Reparenting Yourself – Shadow Work Healing for Parents
Re-parenting yourself through the powerful practice of shadow work means to provide yourself with all of the love, self-awareness and emotional regulation that your parents may have not given to you.
All of us have some form of trauma. Certain parts of yourself may have been controlled, unaccepted or exiled. Historically, it’s been common to have a dictating hierarchy to the parent-child relationship, even if this was unintentional.
It’s always important to remember that a lot of the time this occurs indirectly, where our parents had good intentions, and were purely parenting from the resources and parenting style that they received. They may have done their best, so we must remember that they are humans with their own traumas, but the truth remains… Our childhood contributes to our behaviors and our ability to self regulate.
Those who have had a challenging childhood are more likely to struggle with self-regulation, coping skills and positive self-actualisation, that adults need in order to flourish and sustain holistic health.
By nourishing your own inner child, you’re able to hold space for the childhood you deserved. You can then relive this in collaboration with your own child. They’ll then go on to thrive alongside you by reflecting and modeling your new behavior and ability to regulate your nervous system.
The aim here isn’t to reject or outgrow your inner child. They are a part of you, the foundation which led you to be who you are, have the children you have, and is how we connect to playfulness and finding magic in the mundane.
This part of you will rise from time to time, leaving you clues as to what needs to be expressed and affirmed.
Can you recall a moment of deep rooted emotion, leaving you lost as to where this came from?
These are your triggers, birthed within your innocent years.
The Foundations of Re-Parenting Yourself
- Feeling into your emotional experience as a child and listening to the clues left behind.
This part of inner child work takes rooted courage and vulnerability, especially if you’re like me, and have subconsciously buried many memories or emotions connected to your childhood.
This is where we bring the parts that we’ve rejected, shamed, judged or feel grief over to the surface, and honor them with authentic vulnerability.
We give grace to our inner child’s experience by giving these parts of ourselves the same love that we deserved, and would give our own children. This is how we can feel embodied, as a whole. We call this shadow work.
- Honoring child-like play and joyfulness, for the sake of purely feeling joyful
This is where we rebel against what we’ve been led to believe from society, the media and our guardians, and come home to the freedom to be our true child-like spirit.
It’s about re-claiming all of your favorite parts of your children that have been abandoned within you, in the name of adulthood, and replaced with toxic ‘maturity’, ‘fitting in’, or ‘productivity’.
Consider what you’re in awe of when it comes to your children. Their vast imagination that can dream a new world from a tree branch? Being able to take their time, living life slowly without being rushed? Being immersed in only the present moment? Finding enchantment within simplicity? This part of reparenting yourself through inner child work awakens this all with abundance.
The Four Pillars of Re-Parenting Yourself ~ Dr. Lepera
- Emotional Regulation
This is the foundation that under-pins everything when you’re re-parenting yourself. It’s how we bring awareness and insight in order to regulate our emotions in a healthy, present way. This is the groundwork to creating a sense of safety for yourself, without exiling or judging your emotional signature.
Showing up for your emotional regulation includes being aware of your triggers, holding the tension and boundaries around stress and soothing the intense emotions with gracious strength.
- Self-care
Self-care has been a buzz word of late, where many may feel like a hot bath and a face mask is self-care, but although these support us in relaxation, self-care goes so much deeper.
It involves prioritizing your holistic health, which means your whole being. Your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. If you’re a parent, I understand this can feel like a mammoth task on top of the rest of our responsibilities and roles, so it’s definitely important here to honor the season of parenting you’re in, and living accordingly.
We’re not aiming for perfection, but balance, leading with compassion and pockets of nourishment throughout your day, including finding ways to practice self-care with your child, like the practices within this nervous system regulation blog post for parents and children.
This includes setting secure boundaries and serving yourself in ways that feed your mind, body and soul.
- Joyfulness
This includes putting aside the expectations, roles and responsibilities of adulthood and nourishing your life with play. Stepping out of your comfort zone and rediscovering your spark of wonder, pleasure and limitless possibility.
- Discipline
Discipline in re-parenting is the basis of setting yourself and your life up for evolution, by creating a realistic structure of re-parenting yourself that you can stick to. This is so you can give yourself the time and the space to rewire your mind. This includes taking conscious responsibility of your boundaries and capabilities, so you can show up consistently and embody your inner child healing.
