Homework: loving parent practices

“During your childhood, who or what was available to you in ways you needed? A teacher? A relative? Perhaps a pet or treasured stuffed animal? What did they do, say, or give you?”

My Oscar the grouch toy. He was my favourite. I still have him somewhere. He’s just a green rag now but I don’t want to lose him. Oscar kept me safe and made me feel secure. He gave me a feeling of security and comfort.

“Who or what do you think of as modeling loving parent behavior? Historical figures, world leaders, other people you know or learned about, animals, nature, characters, or music? List them:

• This is hard. I asked chat gpt for help and like these suggestions:

Animals1. Elephant mothers - Known for their strong bonds, protection, and teaching of their young.

2. Penguins - Both parents share the responsibility of nurturing and protecting their chicks.

Nature

1. Trees - Provide shelter, nourishment, and a supportive environment for various forms of life.

2. Wolves - Pack behavior includes taking care of and teaching the young collectively.

What qualities do the people you listed embody (e.g., kindness, love, wisdom, acceptance, etc.)? List as many qualities as you can, referring to the Feelings, Needs, physical sensations”.

Feelings: love and strength and security, care, wisdom.

Needs: protection, security, shelter, education – learning. Self realisation.

Physical sensations: warmth, comfort.

Affirmations exercise

Critical parent message

You are unworthy

You are not good enough

You are bad

Life is hard

You are lazy

Loving parent messages

You are worthy and loveable

You are more than enough

You are a good human being

Life can be hard and it can be full of joy

You are a child and it’s okay to be a child.

— The Loving Parent Guidebook: The Solution is to Become Your Own Loving Parent by ACA WSO INC.

Back in the days

Back in the days when the internet was accessed by dial up connection (things really were much simpler then), I remember stumbling across people’s personal writings on blogs. I thought it was so strange that they would share their innermost thoughts and feelings to the world. Why would someone do that? Now, years later, I find myself, albeit under a pseudonym, doing the same thing.

It feels weird to be writing letters on a blog to my inner parts. I could keep them on some google doc diary or store them here in a more readable way. Maybe they could help someone? Goodness know I need ideas to help me connect to my selves, so maybe others do too. I’m avoiding connecting, so here goes…

Dear little ones, I’ve been distant since Sunday and I know it’s been hard for you. I’m sorry I haven’t checked in with you or even said hello. I feel blocked. Like there’s something between us. Like I can’t access any communication with y’all. I feel like I have to ride this out but I wanted to let you know I am still here. Right now it’s raining outside. The dogs are with us and we have our toys. We have a bear and a leopard and a penguin and two beautiful shaggy doggies. One is resting her floofy head and body against us. Today, like most days, was pretty stressful with so much going on and our attention diverted in so many different ways. But we are doing really well and thriving in lots of areas. This is a tough time and we are going to get through it. There is soooooo much going on but we just keep chipping away. Every day opens up new possibilities and opportunities and even though it doesn’t feel like it, you are being held by a loving power and light. This is helping us grow and strengthen. Keep focused on this love and light if you can as it will just get bigger and bigger as time goes on. And it will help keep us safe. I hope you sleep well and I am here for you.

Connecting with my inner child and the curse of competence

Yesterday I had a triggering day at work. I found myself getting upset in a staff discussion about some curriculum changes I had helped lead. It’s a long story but simply, the new curriculum came under scrutiny for a few things and the feedback felt really brutal, I found myself feeling really defensive and having a knee jerk reaction. I was honest about it and asked that people consider being more respectful in these conversations as at the end of the day, there was a lot of hard work and hours put into writing the material. To make changes at a university takes between 6 months to a year and it is often a massive undertaking. It requires effort from staff and is always on top of current workload. I had to stop myself from crying and mumbled my way through the rest of the meeting.

I noticed that it activated the part(s) of me who feel worthless and bad. There were a number of attacks about the curriculum that, although not personal, felt really hurtful. These included staff not liking subject names, too many assessments, descriptions too conceptual and even the insinuation of lower numbers being attributed to the writing (meaning the way the course is marketed). Ouch!! Immediately I felt like a piece of shit. I expressed myself as honestly as I could and everyone softened a bit after that. I genuinely felt like yesterday I was going to have a breakdown.

This morning I went for a run with my dogs and started talking to my little ones. I said something along the lines of:

“I’m sorry yesterday was so hard. I know it brought up a lot of feelings and reminded you of the horrible names you were called and how you were made to feel. I am glad you reached out to me and I am glad I said something. People can be very mean or inconsiderate at times and we need to remind people to sometimes be softer. I want you to know though that those feelings and thoughts about yourself and me are in the past. People at work don’t look at me/ us like that. Sometimes adults can be a bit rough with each other and hard and so it’s important that we work together to help remind them to soften a bit. Next time we might even be able to say things in an even more calm way. Hopefully I can listen to you and help soothe you but then still stand up for ourselves.”

