When I was fifteen years old, I swam for my high school swim team in our district meet in our hometown. Since the meet was local and at the indoor pool of the university where my father was professor, he came to watch. I was thrilled to see him! You know those videos of kindergarteners lighting up when they see their parents in the audience at their recitals, that was me.

 

I swam long-distance (like Olympian Katie Ledecky). Many teammates found long distance swimming boring, but I loved the meditative nature of it and at the district race, I was determined to do my best. I swam hard. In fact, I swam my personal best, turning in my fastest time. I was so excited to learn that I placed third. As it turns out, I touched the electronic timer on the wall, 1/100 of a second behind the second-place winner and the top three qualified to compete at regionals!

 

When I joyfully hopped out of the pool and ran over to my dad, the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t “Congratulations, nor I’m so happy for you.” His perfectionism got the best of him, and he said, “Didn’t you see the second-place swimmer?” My heart sank.

 

But this sad memory became a pivotal piece of inner child recovery. I used it in a guided imagery to call in my “adult Laura” to give “teen Laura” exactly what she needed to hear along with the warm towel embrace. In the guided meditation, adult Laura told teen Laura, how incredibly proud she was of her and how excited she was that she swam her best race. The new active memory became a portal to integrate the nurturing adult with the wounded child to begin healing.

 

This is just one tool I use to guide my clients in reparenting work. This integrative work is necessary not only for emotional balance as adults, but also freedom from unconscious triggers that keep us from supporting our children’s authenticity.

 

This is one of the processes that is at the heart of both recovery and conscious parenting.

 

Reparenting myself in recovery freed me and freed my family, both my family of origin and my family with my daughters. Parenting with recovery principles aligned with my conscious parenting journey and helped heal my relationships with my daughters.

 

At least 25% of adults grew up in homes where at least one parent suffered from substance abuse or had another mental illness, like my dad who later found sobriety but was caught up in the rigidity of authoritarianism when he was raising me.

 

Without intervention we will unconsciously transmit the unwritten rules of 1) don’t talk, 2) don’t trust, and 3) don’t feel, in our own parenting with our kids.

 

In the conscious parenting movement, many of us are reparenting ourselves as we raise our children. We identify our triggers, often leading to inner child work, we identify enmeshments and become capable of taking personal responsibility for our own thoughts, actions and feelings. We practice boundaries which in turn help our children take full responsibility for their thoughts, actions and feelings. By so doing, we break those unwritten rules by co-creating safe emotional spaces to 1) talk, 2) trust and 3) feel.

 

 

If you would like support in reparenting yourself while raising your teen, I would love the opportunity to share some healing processes that will not only afford you the grace you need but facilitate deep connection with your teens. That’s how reparenting works. It activates empathy and grace in ourselves and our relationships. If you want to talk about, “how,” simply reply to this email with “reparenting” and we can set up a Journey to Freedom Call to learn more about the Back on Track Recovery and Reparenting Program

 

 

If you are not ready to talk about it all quite yet, you can read more here.