Without further ado, here are some tools on how to re-parent yourself, to help soothe and integrate your inner child with shadow work
- Shadow Work Guided Meditation for Parents
Our children need us to fully experience and accept them for who they are, by seeing and hearing them in all the ways that we deserved to be as a child. Sometimes we can unintentionally be reactive around their behaviors, due to our own inner child’s needs not being met.
In the near future, I’ll be guiding you through a deeply healing shadow work journey, leading you to softy embody the parts of yourself that are triggered by your child’s emotions or behavior, by using the innate wisdom of your body. You can sign up to receive updates of this here and receive your free guide.
Until then, there are some incredible shadow work meditations below for you.
Witnessing The Lotus (Inner Pieces cover of Due Tramonti) by Charlie Morley (soundcloud.com)
7 Days Left to Live (guided meditation) Music by Inner Pieces by Charlie Morley (soundcloud.com)
Powerful Shadow Work — Guided Meditation | Alex Buta, Insight Timer
- Shadow Work Journaling Prompts for Inner Child Healing
Find yourself a beautiful journal that’s kept only for your healing, so to keep your practice sacred.
Read the questions and answer them gently, vulnerably and unapologetically. Try not to get caught in the stories of your mind. The first thought you have will be your instinctual voice. Check-in with your body regularly. Ask yourself if you’re being open and honest with yourself. Feel into the sensations of your body. What does this practice activate within you?
- What were your favorite activities to do as a child?
- What triggers do your children arise within you? What experience did you have as a child which reminds your body of this?
- Reflect on the hobbies you had as a child that put you in a flow state, leading you to lose track of time. How can you reactivate these passions now?
- Reflect on a painful experience you’ve had as a child. Be gentle and keep grounding your body as you consider how this has impacted you. What can you do to hold space for this and what steps can you take to find healing?
- What gifts do you believe have come from your painful experiences?
- Do your emotions or triggers cycle? What do you think this is telling you, and what do you need to break the cycle?
- What traits in your child do you put on a pedestal? We place aspects of a person in awe when we have it inside of us too, but are yet to be actualised. How can you bring these traits within yourself to the surface?
- What judgements or projections do you place on others? Where do you feel this unfound belief comes from?
- What wild and silly parts of yourself have you kept within? How can you honor play for your inner child?
- What parts of yourself do you hide or shrink out of fear of being rejected?
- How do you feel about how you were raised? What will you do differently with your own child?
- How do you feel about making mistakes? How can you look at mistakes as a normal part of learning and being human, rather than shaming yourself?
- What was a quality you had as a child that you wish you still had? How can you support your inner child in feeling safe to express this quality?
- As a child, was there anything that you felt neglected for? How can you give this to your inner child now?
- What fascinated you the most as a child? How can you invoke this sense of wonder once again?
3. Write a letter to your inner child
Open a conversation with your inner child, by expressing your memories, pain, apologies, love and nostalgia. Really see them, hear them and feel into their experience. Allow yourself to cry, to feel rage, or anything else that comes up for you. These letters are solely for you – let your true expression flow.
4. Mirror work
Take some space each day to gaze into your eyes and affirm positive expression to boost your self-worth and re-wire positive thoughts into your mind.
Challenge any negative thoughts you have by replacing them with a positive self-belief. Repeat each affirmation at least 3 times.
“I AM” statements are the most powerful ones to use as you’re affirming that you already feel and live this way, within the present. This in turn teaches your mind to fully believe this is your reality, which in turn, leads you to make the subconscious steps which align.
These could include statements like:
1. “I am safe in my body to be who I am.”
2. “I am so proud of myself for healing myself.”
3. “I am so strong for breaking the cycle.”
4. “I am all that my children need.”
5. “This present moment is sacred to me.”
6. “I am capable of anything I set my mind to.”
7. “I am setting healthy boundaries in my relationships.”
8. “I am nourishing my inner child with so much love.”
9. “I am safe.”
10. “I am evolving which each new day”
11. “Every trigger is a lesson”
12. “I am beautifully unique.”
You can even do these with your child, or even use these as inspiration to make your own!
You can sign up to receive my free nervous system regulation guide for mothers and children here. <3