Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash

One of the key tools when reparenting yourself involves developing strong boundaries. When you’ve been raised to cater to everyone else’s needs, setting boundaries is far more difficult than it sounds.

Having poor boundaries has been our brain’s way of keeping us safe by people-pleasing. That’s because as children If we could keep our parents happy we escaped punishment, and received their "love".

So we carry that equation of people pleasing = safety into our adulthood and end up abandoning ourselves completely.

One thing that may surprise you about setting boundaries is the consequences. And these consequences will feed into all the fears you have around people not liking you and how scary that is. 

Reparenting the inner critic

Another key component of reparenting is taming the inner critic. Most of us who grew up with unmet childhood needs have a harsh inner critic that we inherited from our parents.

If our parents never taught us that we’re loved for who we are and not what we do, we believe our value lies in our accomplishments or what we do for others. 

So any time we’re not perfect we berate ourselves. We protect ourselves by refusing to follow through on our goals and dreams.

This is the self-sabotage of procrastination and shiny object syndrome. Our subconscious mind tells us that if we don’t follow through on a project or goal, no one can say we failed. 

That’s why the common self-help advice that more willpower will solve self-sabotage, misses the mark for people who’ve been through childhood trauma. 

In fact, you have more willpower and strength than the average person but you've put it into survival instead of moving yourself forward. This keeps you stuck, and traps you in a frustrating cycle of letting yourself down and holding yourself back.

Imagine how far you could go if you replaced that inner critic with an inner self-advocate. Someone who’s on your side instead of against you.

Rather than reacting to threats and perceived danger, you’ll start designing and creating your desired life. You'll become aligned with your values, goals, and dreams and move toward fulfilling your highest potential.

Change is possible

Maybe you’ve had therapy and self-help that hasn’t worked because it wasn't trauma-informed. And that intensifies the inner critic because you feel you’ve tried everything and beat yourself up because you feel unfixable.

But change is possible. Years ago, I was self-loathing, people pleasing, emotionally dysregulated, and had a relentless inner critic. My self care regime consisted of drinking to numb my feelings because everything felt so bad. 

Today, I’m living a life that’s completely authentic and aligned with my values. I love and care for myself and put my needs first in ways that would have felt impossible a few years ago.

I love sharing what I’ve learned over these past several years about reparenting and how I’ve used it to transform my life.

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