How to Reparent Ourselves

<p>One thing that seems to bring out a lot of resistance with my clients is when they’re complaining about their partner and we arrive at the part of the conversation about how what we usually want from our partners is what we need to learn to give ourselves.</p><p><br /> </p><p>And I totally get it - when we go down this path of radical responsibility and start to consider that we need to give <i>ourselves </i>what we need, there’s naturally going to be resistance. </p><p> </p><p>Often what we’re longing for is the exact same thing we needed when we were younger that our caregivers didn’t give us – and that as children, we absolutely deserved. To be heard, seen, loved and cared for. So it makes sense that we want someone else to give it to us.</p><p> </p><p>While it’s nice when we luck out and someone else meets those needs that we felt we lacked, humans can also be notoriously unreliable, and when we put our happiness in the hands of how other people think, feel and act, we are setting ourselves up for some unnecessary suffering.</p><p> </p><p>AND responsibility for our happiness is a crazy heavy burden to put onto someone else. Usually, when two people are dancing this tango, we end up with codependency, when one partner needs the other partner, who in turn, needs to be <i>needed</i>. Yikes.</p><p> </p><p>When we are open to the possibility that we can indeed give ourselves what we need – and not require that it comes from someone else – we create more freedom and confidence in our lives. We are available for more joy in our life when we release the need that this all come from someone else.</p><p> </p><p>What we can do to give ourselves what we need is reparenting.</p><p><br /> </p><p>Sometimes we may feel it’s “too late,” that we are broken in our fear or abandonment or other wounds. We may believe our fear of being abandoned and our apparent “neediness” will always define us. But this is just story being created by your mind. It is abolsutely possible for you to heal this relationship – yourself.</p><p><br