Reparenting: Giving Yourself What They Couldn't

The love, safety, and validation you’ve been searching for aren’t out of reach—they’ve been within you all along, ready to be reclaimed.

In this powerful episode, we’re diving into the life-changing concept of reparenting—the sacred art of giving yourself what they couldn’t. Maybe your needs were ignored. Maybe love was conditional. Maybe no one ever taught you how to feel safe in your own skin. Whatever your story, this is your invitation to stop waiting and start becoming the loving, grounded, wise presence your younger self always needed.

We’re talking emotional reprogramming, inner child healing, and how to finally stop outsourcing your worth. This isn’t about blame—it’s about freedom.

If you’re ready to feel whole, worthy, and wildly self-supported… press play. Your healing starts here. ✨ 

For FREE Resources, Book Link, 1:1 Coaching, KB's Self-Love Merch Shop and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of Empower Our Wait with KB. This is a podcast for the soul-led, the heart-centered, and the courageously curious. It's for the seekers, the givers, and the sacred rebels, the ones who crave growth, long for deep transformation, and are willing to do the inner work to get there. Here we dive into healing, self-discovery, emotional liberation, and soul alignment through honest conversations, spiritual insights, and empowering tools. You'll be reminded of your inner wisdom, your worth, and your power to create meaningful change from the inside out. If you're ready to break cycles, reclaim your power and walk your path with authenticity and confidence, you are in the right place. So welcome everybody. Thank you for joining me. So today we're talking about reparenting. I got a request from one of our listeners. They said, I would love to know more about this. They hear it in the world, but they're not really sure what this means. So I want to break this down for everybody today. And the first thing that I want to share is that this is not about blame. Oftentimes, when I'm coaching an individual and we start to unpack layers and we get down to the core of things, there can be a parent that was responsible for certain things that have arisen within this person, certain things that took root and then showed up in their adult life as dysfunctional behavior. And I am all about understanding that our parents did the very best that they could at the time. Most likely you had unhealed people trying to parent you. Even though the love was there, they may not have done a very good job at it. I will raise my hands with that. There's, I learned so much about myself. When I became a parent, things started to be different for me. I realized that I could not lead them to where I wanted them to go unless I worked on aspects of myself. And so they got a different experience, especially my first two children got a little bit different experience of me than my last one, who she was born 10 years after my son. The first two were 19 and a half months apart, and then she was 10 years later. So she had a more healed version of me. She had a different experience in me. But that doesn't mean that the other two had a bad experience because I was growing and doing my very best at that time, made a lot of mistakes. But I realized at that time that, wow, this is really something that I know I was loved, but there was a lot that they missed. And I don't blame them for it. I don't hold them in contempt for it. I have forgiven them for the parts that were not so lovely. And I did that to free myself. So please know that this conversation is not about blame. Because, oh, let me back up. Like I was saying when I talk to my clients about these things, oftentimes they're like, well, I love my mom. I love my dad, or my dad was a good dad. And yes, yes, sometimes we can have the best parents. And still, because they're the primary authority in our life, and we glom on to everything we they say, we rely on them for our safety, for our food, for our shelter, for our for our guidance. As little kids, we're constantly asking them why is the sun in the sky? We ask them everything, and they give us answers to the best of their ability, but sometimes they're not emotionally healed. Sometimes they're they've been carrying around drama, or I'm sorry, trauma that came from being parented themselves and uh from parents, which would be our grandparents, that were carrying around trauma as well. And this goes, this can go deep. And this is why we talk about breaking the generational curse. I particularly don't like the word curse. I like the generational pattern. That feels better to me because curse is a negative word, it has negative connotation. And I try to keep things on the light end of the spectrum. I try to keep things with the understanding that we can get places that we want to be, that we're not stuck. And sometimes this requires that we reparent ourselves. So this is what I'm going to be unpacking today. I will start off with a little story about me, sharing a little bit about myself, which I like to do because I feel like that opens up dialogue for other people. Because some of you might be thinking, wow, I had that experience too. Or it just jars a memory inside of you where you think, oh my gosh, that reminds me of when this happened. And this is the whole point is for us to really go within and to open our hearts and our minds and to reflect on these conversations so that we can grow, so that we can have personal transformation. And this is what it means to heal from the inside out. So being willing to be honest with ourselves about these things, and one of the things is about how we were parented. Like I said, I was loved, I was safe, I wasn't physically abused, there was none of that going on. But I was, I would say, neglected, emotionally neglected. And so that's one of the areas that I reparented myself is I start paying it, started paying attention to my emotions, the things that I needed. Because, you know, one thing that stands out, there's a lot of things, but the one story, and I've shared before, is when my best friend and my boyfriend got together when I was 17 years old. I lost my, she was like a sister, really. I knew her since she was literally born. She lived two houses down for us. Her parents came home from the hospital and stopped at our house first for us to meet her. So I met her like a day old. And we became dear friends, even though they moved away. Once I could drive, you know, we could see each other more often, things like that. And she ended up getting together with my boyfriend at the time. And it was extremely painful. And I remember during that time, nobody asking me how I was. Not one person. Not one person, not even one friend. So that gives the message that what I'm going through doesn't really matter. And this contributed to my people pleasing and going above and beyond for other people all the time in two ways. One is because I felt like my feelings about the thing were wrong and I should just keep it to myself, you know, be the nice guy, the people pleaser, the yay, I'm always happy, the easy-going girl. But also, it turned me into a person who is highly, highly compassionate and empathetic because I wanted to give others what I didn't have. And sometimes this can work against us where we can think, well, I didn't have it, so my kids aren't going to have it. And we think that's okay, but that's not. Personally, me, I want my children to have a better experience than I had. And again, no diss on my parents. I love my parents. I'm looking at a beautiful picture of my mom right now that's on my bookshelf. She was a beautiful, loving lady doing the very best she could at that time. Something else that I wasn't taught was that I was valuable and that my presence is a gift in someone's life. Nobody taught me that. Nobody showed me that. Nobody demonstrated that for me. I didn't realize how valuable I actually am as a human being. So I dimmed my light, I played small, I accepted the unacceptable, I was in two physically abusive relationships. I stayed for way longer than I should have. These type of things because I did not understand my value. So that became my job to teach myself that value. Another thing is that I wasn't, and I'm going to say it in um air quotes, protected, which means I was watching