I’ve heard it said that an emotionally neglected child doesn’t stop loving their parents. They stop loving themselves.

That’s why this section on reparenting is so essential. Because each of us has ways we’ve felt neglected or under-nurtured. Our parents are humans, after all. But when those wounds occur in childhood, we assume we’re the problem.

And we stop loving ourselves. 

Until we gain the wisdom to reparent ourselves and break the cycle of generational trauma.

“Daddy issues.”

We’ve all heard the term. When a woman finds herself in another relationship with a “deadbeat” guy, or a man keeps running into problems with the law, we tend to say they have “daddy issues.” 

And while that might be an unfair stereotype, there is a reality to the impact of father wounds.

Today we’re going to talk about mother wounds.

A mother’s presence is a powerful thing. It has the strength to uplift and inspire, and the potential to damage and disparage. Any kind of literal or emotional neglect can sow seeds in childhood that take all through adulthood to identify and root out. Like a weed left to grow for decades, it can grow as large as a tree. 

How can we learn to hear, see, and heal the inner child in ourselves? The first step is to recognize what unmet needs look like when they’re ignored or unanswered for years, if not decades. 

Because sometimes our most familiar patterns aren’t choices we’re making but habits we’re falling back into, and we must learn to differentiate between our intuition guiding us and our traumas– both big and small– misleading us. 

The New Moon reminds us that new beginnings are always possible. 

The New Moon in Virgo is inviting you to the places in you where you feel unloved. It’s a time to have compassion for yourself. It’s also a time to define your boundaries with yourself and others. 

Reparenting your inner child is one of the most powerful tools for healing we have in our toolbox. What do I mean by “reparenting?” What do I mean by “inner child?” Some of you may be familiar with these ideas, and some of you maybe not so much.

Leo is symbolized by a lion, which is known as the king of the jungle. Leo represents confident and sometimes brash energy. Leo represents the part of you that knows your own mind and doesn’t hesitate to become the leader of your own life. The energy of Leo is passionate and fiery. 

Up to this point in this series of coming home to ourselves in The Path Back to You, each chapter has consisted of four parts, but as I began to write the next chapter, I realized I wanted to go a little deeper with this word, “should” and why we need to do our best to eliminate it from our vocabulary.