I reminded them of the ACA serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change. Courage to change the one I can and the wisdom to know that person is me”. It’s a bit hard for the little ones to accept that abusers cannot change or wonder why don’t they take responsibility? Why does it always have to be us who changes? I think that’s such a valid question and tried to talk through what I thought (I can’t actually remember what I said and I’m about to fall asleep!!).

I felt pretty calm and happy for the rest of the day. I am definitely noticing my dissociation more and how I use work as a drug to self soothe and regulate and keep me disconnected from myself. I went to a workaholics anonymous meeting tonight and a number of people were talking about this. I could fully relate. A lot of people spoke about having passion jobs or feeling like they need to save the world. I need to think about this more. I don’t think I’m powerful enough to save the world but I do want to make a difference. Yesterday my boss said about me as I took on more workload… “The curse of competence”…

Until next time.

Parallel play. It’s a thing.

Tonight I did something I’ve never really done before. I’ve got a new mate who is a survivor (they/ them). Awesome person, really smart and funny and kooky and cool. They asked me if I wanted to parallel play with them. I had no idea what this meant, but I found out that it’s a term used in child development psychology where kids play independently but together. Through this, the research says that they begin to co-regulate. My friend suggested we could do some colouring in. Now there’s a part of me that thinks this is sooooooo embarrassing and silly but mostly my internals embraced it. I’d worked all day and felt pretty flat to be honest. Still hung up on the breakup. Depressed and tired. Plus I’ve got a lot of work on this weekend so it feels relentless. Initially my friend wanted me to come over but I had a meeting later tonight so couldn’t do that unfortunately. We decided to just colour in independently and chat over the phone on speaker. I coloured in two pictures from the Ellen Lacter book.

These images were about embracing all the parts of myself and accepting who’s inside me. What was cool about tonight is that I was meant to go to an ACA meeting but I did this instead. I think allowing time for myself to reparent in this way was an act of self care and love that I haven’t really done before – that extended beyond meetings. It pushed me gently into action. I feel super comfortable with my friend and a little shy about being intimate in this safe plutonic way. Survivors are truly remarkable humans full of love and good ideas.

Learning about good parenting

ACA “Reparenting my inner child” guidebook. Exercise – What’s Your Story?
Directions: on each of the statements below, share what you learned about good
parenting from these methods.

• Watching how my parents behaved and choosing their healthy actions

Outwardly my parents were good and moral. They kept a tidy and clean house and garden. They took the bins out each week. They paid the bills. They got involved in church and community and volunteered at things. My mum cooked and baked and didn’t buy processed foods.

• Watching my parents’ behavior and doing the opposite of what they did

My parents didn’t talk about emotions or feelings. They controlled conversations and environments. They didn’t really laugh. Life seemed hard and full of work and responsibility. The air was often tense and scary. So doing the opposite of this is to talk about emotions and feelings, pray to God for me to let go of control. Listen in conversations. Make time for fun and relaxation and laugh.

• Seeing parenting in movies and on television shows

I can’t really think of anything right now other than the Brady Bunch. But that family seemed like they cared about each other and each others feelings.

• Looking at friends’ parents and emulating them

My friend has a mum who believed her about her child sexual abuse. Her mum has engaged with the process of healing and recovery. A male friend of mine told me about some good parenting today between him and his teenage son. He encouraged his son to be honest and open with the boys boss to ask him if he could come late to work so he could watch his little brother play sport. My friend offered his son helpful things to say and showed that being honest and open can help you achieve what you want.

• Using good parenting behavior seen in public places

I’m not sure about this one.

• Reading books about good parenting

I feel resistant to this because I don’t have kids but I know this exercise is about reparenting my kids. I’m not sure I feel a bit silly thinking about this idea.

• Taking classes on good parenting

Same as above. I just feel thankful I didn’t have kids. I already have a lot of inside parts to look after.

A letter to my inner kids

“I am becoming my own Loving Parent
to help my Inner Child grow up emotionally”.

Dear inner children.

I can sense you want me to talk to you. I don’t know what to say and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I’ve ignored y’all. I’m sorry you were hurt and that I had to abandon myself to keep safe. Things are different now that I am grown up. For a long time I wanted someone else to take care of you as my parts. First M. Then S. But really it had to be me and probably should have been me all along. I’m sorry to have rejected you and abandoned you. You needed things. Like love and praise and attention. You weren’t given that. Instead you were shown cruelty and judgement and called names. You were violated and that was wrong. So, so wrong. You also had joy sucked out of your existence. So depression and shame and numbness became normal and stress and adrenaline got us out of it. Until it got too much and you needed to go internal again. It’s been a merry go round and I’m sorry. I am deeply sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you for trying to connect with me and not giving up even when I didn’t listen. I love you.