a, I watch a lot of ghost videos. I love the paranormal. I love whether no matter what you think about it, it's really truly for entertainment purposes. I have my own opinions about all of it. But it's, I love the the YouTubers that do it. I watch Project Fear, Sam and Colby, and some others. But anyway, I was watching one with Project Fear, and they did a little mini-movie where they went to four paranormal locations. And this was when they were quite young and they had just started out. The sisters, a brother and a sister, Dakota and Chelsea, and then their two friends. And at some point, Chelsea got really, really scared and she burst into tears, and they started to walk out of the place that they were in. And Dakota, the brother, said, Let's put her between us so she feels safe, because she was kind of walking behind everybody. And they stopped and they put Chelsea between them, walking out so that she felt safe. And I watched that. This was yesterday. And I watched that and I thought, God, I didn't have that. I did I was protected. My mom had an iron grip on our wrists if we were crossing a road or things like that. I was protected in that way. But I there were so many areas in my life that I wasn't protected, that I wasn't asked why I came home at three o'clock in the morning, or what type of guy my boyfriend was from 17 to 19. He was the physically first to physically abusive relationship. How was I being treated? I wasn't being protected in the ways that I needed. I also wasn't taught that I was worthy of respect. You know, if my brother hit me or called me names or brothers, but there was there was one that called me names the most. The other one was physical with me. The other, the oldest and the youngest, you know, really didn't do anything. The youngest definitely not cool beans that you guys know on here. He really doesn't, he's never done anything. My oldest was old 10 years older than me or seven years older than me. He was doing his own thing. He just really wasn't paying attention to me. But the one under him, who passed away when he was 16, he was a name caller. He called me a lot of names. And then the one who's 15 months older than me, he was physical with me at times, just not very nice. He was kind of nasty to me. Because we were feral, this was the 70s. We're Gen X, kind of doing it on our own. Because of that, there wasn't anybody around saying, don't talk to your sister like that. We don't call names in our house. Or if someone was physically abusive, my brother, you know, punching me in the stomach or doing whatever. I did throw a rock at him once because of that. But, you know, there was no one saying, Yeah, I love all the claps coming up, you guys. You so relate, don't you? You so relate. Because of that, I wasn't taught that I deserved that gentleness, that kindness, that respect. And that was one thing that I did bring into my parenting with my kids is that I did not allow them to call each other names. I did not allow them to be physical with each other whatsoever. Although I will tell the story, and my kids don't mind this story. My son one time, this was a really, this is a family like laugh for us now because it was like, what? My eldest daughter is, she's just big, okay, big personality. And I kept, she would bug him, and he was 19 months younger than her. And I kept saying to her, You better stop because at some point he's gonna grow bigger than you. You need to stop. You need to respect him, you need to be kind, you know, blah, blah, blah. Well, one day he was laying in his bed. She and I went in there, we're just being goofy and dancing around and stuff. And he he laughed a little bit at first and he said, I have a migraine. Can you guys please leave? I respected the migraine. I was like, okay, let's go, but she didn't. And she was over there. I think he said she was poking him. I just remember her being silly, like kind of waving her arms over the top of him and things like that. Well, he grabbed her physically, and my remembrance is that he pulled her down like across his stomach. Like he just grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down and held her down. He says he spun her around and grabbed her, like around the front, not quite a head like, but like a shoulder lock. I don't know what her memory is because everybody remembers things differently. But she was screeching and howling, and I told him to let go. He let go. She left the room. I remember climbing up on his bed and just sitting there and staring at him. I didn't know what to do with this. Because this was physical. They'd never he had never done that before. He was early teens, 14, 15, maybe, getting big. He he grew a lot. He he ended up being 6'2. But at some point he was getting bigger. So I don't know how big he was, but he was bigger than her. And I just stared at him. He he said he looked at me, his stomach dropped. He looked at me. This is with a migraine, bless his heart. You can see my emotions coming out in this. He just looked at me like, oh, snap. What's coming? And my next words were give me a minute. Literally what I said, give me a minute. And I just sat there. And my brain's going like it is, it is on. I'm trying to figure out what do I do? And I looked at him and I said, You're not in trouble. She had this coming. She's done this to you for years. But don't ever lay your hands on your sister again. And he said, heard. And then I walked out of the room, and his remembrance is her saying, Is he in trouble? Is he grounded to see this? And I said, No, he's not. And she was mad because she wanted something to happen to him. But I had to process through that, I had to feel through that. Well, that wasn't done in my house. Again, a lot of this was done behind the parents' backs because, you know, this is this is the time of latch key kids where, again, we left our house wide open. We didn't have a key around our neck to let ourselves in at night. We or in the afternoon. We just walked in and sometimes there was neighbor kids sitting in the in the in the family room. All right, I gotta say hello to all the clappers, you guys. Oh, I appreciate you. Michelle, Ms. El, Amani, Lisa, Peter. Oh gosh. Yes, so, so, so good. These are the things that I wasn't taught. And this is where the reparenting came in. Because once I realized this wasn't until I was much older, because you know, a lot of us in the Gen X and above generations right now, we didn't have the internet. We didn't have these get online and listen to a podcast and go, ooh, I love that book. We didn't have any of that. We were just kind of figuring things out on our own. So it wasn't until my 40s, until after my tsunami that I started to, thank you, Peter. Till I started to really look at this stuff. And I realized a much of what I was doing in my College of Christian was reparenting. I didn't use the word reparenting, though, because that I hadn't heard that word in the world yet. This is 15 years ago. Now I use it because a perfect word. But I I didn't know what I what I was doing, but I realized I was protecting myself. I was giving myself respect. I was being gentle with me. I was attending to my emotions. I was attending to my needs. I was approving of me. I was accepting of me. I was doing all of those things that I did not get or what weren't shown to me. And again, our parents are doing the best they can with their level of awareness and healing that they were at at that moment. And once I learned that concept, it was so easy for me to forgive them because I understood on a deep level, especially when I became a parent myself. So today's episode, we're talking about reparenting, meaning we're gonna fill in the gaps in our mental and emotional foundation so we can feel whole, worthy, and we can become sovereign over our life. What does sovereign mean? It means claiming full authorship of our experience. It means to stop outsourcing for our worth. It's about taking radical responsibility for our healing, our growth, and our happiness. It's about trusting ourselves, our inner wisdom, our inner knowing, and our inner guidance over other people's approval. It's about setting boundaries, speaking our truth, and honoring our values. And it's about stop living in reaction and start living in alignment. Right on. My first guest is Miss Lois. Thank you, Lois. Thank you for coming.

