order to survive. As human beings, the brain is, after all, our primary survival tool. After development period our logic comes on line, we start to assimilate information, we analyse and we make decisions.
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People have two basic needs, attachment and authenticity. When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity.
By design, we’re born with the primary needs of attachment (love) and authenticity (power). (Of course once our food and safety needs are met.) During our formative years we seek to get both needs met. Should our two needs come up against each other though, one need will become the sole focus and the one, posing the threat, will be ditched. A typical example is if approval (interpreted by the subconscious as love and acceptance) is only obtained with specific ‘good’ behaviour and if asserting authenticity receives criticism or perceived rejection then the need for authenticity will be dropped in favour of receiving approval. (This occurs regularly in a traditional ‘achievement’ focused family).
This is how our challenges emerge. In the playing out of the above scenarios of our formative years when we choose behaviour other than what is authentic we become separated from our Self. We start to lose our sense of wholeness. In my instance, my well-meaning parents offered me frequent praise and because of my placement in the family as the youngest, I knew what happened with ‘bad behaviour’, so I never revealed the side of myself that was hungry for rebellion, self-assertion, adventure, exploration and experimentation. I was fascinated by the taboo subjects. On one hand I was fearlessly leaping into an unknown world of mystery and on the other, my desire to explore created a deep sense of shame. At an extremely young age I completely split my personality in two.
We are not so different. As humans, our subconscious brain programming is established during our formative years which creates our belief systems. We are part of a family, society, a church, a community, and there are rules and norms to follow. Century old control and fear paradigms are passed down through the generations. We are required to behave in accordance with the rules to ensure that we use our free will ‘wisely’. And often the rules are taken on in fear and without question.
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Our judgments come from our beliefs. Our beliefs from our conditioning ... Pounding pavements, creating a deluge of havoc ... False self. It is through the awareness of the mind's unconscious natural state that we can shift it toward awareness.
This is changing. We are waking up, as humanity, to our abilities. We are waking up to the fact that we are beyond living in fear from a place of survival. We have access to information. We know how our brain works. We are learning about the pitfalls limiting beliefs. Science is now proving what mysticism has alluded to for thousands of years. We are powerful. And our power is accessible when we recognise our wholeness, when we come into alignment with our true nature, which is peace.
False ‘power’, that has been enforced in order to control, is starting to shift out rapidly as consciousness expands. Our parenting may reflect elements of our past programming, a desire to control using a unilateral approach to decision making. In some families this may be the status quo for some time to come. We do have a huge opportunity to create change right now. We can shift up and out of the ‘hand-me down’ limiting beliefs that have stifled our potential and that of our parents and their parents and generations before.
Reparenting is about recognising that we are, and always have been, whole. It’s about welcoming the emotional reactivity and initial explosiveness of our inner child. It’s about acknowledging that emotions have been suppressed and will continue to form a barrier to the expression of wholeness and the fulfilment of potential until they are released or expressed.
There’s real pain inside and the inner child has not felt safe to express it. When she was told to ‘stop crying!’, and was distracted by food or singing, or scolded or shamed, what she needed was to feel. What she needed was the safe nurturing space of her caregivers in order to learn about what her emotions meant and learn to trust herself. Now she may feel misunderstood and angry for not being seen and heard. That’s all.
The inner child has other better things to do. She is extremely playful and spontaneous and creative. When she trusts herself, she can focus her attention on positive expression. Sadly, often her playful, expressive spontaneity has been confused with something else like being unruly, misbehaving, and not following the rules.
All she needs is validation and some airtime. She needs to get to those feelings just to feel them through. She needs to know that she has support. Co-regulation, from a compassionate affirming parent, is often what her unregulated crazy behaviour was about. It was simply a nonverbal way of asking for help with boundaries. The good news is that with Reparenting we get to do this for ourselves. We get to be the loving presence we needed back when life was so raw. We can hold the space for our inner child. With Reparenting we get to respond with self-compassion: ‘Ahh, a big emotional explosion. What support do you need? I won’t allow you to hurt anyone or yourself, I’ve got you covered because I know your logic is offline at the moment.’
And once our inner child is feeling safely and lovingly contained, our adult response becomes more empowered. Our adult voice is more easily accessible in the moments of stress. And then magic happens. Reparenting becomes more about taking cues of creativity, playfulness, joy, intuition and inspiration, all gloriously delivered from the content inner child.
I hear you. You’re saying ‘but how?’. You desire a different way of being. This all sounds great, but…But somehow it’s a little too challenging. Yes.
We’re going to explore the full realm of the inner child on our Reparenting journey with you. Unearthing and feeling the trapped emotions. We’re going to explore how to support the nurturer adult within, and discover our own inner creative treasure.
(And there will be plenty compassionate observing when times get rough.)
We’ve got you.
Lean in…
“Reparenting, simply put, is about reclaiming wholeness by addressing our inner child wounding.”
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