Learning to reparent my inner child

I went to an ACA 12 step recovery meeting tonight. It was about step three – “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.”

My relationship with God is weird at the moment. Probably has been for some time now. Ever since my divorce and the affair and me being attracted to women. I just don’t know if God loves me. I’m tired of feeling judged and condemned. I once had a roomy and inclusive faith that included someone like me but now I don’t know anymore. I feel disconnected from the Christian faith but yet don’t want to leave it for fear of spiritual attack or programming. Today I went to church and just felt so alienated from the community. I really like the message from the pastor but I also want something more relational and connected where the messiness of life is explored deeper. I find it get this more in ACA but am still finding my feet there. Plus doing online recovery is weird – convenient but weird. But this post is about doing an exercise from the reparenting your inner child workbook. I just wanted to mention my grapplings with faith as I feel sad and confused about it.

“How to Stop our inner kids from Sabotaging Us:

If we do not recognize our Inner Children, they do what real children do when they are ignored. They retaliate and find ways to sabotage our best efforts. Our Inner Children withdraw when they are afraid, worried, or angry, and we lose energy, time, money, creativity, and spontaneity. We remained stuck at various life stages where we were so emotionally stunted that we stopped growing up.

Examples of sabotage include our addictions and compulsions (adrenaline, alcohol, codependence, dangerous or risky behavior, gambling, food, drugs, sex, tobacco, workaholism, hoarding, etc.) and non. productive or negative behaviors such as
Abuse of self or others (yes)
Anxiety (yes)
Attitude that the world owes me (In my teens and probs in my 20s)
Blaming others (yes but I prob blame myself more now than others)
Codependence (yes)
Defensiveness (yes)
Demand for immediate attention (yes)
Drama Queen (yes)
Embarrassment (yes often just for existing)
Emotional outbursts (not as much but yes)
Extreme cautiousness (yes)
Focus on detail, not the big picture (yes)
Fixation on slights of others (yes)
Habitual coercion of others (yes)
Low self-esteem (yes)
Lying (yes)
Manipulation (yes)
Paranoia (yes)
Passive aggression (yes)
Pretending to work a program (yes)
Sulking (yes)
Procrastination (yes)
Rage (yes)
Rescuing and fixing others (yes)
Rescue seeking (yes)
Revenge-seeking (yes)
Self-sabotage (yes)
Shame (yes)

To End the Internal Conflict
The fragments of ourselves all have different needs and wants, so we remain in constant internal conflict for as long as the parts of our fractured selves operate in isolation.

To Integrate the Fragmented Parts of Ourselves:
When we help our Inner Children complete the life stages they missed, they begin to integrate their needs and wants with those of our Loving Parents. When they are all integrated with our adult selves, we
then have solid, unified personalities. These whole people then go on to build happy, healthy, serene lives.

To Become Happy, Joyous, and Free:
When our integrated Inner Children feel safe, loved, and respected by us, they provide us with curiosity, abounding energy, and perfect trust in a Higher Power.”

Exercise – Why We Want to Become Our Own Loving Parents

1. How does your Inner Child sabotage you (see the list above)?

I think through every area identified above. My workaholism and avoidance are big ones. Shutting down, numbing out, distracting myself, negative self talk. Shame and low self esteem. I never thought of it like my inner kids sabotaging me – to get my attention maybe? Shit. I feel bad for not listening to them.

2. What are your examples of wanting to do different things at the same time or not knowing what is the right thing to do?

Probably the biggest examples have been in my relationships. Wanting to be with the person but then not. Wanting to be single and run away and then feeling like I need security and attachment. Not knowing the right thing to do can happen at work but mostly in my relationships. I tend to switch off and avoid.

3. Share one need or want of your Inner Child.

I can sense they want me to talk to them.

4. When you were a little child, share one thing you were intensely curious about, one time you were really excited about something, or one time you had outrageous fun.

I was intensely curious about the Bermuda Triangle – that was prob when I was about 12. But little? I can’t really remember – I was intensely curious about paper bark trees. I’m not sure if they are just in Australia but they are trees that shed and you can rip off the bark.

5. What do you do today that you are intensely curious about, excited about, or is great fun?

I genuinely cannot think of anything. Everything feels like a chore.

Things You Can Do in Your Recovery This Week: Write your version of this affirmation on a notecard or poster and read it three times a day for one week:

“I am becoming my own Loving Parent
to help my Inner Child grow up emotionally”.