Loyce: 16:44

Oh, I you know, I love this topic. This is one of my basic topics that I use with all my used and still do in my even in my talks. I still can teach them how to how to reparent yourself. And the thing is that it's like our parents didn't know what they were doing. She's like, we didn't know what we were doing. And I had to explain that to somebody. I said, when you guys had your first baby, did you know what you were doing? Did everybody say, no? And they didn't know what they was doing either. And it went, and if we can if we can step out of the blaming and blaming, that's when we can actually get to the place that we can say, okay, my needs didn't get met. Not why my needs didn't get met, just admit my needs didn't get met. And then ask yourself, how can I meet them now? You know, and the other thing is, the other thing is, this is one that that most people really don't get. You can't meet a need that you don't know you have. Okay. That's exactly right. So you have, okay. So if you ain't never been introduced to your needs in a clear, conscious, or compassionate way, you're not gonna know what it is. And it's not just for food or shelter or clothing and all those superficial things. That's not superficial, but it's kind of when it comes to the scheme of things, when it comes to you being number one. Yeah, the inner healing. Yeah. And the thing is, we have needs to be heard and seen and to feel safe and in our vulnerability to be able to have express all of our emotions. And I know my mama, then they could not handle any other emotion other than happy. Uh they'll tolerate sad a little bit, but you couldn't have all anger. You couldn't have all the range of emotions because they didn't know how to deal with them. And they would tell you, literally, I was told to put my feelings in my pocket. And if they weren't on the on the ground, people couldn't walk on them. Okay. And I was like, what the hell? You know, but that was my that was my thing.

Kristen: 18:50

In hindsight, in hindsight, right? Hindsight is so clear, it's like, what? No, it was it was what when she said it to me.

Loyce: 18:57

And I'm thinking, my feelings and my I told you I was nine when I said I want to be a therapist. Okay because I wanted to help people be able to deal with this. I wanted people to understand that they can get out of that, and I would find ways, and that's why I'm so resilient. I would find ways in order to alleviate what I was going through without even knowing that I was parenting myself. And then when I got into school, uh actually started studying it in undergrad and grad, I realized that I was not just parenting myself, I was parenting my brothers and sisters and my mama and daddy. Okay. So and I wasn't parenting me, and I wasn't doing it for me because I didn't feel worthy, because it hadn't been done for me by my own parents. Okay. So I couldn't blame nobody, you know, and I knew I wasn't broken because I I was becoming, because I had to learn what I needed. I had to learn all this stuff because it that wasn't taught to me. So in in my And my quest to not inflict upon my kids needing a person like me for therapy. I did the best I could, and I was constantly parenting them and myself at the same time, giving myself what I needed as I gave them what they needed. Okay. And then the biggest thing was it was getting curious about what I was feeling. Okay, instead of naming who failed me. They didn't do this. No, what I what did I feel they didn't do? How do I really feel? And when I got curious about my unmet, you talk about this all the time, and because this is all therapeutic. Uh what is my what is the unmet need under the emotion? What are you really saying I need? Because under that emotion, whether it's shame, whether it's guilt, whether it's anger, there is an unmet need under there. And that's when you have to offer that love to yourself that was not available to you then. Okay, you can do that. You only you can do that, and forgive, and forgive, and you got to forgive the ignorance. They know Jesus on the cross said, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. They didn't know what they were doing, they didn't know in their quest to keep us safe, they were instilling fear in monumental proportions, you know, but they were just reacting to what they had, and when you reparent yourself, you get to become aware of all these little things that you need, you know, because blame changed you down, and but awareness frees you, okay? And then compassion transform, and I'm gonna let you go, let you finish talking. So, yeah, that's what I had to say about that.

