How Parenting Your Inner Child Will Help Your Entire Family
When you were a kid, you may have felt alone in your big feelings, but now you’re an adult with access to support and community.
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My neurodivergent son Ocean’s first movie in the theater was Inside Out 1.
He was 4.5. Before that, we knew a movie theater would be too overstimulating.
We also weren’t sure how other audience members would respond to Ocean, who had never sat through a whole movie at home, and honestly rarely sat at all. What if he jumped in the aisle? What if he couldn’t modulate his voice?
What if he had a five-alarm meltdown?
We had no idea that he would sit relatively quietly and take it in for over an hour! We were so impressed that he sat through ALMOST the whole film. Twenty minutes before the end, he announced that he was ready to go, and we happily exited the theater and considered it a huge win. But I was so enthralled with the movie that OF COURSE part of me was disappointed. I wanted to stay and see how it ended. It would be a few years before I had the chance to see the ending. It was worth the wait.
Fast forward to this year when Inside Out 2 came out.
I was overjoyed that he and his best friend agreed to watch it together… with their parents! Our previous concerns long gone, this time we were more worried about being snubbed by our teens.
With themes of puberty, new schools, and anxiety, Inside Out 2 couldn’t have come at a better time.
Have you seen Inside Out 1 & 2 yet? Tell me in the comments below.
Join the movement to create an inclusive world for our kids, one parent at a time:
“A great way to feel connected and not so alone in the world of parenting.”
Reparenting: Befriending Our Feelings is an Inside Out Job
One of the lessons from Inside Out:
When we befriend our discomfort, we’re less driven to avoid it at all costs.
The confusion and isolation of parenting a challenging kid can impact our mental health, especially because our culture just doesn't provide enough support and we're left on our own to flail.
But my mental health challenges didn’t start when I had Ocean.
My official diagnosis is anxiety. Knowing anxiety and depression are extremely common doesn’t help much when we’re in the eye of the tornado. I’m very familiar with that frenetic desire to keep everyone safe by doing 17 things at once in an effort to avoid pain, and then realizing that I’ve made everything 1,700 times worse and have no idea how to cover up my 17,000 failures.
When I became a parent, I realized that if I wanted to do it differently than my parents, then I had work to do. I see therapy as vital to my job. But in the past I’ve used it to stay in my head, understanding my trauma without taking charge of my healing. Yoga and meditation helped me regulate my nervous system, but I mainly used them to feel better in the moment while returning to my emotional roller coaster in between.
None of them held the key to the reparenting I knew I needed.
What did?
Self-compassion. Specifically, the RAIN protocol as taught by Tara Brach.
When we notice discomfort, our stress response will send us a habitual message of danger. It’s trying to keep things the same, because it believes avoiding change will keep us safe.
But listening to that habitual voice isn’t the same as befriending discomfort.
Healing requires pausing, then going deeper inward and being with the visceral sensations our brains are interpreting as a particular feeling.
Feelings are felt, not thought.
Get as granular with the feeling as possible. I highly recommend Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, where she deconstructs and discusses dozens of emotions.
Also (in case I wasn’t clear above) watch Inside Out 1 and 2 with your kids!
WHERE do you experience the drained feeling?
WHERE do you feel resistance or resentment?
Do you feel tired, or is it apathy?
Pick one feeling, and practice with it in an embodied way to get out of your head. Drop into the sensation in your body. Put a hand where you feel it most. If you’re not sure, no worries. Keep practicing and it’ll get easier.
Ask it questions with patience and understanding, like you would ask a friend in distress. All feelings belong (not just for our kids), and we don’t need to run away from our discomfort. Ask yourself any of the questions below. If your nervous system feels flooded, take a break. Give yourself lots of grace.
Where do I feel this emotion in my body?
Does it have a shape? A temperature? A color? Animated character?
How old is it?
How does it want me to support it?
What does it most need from me…?
We can't think our way out of the habits keeping us stuck.
Nurture that part of you that has been stifled until now. Give it space to breathe.
When you were a kid, you may have felt alone in your big feelings. But now you’re an adult, and you have support and community. Trust that your self-regulation and healing will do more for your parenting than anything else.
Please take this process slowly, and connect with other cycle-breakers. Be on the lookout for the topic of Self-Care & Reparenting in our monthly group coaching that paid tier subscribers can access.
Please help me by filling out this quick survey:
Here’s what has helped me to heal:
My therapist. When we're out of crisis I still need therapy for repair and maintenance. When we're in crisis I guard the time like a hound from hell.
Mindful movement. Complex trauma heals through the body, not the mind (see Besel vander Kolk's ‘The Body Keeps The Score’). I love mindful yoga, but of course it isn't the only way to move mindfully.
Mindful self-compassion and gratitude as a regular practice, not a platitude. Join us on retreat this fall for a deep dive.
Parenting community. I am in a few! I prioritize time with/for other parents like me, for both receiving support and offering it. Knowing I'm not alone in my struggles is healing, and sometimes I pick up that one nugget that gets me through the day. If you’d like to join our monthly gatherings, subscribe at any paid tier for as little as $5. We’re just getting started, and I’ll give need-based scholarships on request.
This book: Brené Brown's Atlas of the Heart. It’s an excellent listen too. (As an amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.) She defines every possible feeling in granular detail. I love it so much.
“Your honesty and humanity in raising your neurodivergent child is so powerful. Thank you for showing up like that!”
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