Compassion for Yourself and Those Who Raised You: Reparenting Your Inner Child

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.

In simple terms, your inner child is the part of your psyche that is vulnerable, needy, sensitive, and also joyful, exuberant, and honest. Most of us shove aside our childlike tendencies in adolescence to become “mature adults,” only to later realize that connecting to our inner child helps us experience the fullness of life to a greater degree.

Growing up forces us to put on the armor of adulthood. Growing wise means we start dismantling that armor, piece by piece.

In order to connect with the gifts of living out of your inner child, you first have to do the hard work of reparenting your inner child.

Even a child who has the best parents in the world will carry some wounds from childhood. Ways they felt ignored, misunderstood, or ashamed. Memories that form the building blocks of identity.

If you come from an abusive home, had absent parents, or suffered from clear insecure attachment, you probably don’t have to look hard to find the ways those childhood wounds still influence your life today.

Reparenting is a way of looking at yourself and the people who raised you with compassion, or at least acceptance.

It’s not about assigning blame, it’s about taking responsibility for healing. You, as a child, might not have had the wisdom or control to advocate for yourself. But now that you’re an adult, you can be honest about what you needed as a child, where you were left lacking, and how you can move forward to reparent yourself with love.

Reparenting your own childhood wounds also helps you have compassion for yourself as you parent, because you know reparenting isn’t about blame, it’s about healing intentional or unintentional wounding.

Reparenting releases blame, shame, and bitterness that I might place on my parents, but it also keeps me from placing those same burdens on myself.

“Although we may have suffered misfortune as a child, it is never too late to re-live our childhoods and reconnect to that childlike side of ourselves. When we take responsibility for our happiness in life, we have the power to feel safe, heal ourselves, and create greater wholeness. This gift can never be taken away from us.” - Aletheia Luna

I also know that there will be many people who read this who believe they do not need to repair themselves, or who might be upset that I would feel the need to reparent myself.

I grew up with two amazing loving parents. My dad worked, my mom stayed at home and took care of me. My dad provided financially so that I could be involved and try out any activity I ever wanted from dance to volleyball to track. My mom physically attended every activity I was ever in. My mom was always the homeroom mom, she was always a chaperone for school dances and church mission trips, she always had dinner made and food on the table.

I always had clothes to wear. I was allowed to have friends over to spend the night and to hang out. My parents bought me a car when I turned 16 years old and paid for me to get a college education.

Now by the looks of this, it would appear that I had the world’s most “perfect parents.”

The truth is, though, none of us gets out of childhood without a few bumps and bruises. Babies and children are so needy, there is no way any two human beings could perfectly fulfill every need. It’s just true! It’s maybe not fair, but it’s true. There are no perfect parents. There is no perfect childhood.

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So even with wonderful, available, and well-intentioned parents, each person still has a wounded inner child that needs to be tended to and needs to be reparented.

Just because we are repairing ourselves does not mean we are saying that our parents are bad people and that they did a terrible job raising us. All this means is that we as an adult are going to take the responsibility to take a look at the things we need to look at in order to heal so that we can no longer look at the world through the eyes of our trauma but look at the world with healed eyes filled with love.

In my course, The Path Back to You, I share with you a story of how I finally, after several attempts, had an honest conversation with my own father about ways my inner child had been wounded. If you want to hear that story, enroll today at https://jessicazimmerman.com/the-path-back-to-you-course

Childhood neglect leaves an enduring ache, a lifelong quest for validation and love. We often find ourselves seeking approval, trying to prove our worth to others.

Yet, true healing doesn't come from new connections, but from rescuing that neglected child within ourselves.

It's about learning to meet our own needs and acknowledging our worth, independent of others' opinions.

One of the hardest parts of childhood neglect is spending your life trying to be picked as a priority. It’s realizing you become close to people with the intent to prove your worth rather than be met where you are. The healing is not in other people, but rescuing that child.

Forgive your parents for not being able to love you the way you needed it. Then forgive yourself for going out and looking for that love in all the wrong places. There’s levels to this healing shit.

There are many reasons to take the time and do the work to heal your inner child. But for anyone who thinks they don’t need to revisit that time, believes their childhood to be pure magic…what about your romantic relationships?

Your childhood experiences play out in your adult relationships, if you don’t deal with what you’ve been through, your relationship will.

We’ll get to romantic relationships in a future chapter, but I’m here to tell you, you will continue to attract the same experiences over and over again and fail in your romantic life until you address your inner child.

Some people feel like they had an ideal childhood and I'm not here to take that beautiful memory away from you, however, I would ask you to look a little deeper because when something is familiar, even though it might be unhealthy, it can feel comfortable. When something is unfamiliar, even though it’s healthy, it can feel uncomfortable.

Many people mistake that uncomfortable feeling for something else. But you’re growing. You’re learning. You’re healing. This is deep work. You must choose yourself and your healing even if it’s uncomfortable. Especially if it’s uncomfortable - I believe that’s a tell-tale sign that you have major work to do. I know I’m healing because so much of what used to feel uncomfortable no longer feels that way. Because I did the deep, dark work. And you can too.

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Childhood has a profound impact on how we attach to other people. Many people cope with difficult childhood experiences through denial or avoidance “oh it wasn’t the best, but it was normal” or “it happened a long time ago, I don’t need to think about it now.”

But whether or not we want to think about or process our childhood— there it is. It’s still with us. We didn’t leave it in the past. It’s in our friendships, and maybe most prominent in our romantic relationships.

The little girl or little boy is still alive in you.

It shows up in how we treat others, how we’re able to connect, and what we do when we’re triggered by the people closest to us. Our childhood lives in our daily patterns— not just our body.

If you want a long-term, sustainable, connected relationship, the best thing you can do is face your past. Learn how it impacts how you attach, and empower yourself to practice skills like emotional regulation.

Anyone can heal. Anyone can evolve. Anyone can build healthy relationships regardless of their past.

I wish we all had a childhood we didn’t need to heal from but that’s not the case for a majority of us who went through trauma in our formative and teenage years. Going through life feeling unseen, unheard, unloved, unsafe, and unprotected makes our human experience more difficult and that’s not what we deserve.

Reparenting yourself means meeting the needs of your inner child and taking the sacred responsibility to be the parent you needed.

This time, you will listen to your own needs, validate your reality, and cultivate self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-respect.

This time you will be heard, seen, and loved for who you are. This time no parts of you will be hidden in shame, guilt, or silence.

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In the workbook portion that I share in my course, The Path Back to You, I share with you Ten Ways to Reparent Yourself, subliminals to help reprogram your subconscious, journal prompts, meditations, my inner child healing Spotify playlist, and more. You can grab it by enrolling today at https://jessicazimmerman.com/the-path-back-to-you-course

Coming up in this chapter, we will be diving into the wounded inner child, the mother wound, the father wound, and how these things effect our everyday lives. You won’t want to miss it. We’re just getting started!