Kristen: 21:43

Lois, I love you. I appreciate you. That was such a stellar share. I love that so much. And please feel free if you're available to jump in again, because I always love when you add on to what I'm saying and you say it in your way, your way. I love the way you say it. So please feel free to come back. I do want to expand on something that Lois said. I don't remember how she worded it, but I'm going to add to it, and that is that what's monumentally important here is that others cannot fill that need for us in adulthood. I know that's strange. I know it's paradoxical, it's wild. We continue to look out there for somebody to fill that need for us. For some reason, the way life is laid out, the way this whole system, game, universe, whatever you want to call it, is laid out, what we don't get in childhood, it becomes our job to give ourselves in adulthood. Trust me when I tell you, I have tried to fill the cracks and crevices in other people. I just had a conversation with someone, I don't know, a couple days ago about something that they were trying to seek from me because they have a wound. And I said, You please understand this. You have to fill that. I can show up 100% perfect in this department, and your brain is still gonna tell you there's a problem. Okay. We have to fill this for ourselves. Nobody can do this for us. This is that whole narrative we hear in the world becoming our own hero, no one's coming to save us. This is it. And the more that we resist this truth, capital T truth, the longer we resist this truth, the longer it's going to perpetuate our pain and suffering. So when we understand that seeking, seeking, seeking for somebody else, outsourcing for these things, is not going to serve us at all. It's going to keep us on a hamster wheel of doing the same things over and over and over again. It comes from us. So some of the things that you may not have gotten in your childhood could be emotional validation, like Lois was talking about, consistent love and safety, healthy boundaries. Maybe no one taught you how to be boundried up or respect yourself. Maybe you didn't have permission to express your thoughts or your feelings. Maybe you didn't have unconditional acceptance, which means you had to meet a list of criteria to maybe get the approval of your parent. I was watching a Billy Joel documentary. I love those. To be honest with you, I grew up with his songs. I've never bought an album. He's not my person, but I love learning about people's history. And if you guys really truly understand how deeply talented that man was, holy moly! I had no clue. No clue. His father, I might get this wrong, please don't quote me. He was a classically trained pianist. And Billy was showing up with all the skills. He was teaching himself things. He they finally put him into piano lessons. He didn't like learning the notes. So he learned to play Mozart, Chopin, all of these things, people, not things, by ear. What? I mean, this man was amazing. His father never said he was proud of him. And that shows up somewhere in this thing, and he ended up having an alcohol abuse problem and things like that, which they barely touch on. I don't think, I don't think he wanted that really the forefront of his documentary, but they they touch on it, they allude to it here and there. And my brain, Kristen Brown, wonders if it was because of that. This deep, unmet need inside of him for his father to be proud of him. And his friends and other people in the documentary had said that. I think he just wanted his dad to be proud of him. Even so, to the point that one time he was playing in the family home. He was supposed to be playing, you know, the traditional way of that classical music. And he started to put like a little bebop into it because he, you know, he loved rock and roll. So he was playing it, but he started to put a little, you know, little spin on the Mozart. His father came down the stairs and said, What are you playing? and smacked him so hard. He fell off the piano stool and was unconscious for a little bit of time. Not great parenting. So he spent the rest of his life hoping that dad would be proud. Dad never became proud. Now, Dad, I think at one point after Dad passed, his brother, who ended up being some amazing person in the musical world, it was gifted, his daughter is now very gifted. I mean, it's it does pass down to generations. But his brother said to him, you know, Dad was really proud of you. He just never said it to Billy. That's an example of reparenting where we have to say, look what I've created on my own, because he did it sort of the way that, oh golly, what's his name? Tip of my tongue. I did it my way. What's his name? I did it my way. The name that's coming to my head is not right. I don't want to say it out loud because then that'll only be the name of my head. You guys know he's the crooner, the crooner of all crooners. Yeah, Frank Sinatra. Thank you, Paula. Yeah, I wanted to say Neil Siddaka. And I knew it wasn't Neil Siddaka. And I was like, don't say that name. It's gonna get stuck in your head. No, it's Frank Sinatra. He wanted to do it his way. So he did it his way, and he continually did it his way. In fact, I don't remember what record company, it might have been Columbia. Somebody, when he finally got a big break, they wanted to break up his ban and give him another like canned ban. And he goes, No, these are my brothers, these are my family, and I'm keeping them. So you don't get me without them. That's a big move, right? A big bold move we were talking about. That's like a big bold move that our our sister Robin did yesterday, turning down a job. Yeah, that was a big bold move. But he wanted to do it his way. My point is he did an amazing job. Again, not a super fan. I I respect the heck out of him, but he's not I've never bought a record from him. But man, if he would have just stopped for 10 minutes a day and said, Billy and hugged himself, you're doing such an amazing job. I'm so proud of you. That's reparenting. I do this to me all the time. I wrote a friggin' book. I'm the first author in my family. It took me three years because I was putting feelings into words. Feelings that have never been expressed, that feelings like um self-worth. I didn't know how to word that. I did not know how to word things because it wasn't taught to me. There was no internet. Or there was internet, I think it was just in its infancy. Or I wasn't watching or listening, whatever. It took me three years. I worked my tail off. I worked full time and then would put myself in the office when I could at my mom's house. Every five minutes, her going knock, knock, knock, honey, do you want blah, blah, blah, mom? I'm trying to write my book. Oh, okay. I'll leave you alone. Ten minutes later, knock, knock, knock. Honey, mom, I can't tell you. Writing that book in between times, here and there. I remember I was still writing it when I met my husband. I was still writing it. My point is, is that no one said they were proud of me. No one. My brothers didn't say, Hey, I want a copy of your book, sis. You're amazing. I can't believe you wrote a book. Way, way after the fact, my eldest brother said, Chris, I've never read your book. I would like to read it. I said, okay. And I gave him a copy, and then he never said anything. But he wasn't a person that was practicing the things that this book was about. So it'd be like me reading a car a book about car engines. Or his, he was a rock climber. He was an extreme rock climber, very famous in the world of rock climbing. People knew his name in other states. And if he gathered me a book about rock climbing, I'd be like, okay. You know, I probably wouldn't say anything either. What would I say? Oh, thanks for telling me to use a um G5 friend on a 510 with the crag on the Yosemite, the line. You know, I can't, I don't even have the verbiage. All right. I'd listen to him talk to his friends about it, and I'd be like, what are they talking about? I knew what a 510 was and a 5'11 and a 512. That's the ratings. But at any rate, I get it. But at first, I would my feelings were a little hurt. Like, wow, nice job, Chris. Love the story about this, something. Right? Nothing. I had to give that to me. I had to say, you wrote a damn book, girl. And it's 200 something pages. It's not a little skinny thing. And you published it. And it's on the internet. And people can buy this thing. And you made, you know, I I went through a publishing company, a self-publishing company associated with Hay House. And, you know, I didn't know anything about what a cover should look like. My cover is crap. I didn't know. But there we go. I did it. It's still out there. I still talk about it. I did that. I built a website by myself when I was a hairstylist for how many years? And I never, I didn't even could hardly open a Word document. I could pay my bills through my bank. I could send an email to the cows come home. Even got pretty good at Facebook. I did not know how to build a website. I figured it out. I wasn't techie savvy at that time. Whole different language for me. Figured it out. Guys, truth. When I was figuring this out, it said, What is your URL? I'm like, what's a URL? And so it gave me examples. So I just was throwing words in there. I didn't know. It became Sweet Empowerment. It said, Yay, that's your URL. It's not taken. I'm like, okay. I later find out that's what people search. So my first website was sweetempowerment.com. I didn't know. Eventually, people are like, you need your name, you need your name. So I go to get Kristen Brown. They don't have.com because someone took it and they wanted $2,000 for the.com. So I threw a dot org in there. And then I was like, wait, org means an organization, but people are like, not anymore. There's too many, there's too many URLs. It's cool. I didn't know, but I did it. So I had to be proud of me. And that's just one aspect of learning to parent yourself. The reason why we want is because the quote-unquote lack of parenting, the lack of meeting our needs in childhood is going to show up in our adulthood in unhealthy or maladaptive ways. And those those are things like unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy self-soothing mechanisms. It could be fear of rejection, deep inner criticism, chronic anxiety, people pleasing, lack of boundaries, dumbing down, dibbing down, playing small, all of these type of things. Anger issues, low emotional intelligence, spouting off at people, an inability to take constructive criticism, which by the way is really something that's so special. To be able to do that, to at least hear what someone has to say without getting defensive. There's no need for defense. You don't need to defend who you are. But we defend who we are when we have deep shame and unworthiness, and it's hidden. The inner world is popcorned with it. So that's what we will hear things through. Rather when we love ourselves and people share something, then hopefully they do it in a respectful and kind way, because of course, if someone's attacking us, we're gonna get defensive. And I'm not talking coming at you kind and you perceiving it as an attack, that's unhealing. I'm talking if someone says, Hey, can I share something with you? And you're in a place of receiving. Your nervous system's not activated for whatever reason, and you say sure, and they say you know, and they share something with you. You're more willing to hear it than when you are in a state of unhealing. So this is why we want to do this work because we get to feel better. First and foremost, we get to feel better. We are more confident, we know our worth. We believe in ourselves. Reparenting is like taking putty. You ever take a bunch of in an apartment or house and you're gonna move and you take everything off the walls, there's holes everywhere. Reparenting is like taking that putty with your finger and sticking it in that hole and smoothing it out so that you can repaint and not see it there. Who doesn't want to do that? Well, I know the listeners of this podcast do. Because, like I said in my intro, that you are the heart-centered and the courageously curious. You're the seekers, you're the ones who want to feel better, who believe that there's more to life, there's more to this world than what we were taught. Okay, we bring up Lois again, and then I have Miss Laura. Thank you, Lois, for coming back.

