What is re-parenting?

Re-parenting is:

-Being a parent to yourself.

-Giving yourself the nurturing, affection, and recognition you need to heal your inner child.

-Giving yourself the guidance, direction, and self-discipline needed to gain self-control and to accept personal responsibility for your own life.

-Letting go of self-pity over your being neglected or abused as a child and taking charge of your life.

-Ceasing to look to others to nurture, affirm, or make you feel good, recognizing that you are the best source of self nurturance and support.

-Allowing yourself to become an independent person, no longer needing to be dependent on others or to have others dependent on you.

-Creating a bond between the adult you and inner child you to give you a sense of security, self-confidence and self worth.

-Overcoming the shame, guilt, or self-deprecation you have towards yourself over the unfortunate history of your childhood, adolescence or young adulthood.

-Accepting yourself the way you are in an unconditional way with no regrets or self hatred over what you "should'' have been.

-Falling in love with yourself so that you are able to be more "centered on self'' as you proceed on in life.

-Establishing healthy boundaries between you and the others in your life.


Reasons why you need to re-parent yourself

If you have experienced any of the following in your lifetime, you are an excellent candidate to re-parent yourself so that you can experience "growing down'' to healthy self-worth, self-confidence, and self-esteem.

-Neglected by your parents.

-Criticized by critical parent(s) or teacher(s).

-Physically abused by your parent(s), sibling(s) or relative(s).

-Emotionally or verbally abused by parent(s), sibling(s), relative(s) or teacher(s).

-Sexually abused by parent(s), sibling(s), relative(s), or non-family member.

-Raised in a dysfunctional family where alcohol or drugs were abused or parent(s) were mentally ill.

-A product of a single parent led family or a family where there was a divorce.

-Ignored and left to yourself.

-Invisible in your family.

-Ashamed of your family life.

-Guilty over not being able to fix your family.

-Frustrated because no matter what you did it was never "good enough.''

-Never able to get the approval you needed.

-Lacking male nurturance from your father who was emotionally unavailable to you and are therefore male nurturance deprived.

-Lacking female nurturance from your mother who was emotionally unavailable to you and are therefore female nurturance deprived.


Signs in adulthood that you need to re-parent yourself

The following is a symptoms checklist. Put a check next to the items which are mostly true for you at this time in your life.

___ 1. Lacking in self-confidence in interpersonal relationships at home, work, socially, and in the community.

___ 2. Inability to believe you deserve good things in life.

___ 3. Feelings of shame about your past.

___ 4. Feelings of guilt about your past.

___ 5. Inability to have self forgiveness for all of your real or perceived faults, mistakes, or failures in the past.

___ 6. Inability to affirm or say nice things to or about yourself.

___ 7. Dependence on others to approve you.

___ 8. Fear of rejection from others.

___ 9. Desire to be invisible so that others don't know what you are thinking, how you feel, or what you are doing.

___ 10. Need to please others.

___ 11. Need to avoid conflict at all costs.

___ 12. Waiting for or wanting someone to nurture and care for you to make up for the absence of nurturance in your past life.

___ 13. Unwillingness to accept that the solutions to your problems are your responsibility.

___ 14. Not capable of exercising self-control over all aspects of your life.

___ 15. Excessive use of manipulation to get others to do what you want them to do for you.

___ 16. Excessive hostility, bitterness, sarcasm, and cynicism about life and how it has treated you.

___ 17. Extreme pessimism about your ability to do what it takes to recover from low self-esteem.

___ 18. Pent-up anger, rage, and hatred against the people in your past life who have abused or neglected you.

___ 19. Lack of clear direction and clarity of goals in your life.

___ 20. Not sure of who you really are.

If you have checked two or more, you are in need of re-parenting work.