Imagine that your father was a brave man. If so, when you were a child, he may have denied affection and affection and be quick to criticize if things didn’t come out as he wanted. As an adult, you would end up trying to please men in your life – afraid of being rejected and emotionally abandoned.
The pain of childhood and the impacts suffered on adulthood is a good example of when it may be time for new paternity, said Nicole Johnson, a professional licensed in Boise, Idaho.
“Many of us are out there with which they influence our relationships, our choices and the way we deal with life, and we just haven’t made that connection yet,” she added.
This is where repairing comes in. You might think it seems self -indulgence or an excuse to buy the doll you wanted when you were younger, but repairing is atherapeutic technique that can help you and future generations to avoid too much pain.
People tend to treat themselves and their emotions just as they were treated by their parents, Johnson said. Repairment is relearning to respond better to yourself.
“Repainting is a process where you learn to identify where you need to be created, where you need to develop,” he added. “This means cultivating and implementing tools, new beliefs and perspectives on how you are dealing with now.”
The tools and beliefs are worth the work, said Johnson, author of “Reparenting Your Inner Child: Healing Unresolved Childhood Trauma and Reclaiming Wholeness through Self-Compassion” (Repairing his inner child: healing unresolved childish trauma and recovering all through self -pity), which will be launched in July.
“Many of us are trying to understand how to deal with the older generations that… they have hurt us, and then trying to create the new generations so that they don’t know this pain,” said Johnson. “Many of us are trying to find out how to do this, and repairness answers all these questions.”
Is not acting like a child again
Repairment does not mean giving in to all your whims.
And while this does not mean acting like a child again, it requires recognizing that many of the thoughts and behaviors you would like to change come from persistent feelings of childhood trauma or your inner child, Dr. Avigail Lev, a clinical psychologist licensed at the Bay Area CBT Center, said in San Francisco.
Healing these trauma often means responding to his inner child as a healthy and healthy father, said Johnson. Parents that most of us needed traumatic moments were loving and affectionate, with firm limits, she said, and it is them that you need for repairing in adulthood.
“Many of us we embarrass or hate ourselves, and then this shame and hatred make us want to isolate us, and then we self -assess and get involved in something that may be somehow an act of indulgence,” Johnson said. “A good father, with his feet on the ground, polite and healthy won’t scream with you for that, (but) won’t allow either.”
You would not rebuke a child like Father Valentão for being afraid to upset him, but would guide her to defend herself when possible and learn ways to deal with the situation besides just pleasing people.
Compassion for yourself comes when you validate the feelings your inner child is having – stress, fear, anger or sadness – and makes adult decisions about the best way to move on, Lev said.
“We are validating internal experiences,” he added. “It’s not permission to have bad behaviors.”
If you take care of childhood wounds and respond with kindness seems selfish, it is important to remember that compassion for yourself often makes people more compassionate with others, Lev said.
Signs that repair could be the right option for you
Trauma and abuse are much broader than just physical violence or negligence, and part of their cure can be realized that their experiences deserve to be passed on by their parents, said Johnson.
The absence of parents’ emotional availability may leave a wound in the inner child, said Dr. Brian Razzino, a clinical psychologist licensed in Falls Church, Virginia. Chaos or disorganization at home can also cause this.
The way you speak to yourself is a good way to discern whether repairing can be useful to you, he said.
Do you feel when you defend yourself or say not when necessary? Do you have difficulty feeling that you have done enough or that you have done enough? Do you tend to feel very stressed near figures of authority? Do you have difficulty opening or feels you will be abandoned in relationships? These may be signs that you have not learned to deal with these situations as a child, and you need to learn now, Razzino said.
You can start now
Reeducating can start simply. She has two important components: learning how her trauma manifests in her life and making changes to cure them, said Johnson.
“If you were a little kinder to yourself today, or if you won more discernment, if you had an ‘aha’ like, ‘ah, man, I really talk to myself the way my mother talked to me’, or if you identified a childhood wound… All this is a way of parental reeducation,” she said.
If you were the person with the aggressor father, Johnson would recommend identifying what you are feeling now, such as “I’m afraid to be rejected or criticized,” and then kindly reassure.
You may practice to say, “I’m worthy of love, regardless of my performance. I accept and approve,” recommends Johnson.
To go one step further and approach her inner child, Johnson advises to build a relationship with her. If you saw a frightened or sad child, you wouldn’t start to bark orders to her, right?
Sometimes forming a relationship means surrendering to the things you would have loved when you were younger, like running in the rain, watching a movie or preparing a dish you loved, she added.
For some people, it helps identify the injured inner child, said Johnson. Some of your customers like to find a photo of you from a time when they experienced trauma. Others like to paint an image or choose a song for the child, she said.
So give the child what she needed when she was injured.
In the example of the aggressor father, you could give your inner child the love and affection she wanted and failed with her father, said Johnson.
In a case like this, Johnson can ask you to imagine being sitting with yourself at age 9 in your childhood bed when you were younger and crying because your father shouted with you for losing a soccer goal and then sent him to your room when you saw your tears, she said.
She would then ask you to imagine that you are taking your little self on your lap, holding it and saying something like, “I know it’s confused and painful when the father acts like this … I love you the way you are and I’m cheering for you all the time.”
“This work is deeply emotional and can be really overwhelming,” she said.
But if you do the job, it can lead to cure of trauma, as well as more confidence, security and better relationships in the future, said Johnson.
Although you can start now, working on parental recovery with a therapist can give you perspective on the trauma you need to overcome, tools to help you maintain self-pity in difficult circumstances and experiences to neutralize the wounds your inner child experienced, Lev added.