Loyce: 36:28

When you say unmet knees don't disappear, I want to expand on that. They actually really disguise themselves, okay? And because if you grew up not feeling seen, your heart longs to be acknowledged, okay, and that's where people pleasing come from. If your boundaries were never honored, you unconsciously attract people who test them, giving you a chance to say no. You know, and if love is inconsistent or conditional, you crave every instance of to reassure that you go you need got jealous, and you can they got to give you a text and call, and if they don't return the text and they forgot about you, it's it's they it hides itself. And it's like we don't realize that in every relationship, we're just seeking healing. And the relationships are curriculums for us to learn to reparent ourselves because we're seeking love, we're seeking healing, and we get this a corrected experience with the mirror of another person, and we get to and we get to heal ourselves, and we get to get to the place where you you begin to see the other as both a mirror and a magnet. Okay, I talk about this a lot, okay, because they will mirror unmet knees, the unconscious pattern, and part of my healing journey when I was sick with all those diseases is I I explained this before that I wrote down all the people in my family and all their diseases and all the family history of all the stuff. Then I went in my relationship and I did a relationship inventory. All the relationships I was in with all the common denominators. And when I was able to look at all the kind of common denominators, I was able to see where I needed to heal myself because if I didn't know where the patterns were, I couldn't heal it within myself. And people were magnetized to us to give us the opportunity to revisit and resolve those things. That's why the triggers are our treasures, man. I mean, just like that makes me feel so good because those triggers lead us to that unmet need. You gotta look at triggers differently instead of popping off, okay? And the thing is that we often fall into these relationships with the same familiar family dynamics with different people one after another, okay? You know, and the thing is that that that unavailable partner, it reminds that reminds us that of that emotionally distant parent. And because I know I was always getting people who were emotionally unavailable, okay, to be there in body, but was not there, okay. So the thing is that when we start looking at our relationships as uh our love as a curriculum, not chemistry, we begin to see what it was being reflected to me through you. You know, even recently when somebody hit on me and I was talking to them, and it was reviving. I'm like, oh, this is good, this is good, this is good. And then something hit different, something made me say something gave me pause. And then I had to, I had to ask them, you know, are you married? Okay. And of course, well, they were nice enough to say yes. And then I had to say, okay, so I had to ask myself, how am I being still being emotionally unavailable? Because if I'm attracted somebody who is emotionally unavailable to me, that means I'm emotionally unavailable. And in order for me to be more emotionally available, I had to heal up some more. And I know I don't want to be in a relationship again until I have. That piece of me because I don't want to keep repeating the patterns. You know, so the relationship is not the remedy I am. Okay. I have to step into my own maturity and say, ooh, they're cheating on me. Ooh, how am I cheating myself? Ooh, I might I'm emotionally unavailable to myself or and or to others. Okay. And I know that I put myself in this little safety box. And it's and it's good, but that's that box that keeps me safe also keeps me blocked out from the rest of the world. Okay. And and and when you heal these pieces of you, the world is open to you. Oh, she got a phone call. Okay, you can draw people to you on that same heel thing. Okay. And the thing is, people don't understand. I know I hate when that happens. These situations are just brought to us to do it. So I I encourage everybody to do a relationship inventory. Look at the patterns, look at what it is, and then look behind what's really there. What unmet needs is hiding under there, that's waiting for you to heal it. And that's what I have to say about that.

Kristen: 41:18

Thank you. Perfect. Thank you, Forrest. Forrest Gum said that. And that's all I got to say about what Lois just described to you is shadow work. It's really simple. When we notice something in someone else, we reveal the shadow within us when we say, How am I blank? Whatever the thing is, how am I protecting myself? How am I emotionally unavailable? How am I cheating me? That's how we reveal the shadow. It's one question. I always say the healing work is not difficult. We just need to be willing to show up for it. I don't buy into all those narratives in the world. This is so hard, it's so hard. No, it wasn't. It wasn't hard. I just had to be honest with myself. I had to get to know me. I had to say, that's me. I'm doing that. I'm acting like that. I was disrespecting me. I was not treating me kindly. I was being whatever it was in my past. I don't remember exactly. That's how it shows up. So be willing to ask yourself that question. How am I this? Okay, yeah. Lois just said on the back channel, you had to become an emotional archaeologist digging through fragments from the past. Yes. That's it, you guys. Clear and simple. All right, going to bring up Miss Amani. Laura dropped out. But we're gonna bring up Amani. Welcome, sis. Thanks for coming.

