Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man
Francis Xavier
It seemed to be an odd concept, reparenting. I had just finished an excellent guided meditation, “Be Still“, by Jessica Amos on Insight Timer. Note the name, not to be confused with the myriad of other meditations on the app with “Be Still” in the title. I was so impressed with the meditation that I checked out the author as I usually do with meditations that I find particularly interesting. There it was on her author page, a 7-day course called “Reparenting & Healing Your Inner Child” which caught my attention, enough to read more about it. Reparenting? Your inner child? What is your inner child? Here is an extract from the Wikipedia entry for the inner child:
The inner child is often conceived as a semi-independent subpersonality subordinate to the waking conscious mind.
Wikipedia
In my case, my inner child was damaged after being abandoned by my parents at three. I wrote about this event in my “Ho Hum” post. In the photo above the child on the left is my three-year-old self from a picture with my mother. The picture on the right is my five-year-old self and represents the sad, serious child I became after they departed from my childhood. Awareness is a start in countering the effects of childhood trauma but you can not go back in time to remedy it. Even if I could go back in time there would be little I could do as a three-year-old child to change my parents’ actions. This is where the reparenting comes in as I have discovered.
This will not be useful for everyone but if you have suffered any trauma in your childhood which has affected your adult personality then this course may be for you. Jessica has put together a set of 7 daily meditations with most having some homework that you complete before taking the next class. Through the week-long course, Jessica addresses a number of key issues which taken together can offer a form of reparenting to heal your inner child. Without giving too much away my biggest takeaway was rediscovering the playful nature of a child which had been destroyed by the sad, serious child I became. I highly recommend it to anyone who may still be suffering from childhood trauma.
Thank you Jessica for providing this excellent resource. I am so grateful that even at my advanced age the internet and technology have given me access to tools such as this to improve the quality of my life.
This is the photo from which I extracted my three-year-old face on the left. It is one of the few photos of my mother that I have. It was taken when I was about three, just before my parents separated and later divorced. It also bears my childhood labelling in pencil.
Staces Place 
That’s an interesting concept but I do believe Ms Amos is onto something. So much of the problems and insecurities that people feel today stem from their experiences as children. Kids never forget! I wish you the best with this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is exactly the type of self-therapy I’m talking about! I had to do some re-parenting due to childhood/adolescence trauma (specifically abandonment, like you). It sounds wonky, but it’s so effective.
LikeLiked by 1 person