Reparenting Your Inner Child

 Reparenting Your Inner Child

In my previous post we discussed who your Inner Child might be. We also talked about sandwiches. This time I thought we might think about how to help make your inner child feel better. Heal the wounds or minor scratches. Discover the joy, creativity and playfulness. Some call this ‘Reparenting’ others call it ‘Healing the Inner Child’. 

I don’t know much about a lot of stuff, but parenting, I’ve done that. Even grandparenting. So I consider myself slightly qualified to reparent myself. Not that my parents didn’t do a good job in the context of what they knew, who they were, and the early 1960s. Almost all parents try and do the best they can under what is usually far from ideal circumstances. I know I did.

Still, I thought, this is my chance to do better. If it turns out well I could offer to reparent my children. Though more likely it will be the other way around. 

So how to do it? I’ve done some research but also many of the practices of the Way of Play are all about our Inner Child. It transpires that it’s a lot like grandparenting -

Nurturing - 

Tending to physical and emotional needs. Treating yourself as if you were your beloved grandchild. This should include treats, days out, lots of cuddling, praise, kissing better and plasters featuring dinosaurs. 

Allowing yourself to feel emotions without judgement. If an emotion arises that feels painful or uncomfortable that’s ok. Just say ‘There there’ and ‘This too will pass’ administer a hug and possibly a chocolate button. If an emotion arises that you like, enjoy it! Suitable celebrations include running madly around the room, jumping on the sofa or sliding down the bannisters (mind the finial). 

Praise without caveat - suitable phrases include ‘good work!’, ‘well done!’, ‘amazing!’ and ‘super-duper!’. Pats on the back, triumphant dances, shouts of joy and chocolate buttons are all cool. 

Boundaries

We all need boundaries to keep ourselves safe and sane. Setting ourselves boundaries stops us from falling into a giant vat of processed food, a lake of vodka or being trodden underfoot by a herd of wayward admirers. Our parents set boundaries which may or may not have been appropriate. My father was very keen on keeping elbows off tables during mealtimes. I was equally keen for my children not to run pel-mel onto busy roads.

 

In caring for our inner child and our adult selves we must reflect on what boundaries are important to us. For example, some of my boundaries include not drinking alcohol, not eating meat, being as very kind to the planet as possible, not jumping onto busy roads and not stepping on the cracks in the pavement. 

Some of our self-imposed boundaries may be harder to stick to than others. I struggle with saying ‘no’ when I’m asked to do stuff that I don’t have capacity for. Asking for help when I’m struggling.  I also have a hard time  with not buying random items advertised on facebook, and only eating one chocolate button at a time. 

We must also have boundaries in our relationships and environment to safeguard our well-being. Be brave enough to say ‘no!’ to situations you are uncomfortable with or put you at risk. There was once a woman (yes it was me) that in her youth just randomly joined in her circles’ drug and alcohol habits. She was only saved many years later by becoming pregnant and, although she couldn’t or didn’t say ‘no!’ for herself, she managed to say ‘NO!’ for her unborn child. Top tip - don’t wait until you are pregnant before saying ‘no’, especially if you are male. 

Think carefully about your boundaries, the things that keep you safe and sane. Things that keep others safe and sane. Forgive yourself kindly if you step over a boundary but step back behind it as soon as you can. Be kind but firm to those who step over your boundaries. If people consistently cannot respect your boundaries then maybe you shouldn’t follow their leadership, hang out with them, or marry them.

Emotional regulation

When I was a child (the person who shaped my Inner Child) we didn’t have emotions. Or rather we didn’t admit to having emotions. We had words for only three emotions - happy, sad and angry. Sad and angry were not socially acceptable. Happy was ok so long as you weren’t too loud about it. What was expected of us was to be good. To suppress all emotions that arose to the greater cause of being good. You could also be strong, a winner, or a leader if you were a boy. It seemed fairly ok to hit people and get into fights, especially if you won those fights. If you were a girl you could aspire to be pretty, helpful, humble, giving, and, for some reason pious. I think maybe the pious was some misdirected attempt to counteract the giving when puberty arrived. 

I have an inkling of an idea that the lack of emotional literacy in the 60s might have contributed to the state the world is in today.

Luckily things have changed. Emotion is all the rage. My grandson brings home worksheets with emoticons of how he’s been feeling today. We’ll gloss over the fact that all the nice round emoticons were re-purposed by him as wheels for trucks. At least he must have gleaned that people have emotions. As do trucks obviously.

Now we have tools to regulate our emotions. We even know that maybe emotions can be regulated. We also know that being able to regulate our emotions leads to a happier and healthier life. And perhaps world peace (I may be taking this too far).

There are many other good techniques to reparent your inner child. Which I may indulge in and even communicate to you another day. However, one I’d like to just lastly mention is Play and Joy. As you may have guessed ,The Way of Play is named after one of these important tenets. And just to cap it all, my blog (or one of them) is called the Tao of Play and Joy. 

Play and Joy are so important that many other posts will be about that. Watch this space.