Imani: 43:04

Hello, fellow beautiful sister. How are you today? Fabulous, thank you. Awesome, Sauce. So for me, being also a Gen Xer, my mom's favorite statement was children are not here to embarrass their parents. Parents are here to embarrass their kids. Wow. Wow. Hey, you get in trouble with her, she will pull over the side of the road and just go to town on Guil Behind. My first memory was we was at Kmart and I had broken the three rules. Anytime we had to go in a store or anything, she'd look behind her, you know, with me in the passenger seat or a back seat, and she's like, you know what we gotta do in here, right? Yes, ma'am. What is it? Don't say nothing, don't touch nothing, don't ask for nothing. So if you broke one of those three rules, you already knew what was gonna happen. And it happened in Kmart, and she started beating me with one of the hangers, and people were standing there like, oh my god, it's abusing her child. And my mom stopped in the middle, looked at them, and said, This is my MF child. I can do it with the MF I want. And if you keep staring, you're neck. I just want I just wanted the ground to absorb me at that time. Wow. But that was my mom. She was so defensive because she never dealt with any of her stuff growing up. So she was always in that you know attack mode. Ask questions later, beat you up, then ask questions later. Whereas me, I want to frog in the meadow with everybody. I want to have flowers, have some tea and crumbles, so we had static because we are two polar opposites. And because my mom had to be so emotionally unavailable, because as I stated before, I was a product of an affair. And so I was the physical representation of it every single day in her face. And she didn't know how to deal with it. So she would constantly push me out, push me out, push me out, not share anything. So I became the overachiever. Let me get these straight A's, let me be in every as correct to be available, plus be in AP classes. Oh, by the way, now let me add a job on top of that. And I just kept doing that. I got on the hamster wheel. And even though I tried and tried and tried, it was still never good enough. Straight A's wasn't good enough. You know, still having straight A's and having a job wasn't good enough. Still having straight A's, the job, and ex-curricular activities, it wasn't enough. So I constantly felt like a failure. Even though I was doing all these things right, I felt like a failure. Because I was just needing from her to say and acknowledge, I love you. You're doing a fantastic job. So that's what I brought into adulthood was I gotta be the overachiever, I gotta be the perfectionist, I gotta be there for everybody any time, any place. Let's do this. Not realizing I was draining myself in the process still. My nine-year-old self was still screaming at everybody, hey, just say you love me. Hey, just acknowledge my existence. Hey, let me be part of the circle, let me be part of whatever, just to say I was part of something. And it wasn't until last year when I found out all the information about why my mom said what she said my whole life, that I was a mistake. I wasn't planned, I wasn't supposed to be here, but she chose to have me anyway. It made sense. I was like, okay, now I understand why she was saying that. But even still, now I have to forgive her and I have to forgive myself that I was not a mistake. It was just the situation I came into wasn't great. But I was still meant to be here. I'm still amazing. Despite the past, despite everything that was said to me before, and it wasn't true, it's now okay, but Monty, now what do you know is true about you and God? Because I didn't make a mistake bringing you here. There's a reason why you're here. Now you gotta take the time to be intentional, sit with me, get therapy, do the work to find out why you are here and who you are, and who you are and me, and how you're existing at this time, in this place. So then I can give the next person permission to do the work, to get better, to acknowledge themselves, love themselves, see how worthy they are, so that they can be currently present in this present we have of today, while also still wanting what is there and more in their future. And believing they're worthy of all of it. Every single bit of it, and then some. That's why I say pick your crunch off the floor, shine it off, and put it back on top of your head because your royalty so thrive.

Kristen: 48:04

Mmm, thrive on, thrive on, everybody. Beautiful show by Amani. I love her, and I love her coming up. And you guys, by the way, let me just take a PSA right now. Lois Hampson is on every Sunday here on Noom Five live at 11 a.m. Pacific time. And Amani goes live on Clubhouse early in the morning. I don't know the time. I think it's 7 central. Amani, you're gonna have to tell me. And her handle over on Clubhouse is at Audacious Amani. Correct me if I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, because I don't want everybody 7:30. Amani goes on, 7:30 a.m. Central Time on Clubhouse, I believe on the daily. And it is correct handle at audacious Amani. Go check her out, y'all. Alrighty. Let's keep going. Oh, so many, so many good things. So many good things. The core statement of what reparenting ourselves means, it does not mean we're fixing. Okay, we're not fixing. I also don't subscribe to broken. A lot of people do. It's okay if you do. I don't like the term broken. I like bent. We might be a little bent. We might be a little discombobulated. We might be a little bit out of joint. Oh, Amani is on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Okay, on Clubhouse. But I don't like broken. That's even though that's sometimes probably how you feel. But what it's about, reparenting, it's about becoming the primary, steady, loving, inner presence that you've always needed. It's about meeting your own needs with grace, compassion, and priority instead of waiting for others to do so. Reparenting is the healing journey. Manifestation leads us to the healing journey. Relationships can lead us to the healing journey, like Lois talked about. I often say relationships are designed to show us our unhealed places. Are you willing to accept the mission? Are you willing? Can you be honest with yourself enough? Can you be gentle with yourself enough? Can you stop blaming yourself and condemning yourself and looking at yourself as a human being doing human things who had a human experience that is no different than anybody else? You're no more, you're no less. No matter your religion, your race, your color, how big your feet are, none of it matters. Are you willing to show up for you? All right. Let's bring up Steven. Thank you, Steven, for joining me. You guys have a beautiful conversation today. So glad you're all here with me. Hello there, brother.

Steven: 51:19

Yeah, I don't think it's gonna work.

Kristen: 51:23

The sound's a little funky. Are you driving?

Steven: 51:27

Yeah, the headset died. I'm just gonna drop down and come back.

Kristen: 51:32

All right. Oh, the headset's gonna die. Okay, Steven. Thank you for trying, though. We're so glad that you are here. I'm sure you have something to add. So if you can get that figured out, please be safe doing so. Alrighty, we're bringing up Miss Robin. Robin, hi.

