You Learned How to Survive… But Did You Ever Learn How to Feel Safe?

This episode is for the adults who learned how to survive… but never fully learned how to feel emotionally safe.

In this powerful episode of the Healing Your Inner Child series, we’re talking about what it really means to reparent yourself and why so many adults are still carrying unmet emotional needs from childhood into their relationships, self-worth, boundaries, and daily lives.

I also share 7 practical ways to start reparenting yourself, including:

• speaking to yourself with compassion

• protecting your peace and setting boundaries

Plus more…….

If you’ve been trying to understand why you react the way you do, why you struggle to feel “good enough,” or how to finally stop abandoning yourself emotionally… this conversation will resonate deeply.

Transcript

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I'm your host, Tierra, and this is Rude Thoughts Podcast. First off, big thanks to everyone who sits and chooses to listen to me every week. I'm so honored for one that you don't mind sitting here with me. You don't mind listening to me chat and listening to me kind of just drop a little bit of wisdom on you guys. So thank you. I really, really, really appreciate your support, honestly. And so I'm gonna get right into this week's episode. I know last week or yeah, last week I told you about the series we were doing on inner child healing. So this is episode two of that series, and this episode is gonna be on reparenting yourself. A lot of adults are walking around trying to function, trying to succeed, trying to love, trying to heal, while also still carrying unmet emotional needs from childhood. And that is the reason why it is important for us to do this episode on reparenting yourself. So just to start, what does reparenting yourself mean? Reparenting is learning to give yourself the emotional support, the protection, the guidance, the validation, and the care you may have not consistently received when you were growing up. Or to just simply put that, it's basically just saying that it's learning how to care for yourself in a way a healthy, emotionally safe parent would have. And this is important because healthy parenting teaches a child not only emotional safety, but it teaches boundaries, self-worth, rest, emotional regulation, confidence, stability, healthy love, or just being allowed to express your emotions. Yes, many adults know how to survive. Actually, some adults really succeed at surviving because it's what they had to do for so long, but at the same time, they never learn how to actually feel safe. So let's get into some of the signs that you may need repairing. One of those signs is that the way that you talk to yourself, your inner voice, is very harsh. You criticize yourself constantly, and it's not in a way that you would typically talk to a child at all. Another sign is that you abandon your own needs. You ignore when you exhausted, you tolerate mistreatment, and you overgive and you never rest. Another sign is that you could constantly seek validation from others and you need others' opinion, others' approval in order to confirm your worth. Or you could struggle to self-soothe. This looks like when you're upset or things don't go as planned, and that leads to you spiraling or shutting down or choosing to numb yourself. Another sign could be you feel guilty for resting or having needs. You basically could have learned that love had to be earned or your worth equate to what you do. And the last sign is you could possibly not feel emotionally safe being vulnerable. You may have possibly learned that emotions cause conflict or rejection or shame. So you basically just learn to shut down. A lot of things that we call self-sabotage is actually an unmet need asking for attention. You are listening to Brilliant Thoughts Podcast with your host, Tiara. Follow and leave me a review. Now I'm gonna tell you how childhood shapes adult self-talk. So we know that children internalize how they were spoken to and how they were treated. And the reason I say we know this, I should not have just assumed that. A lot of us do know that. There's some who are just picking up on that and just learning that. And one way that you can see that is because if you research or sometimes you just listen to, for example, I'm gonna use this, um, True Crime Podcast. Some of the podcasts that goes into what led up or how was this person raised before they became this quote-unquote monster. And it's not to excuse their behavior or what they did, but it's to show you how somebody was treated or not treated, or things like that, can also shape how they respond and how they react in adulthood. So children observe their emotional environment and the way adults respond to emotions become their inner voice. Criticism can become self-criticism, and emotional neglect can become self-neglect. And one quick example of this would be: have you ever heard of or witnessed an adult tell us a child to stop all that crying, stop crying, you cry too much, you always crying, crying, crying, crying. I know a lot of us have probably heard that, but a lot of times that can also, that same kid that's crying or constantly crying, constantly being told to stop crying, stop crying, you shouldn't cry. They can become an adult who suppressed their emotions. Now, I'm not saying every kid should just be going right here just crying for no apparent reason because I totally understand how that can be quite aggravating. Believe me, I have a kid who would I say they will cry. They cry. So I understand that and I understand what to say, like, oh, stop crying, stop, stop, stop crying. But usually what I would do is if I could get that kid to a place of where they're able to communicate and I can actually get some words out, I usually would try to explore why they are crying or why they're feeling the need to cry to see that, or to find out if they actually have a reason. For example, if you just broke your arm, like, yes, that's a reason to cry, I would cry at my grown age. But I understand that sometimes there can be situations where kids just cry because they feel like crying in the time. Sometimes they may have a valid reason. I'm not saying that, but anywho, I'm just trying to give you an example of what I mean when I say that, you know, criticism can become self-criticism or, you know, emotional neglect can become self-neglect. Some more examples could be a kid that only receives praise for achieving things, they may start to tie their worth to productivity. And they may feel like if I'm not producing something, I'm not doing X, Y, and Z, then I'm not worthy of praise or I'm not worthy of love or whatever it is. And then another example could be someone who feels emotionally unsafe may become a hyper-viligant adult. It's just so many different ways that this could go. That's why it's very important for us to have these conversations. So, what does reparenting look like in real life? I'm gonna give you seven different ways that you can use, or seven different methods or techniques you could use to reparent yourself. So, number one would be speak to yourself with compassion. Instead of saying, what's wrong with me? try asking yourself, what happened to me and what do I need right now? Number two, protect your peace. And this can be done by setting boundaries, leaving toxic situations, and no longer over-explaining your needs. Number three, allow yourself to rest and rest without guilt at that. Because you do not have to become exhausted in order for you to earn rest. You are worthy of and you should take rest before you become exhausted. Because by the time you're exhausted, you've probably went past the limit already. Number four, validate your own emotions, don't minimize yourself. Number five, learn emotional regulation. And no, I'm not talking about perfection, just regulation. Regulation can look like pausing before reacting, journaling, breathing, grounding, and asking for support when needed. Number six, keep promises to yourself. That is a really big important one. That's actually my favorite one, no lie. Even if that promise is that you aren't going to mess with that woman or you're not gonna mess with that man anymore. Because usually, if you're saying that, it's a reason why you said it. So keep your promise to yourself. That was random. Number seven, give yourself the childhood experience you miss. Be playful, be creative, feel true joy, experience softness, celebrate, feel safe. I said this once and I'm gonna say it again. Many people feel guilty for caring for themselves, especially people who have grown accustomed to basically just being in survival mode all the time, or people who are wrapped up in that hustle culture, or people who feel selfish for having needs. But there's a difference between avoiding responsibility and finally learning how to care for yourself. But I pride myself on being an honest person. So I'm not just gonna tell you about reparenting yourself and make you feel like it's all gonna be just peachy because that will be dishonest. If I'm being complete honest and transparent, then I would have to say that reparenting can bring on grief because it is a possibility that you may mourn the childhood you deserve, emotional safety, affection, protection, or the guidance that you feel like you deserve but you didn't necessarily get. But remember, grief is often part of the healing process. Because not only are you finally acknowledging what you needed, but you are also shedding a part of yourself that it played a major role in your life for so long. And you're just now learning how to release that because it no longer serves you in this moment. So remember, true healing begins when you stop abandoning yourself and finally start loving yourself correctly. Please do not forget to subscribe and share this episode and tell someone else about this episode. And join me right back here next week, same time for episode three on the series of inner child healing. I'm your host, Tiara, and this is Rude Thoughts Podcast.