Robin: 51:50

Hey, so anger is like this trait that runs through my family. I think that it was who can be the loudest and the meanest would win the fight, right? So my my family, both sides were like mechanics, and they they spoke loud and couldn't hear a freaking thing. My grandfather yelled all the time. And to hear my uh mother and my aunts and uncles talk, they were like, You guys have it easy when we were growing up, we couldn't do this and that, and you guys as the grandkids say it easier, but we don't recall it that way. We still get our little fannies kicked too. And we would never, ever dare ask for something in a storm or have a tantrum or anything like that. We would never. So it was always, you know, who was who was the loudest, the strongest, who could be the meanest. I had a lot of problems with anger management all through my life. The thing that actually helped me was going on like an SSRI, actually, was the only thing that could control that, unless you pushed me to the edge, right? So my fam, my my brother and my nephews all went through this whole thing. And my niece even says, Auntie, you have no idea I have to hold back and control everything for as long as I can because I, you know, I'm just, you know, can be awful. And I'm like, no, no, I I know it. I know it. So when I had my daughter, I, you know, pledged I was not doing that. I'm not, I'm not gonna, you know, she's not, I'm not gonna spank her. I'm not, you know, I every once in a while a little pat on the butt, but nothing, you know, I didn't she didn't get the belt or anything like I did growing up, you know, like we You wanted to break the pattern. Yeah. And what I learned later, and I didn't realize this, that my husband was pretty mean to her. And I didn't realize this. Um, one time I caught him pushing her face into the corner, like, you're gonna stand there, and I would, you know, and I would say to him, No, don't, don't, don't do that. Don't. We're not doing that. Or you're gonna stand there until you sit, you apologize or whatever. And then there were just some other things that she told me later in life, you know, as an adult. And I'm like, really? How come I didn't know those things, you know, and I realized I was always working. So, you know, there's a lot to be said for making sure you know what's going on in your in your life. Because I never, I I I would have never believed that ever. Um, I know they they clashed really bad when she became a teenager because you know, you get mouthy and you get, you know, the talk back talking back, and he hated that. He couldn't stand that. Um, you know, I knew what that was. It was just like, okay, you're gonna talk back to me. I don't know who you think you're talking to. But then that was when the I'm the bigger, badder. You I don't know who you think you're talking to, but it's not me. That kind of thing. Again, still, but what I will say, and this actually makes me extremely proud. I've never, I don't know if she told other people or anything like that, but she's never, ever, ever to this day said, I hate you. And I I mean, I would listen to to my friends or you know, my nieces, and you know, they're screaming at their parents, I hate you. And you know, they it's not necessarily that they do or they don't, but I feel so blessed that my daughter has never said that. Because I know she doesn't hate me. I know she hates the things that I might say or do. You know, the same, same thing, you know, with my parents. I, you know, there were certain things that I didn't like. But what I learned um to not to parent differently and reparent was to do things that like not do the things that they did, and again, break out of that pattern, learn what not to do and sort of be aware of it. Do I fail or saw I fail? But you know, all in all. Um, let me use the last few seconds just to let everybody know in case um I had mentioned it before. I had a CAT skin on Monday, and it is clear, I do not that nodule I had is gone. It was in the infection, it was in my lung. They found it when I had all my heart failure stuff, but they said it was either an infection. Thank you guys, an infection or an inflammation process.

Kristen: 56:10

So bam, another notch. Oh my god, you oh Robin. I just lifted my glasses up, put my hands over my eyes, I'm rubbing my eyebrows just like in awe and happiness. You are amazing. You are amazing. I'm so happy for you. That's absolutely glorious. Well done. All right, we got Steven coming up. Good, Steven. I hope you got that worked out. We can do our best, Steven, and see if we can hear you good.

Steven: 56:45

Well, I think it says I have 40% on the headset after five minutes of charging. So I think we're good. Perfect.

Kristen: 56:53

You sound great.

Steven: 56:56

Yeah, some of the stuff with Billy Joel, I don't think I was physically abused like that, but the idea of being told that I had done good, uh kind of few and far between, it seems. My sister is two years older than me. And then there are three younger brothers. And as the first male, uh, my sister set the bar way, way, way, way, like National Honor Society, etc., etc. And then here comes Steven Mr. Average. I still remember Mrs. Hobb. I can't remember if I want to say it was going into sixth grade. Are you gonna be as good as your sister?

Kristen: 57:47

Oh boy.

Steven: 57:49

Yeah, I probably carried that for a long period of time. And you know, my grandfather, when I became a driver, he would tell anybody in the nursing home I found out from my aunt, his daughter, that how proud he was of his grandson that drove all over the country, etc., etc. etc. Never said boo to me. And I think that's part of that generation, which is also my dad. If he was alive today, he would be a hundred and five. So it's that um greatest generation lived through the depression part. And that's the picture from the river going to the Mississippi ending rag ride last Saturday. And on the century day, which was Tuesday, I had an opportunity to ride through the town of Sway City, Iowa, which is where I student taught in the fall of 1982. And I got one of the two C's that this 50-year-old um occasional agriculture teacher had given out to all the guys that yells that he had had as student teachers. And I'm pretty darn sure that that C had something to do with me not taking teaching as a career. And there was a little resentment. And um, you know, I've kind of tracked this guy, and he's I kind of figured he was still there, and so I rolled into town, I went up and tried to find the house that I might have lived in, and it it just looks like a ramshack, a little small town in Iowa after the uh after a guy got it by the farm thing. And so then I went back down to the main street, talked to some old boy that looked like he'd been there a while, yeah, fifty-seven years. So he was there in the eighties. I ask him about the instructor, and he's and he says, Yeah, he's he's serving root beer floats probably down in the park if you want to go talk to him. Century days take a lot of time. Gee, I could easily drive by it. No, I went and talked to him, and I somebody pointed him out and I looked over, and here's a 93-year-old man. And I'm sitting there thinking, if he's like my mom or Mike, my mother-in-law, he doesn't remember all this stuff. He probably doesn't remember me from Adam. Me going off is not gonna serve any purpose whatsoever. Just go talk to him. So I was darn proud of myself for making that decision. And you know, he he remembered the guy that I had student talk with because he actually worked for the bank next town over. And Cliff made the remark, yeah, he says, I sang at his wedding. And I'm thinking, yeah, you probably did. And I wonder if you really remember me. And it occurs to me afterwards, it's like, I wonder if he's gonna rifle through some stuff, and then huh. That guy actually came back and talked to me. No hard feelings. It's like, nope, don't do any good, because actually you giving me a C led to the career that I have now and all the fun I get to have in it. And there we go.

Kristen: 1:01:40

Great story, Stephen. Do you have a second to come back? I have a question for you. If you do, it's all along the lines of reparenting, if you have if you are willing. I love that story. And you know what? Sometimes people don't even realize how heinous they were to us. Because I remember there's people I brought up things that they did, and they're like, I never did that. I'm like, you sure did, you know, so it's it's interesting how that works. Okay, Stephen, I'm gonna say, going back to that little Stephen, where the teacher said, Are you gonna be as good as your sister? If you were standing in observation of this conversation, and you heard someone say that to little Stephen, what would you say to little Stephen after that?

Steven: 1:02:36

I think I would explain to him that she's just comparing you to her to your sister because that might have been a split second thing, and she didn't think ahead of time. I will be proud of you no matter what you do, as long as you show up and try.

Kristen: 1:02:57

Yeah, that's reparenting, you guys, right there.

Steven: 1:03:02

Oh man, I just got chills all over from that.

Kristen: 1:03:06

That's that that's it. That's literally it. Yeah, we take those times that those things were said to us, those those things that cut so deeply, and in our mind's eye, we put ourselves there, kneel down in front of that baby, and say, No, that's inaccurate. That's not okay. I won't even let my kids talk bad about themselves. My daughter says something. I look at her, I'm like, excuse me, you will not talk about my child that way. And she laughs, and someone said something once. She goes, Oh, don't do that in front of my mom. She doesn't let people talk bad about themselves. But do you even? That's so good. I'm so proud of you.

Steven: 1:03:48

I I think I can connect some dots in there. So that same picture of me is uh one of the uh admins on the uh Des Moines Cycling Club Facebook page. Pulled that picture and put it out there in a separate post and said, Here's Stephen Tanner, one of our superheroes. There's a part of me that that loves, oh yeah, that's really cool. And there's the other part of me is like, yeah, that's just me being me because that's what I do. And the second part needs to breathe into the first part and really accept it and go, that's pretty darn cool. So that's how some of that probably got tamped down, and then it just yeah, it doesn't matter, even if somebody does build you up, they don't really mean it, and it continues on.

Kristen: 1:04:48

Well, there's that piece of it's right, there's that piece too that people are just blowing smoke when they're comp complimenting us. But no, a lot of times people they really mean it. But if we don't believe we're worthy of it, we don't believe it about ourselves, we're not gonna believe they mean it.

Steven: 1:05:05

Yeah, and I'm I'm working on that because I know that compliments are when somebody gives you a compliment, it isn't like, oh uh yeah, that's just me doing this. That's it's no big deal. The a proper response is thank you. I appreciate what you said.

Kristen: 1:05:26

Yeah, you're amazing. Thank you, Steven.

Steven: 1:05:31

Thank you.

Kristen: 1:05:33

Safe travels. Okay, I appreciate that. I'm so glad. And like you said, when he answered that question and he showed up for what I refer to as little Stephen, little Kristen, little Lois, little Robin, little Amani, when you show up for that little person that has some belief that was either handed to them or was picked up along the way that stuck to them like Velcro, when you sit down with yourself and you say, you address that, because now you know better as a grown adult what you really needed to hear and what was really truth and what was really wisdom. Like Steven said, wow, I just got full body chills. That's the body recognizing healing. Please understand that. Those chills of affirmation, that's the word I was looking for the other day when I was talking about god bumps, goosebumps, god bumps, chills of affirmation. That was the phrase. When we get those chills of affirmation, they're telling us something. Our body is viscerally reacting to the truth. Oh, when I get that, I let it sink in. I will marinate in that as long as I possibly can because I want to adopt it. I want my brain to see the truth of that. Before closing, I just want to go back and talk about how when Lois was saying, well, she was talking, I was talking about revealing the shadow by saying, How am I blank? And that is looking at the not so healed portions of you. I want you to also do this. Anytime you think to somebody, you're so sweet, you're so kind, you're so nice, you're so funny, you're so amazing. I want you to ask that same question. How am I so sweet, kind, amazing, funny? Well, I was on this call, somebody messaged me and they sent it via text, which means they didn't want me to read it on the vibe. That's okay. And they said, or no, maybe that was here, said, You are a sweet, you're a sweet person. In order for that person to see that in me, that means that that person has that in them. So I'm gonna ask you, not only with the not so positive aspects of yourself, but anytime you're judging another, ask yourself, where is this in me? Anytime you're complimenting another, say, where is this in me? This is what healing looks like, everybody. Once again, I want to offer you all a 40% discount code for Noom Vibers only. I only offer this to my vibe family. That discount code for 40% off one-time coaching, which you can use it over and over again. What that means is that it's a single session, it's not a package. Type in vibers rock, V-I-B-E-R-S-R-O-C-K at what's it called? Um, checkout. That's what it's called at checkout. You will get 40% off. I'm sorry, I'm getting a lot of texts and I'm trying to look away so I'm not distracted by them. Also, I invite you to check out all of my free resources over on my link tree by clicking my profile picture and clicking where it says my link tree. I have a list of free resources there. My YouTube channel is there, my book link is there, my self-love merchandise shop is there, all my social channels are there, everything is in one little pretty link tree. Also, have the self-love quiz and the people pleasing quiz. These are quizzes to take an assessment of where you are right now. You can look at it as weighing yourself when you're looking to lose weight. You get a number and you just take note of the number. You don't judge the number, you take note of the number. Same thing you can do with these quizzes. How much of a people pleaser am I? How much do I really love myself? And what I love is our own very own Deb said she took the test twice. The first time she took it, she got an evaluation. The second time, like I don't remember how many months later, maybe two or three, after she'd been doing the works, and she said, Holy moly, I went up, I don't remember the points exactly, it was seven to ten points because she started to apply what she's learning. It's kind of a fun way to evaluate where you're at. This has been an amazing conversation. I appreciate you all so much. And I will be back again tomorrow for another surprise episode of Empower Hour with KB. So don't think of my topics most of the time. Ahead of time, I allow them to come to me. But I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and I will see you tomorrow.