What is self parenting?
[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell. I'm an intuitive guide, and I absolutely love helping people to heal from within so that
they can create a life that they love, a life that they enjoy. We weren't meant to just tolerate and get through life. We were meant to thrive and enjoy the life we're living.
Of course, we will have seasons and moments that are difficult and challenging. And the beauty of it is that we can be supported in those moments.
I am here to be an aid and a guide to support you. And I hope that you will enjoy not only today's episode, but some of the past episodes if you haven't heard them yet.
On this podcast, I talk about all things inner wellness. We also sprinkle in some spirituality and parenting, because as a mom to three kids, parenting is a big part of my life.
I hope that you enjoy. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that there's at least one thing you'll pull from it and start to implement into your own life.
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Hello, friends. Always happy to be with you. How are you doing today?
I know that that is a loaded question sometimes, but just know that if we were sitting across from each other, which is what I'm visualizing, I would be interested to actually hear how you're doing. I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be just saying it to move past it.
I'm that person who at the drive-thru when people say, “Hi”, and I say, “Hi, how are you?” And then I pause because I'm actually asking how they are wanting to know. And sometimes people catch that and sometimes there's long silence, so I move on to my order. But I sincerely do wonder how you're doing today.
I want to come to you and talk about reparenting and what that looks like in real time. Or some people call it self-parenting. It's basically, oh, it's so broad, but it's a way that we look at the little kid we once were and we take care for that child that didn't receive all the nurturance, all the love and attention that was needed.
How this showed up to me recently - and again, like I said, it's broad, so there's ways I reparent myself on a daily basis. Like the other night, I went to bed at 9 o'clock because I actually knew I was irritable and it was because I was tired. My body was needing sleep.
So a part of me wanted to watch an episode on TV of a show I enjoy. But another part of me knew. I'm actually going to be better off for tomorrow and my body is going to feel better if I go to sleep right now. So that was a way of reparenting myself because basically, it was me saying, “Hey, here's what you need in this moment. I'm going to help you receive the care you need and I'm going to help you do what's best for your body”.
But that's not what I was going to talk with you about. I wanted to talk with you about... What happened to me a few weeks back because I feel like it's a prime example of how we can reparent. And it's one way. This might feel a bit intense to you as I share it.
It's because of the deep work that I've done in the past that I continue to do that this feels pretty typical for me. So I don't want to scare you off if you're like, “Oh my gosh, what is she talking about? I'm not going to do that”. That's fine. Just listen and take to heart, absorb whatever part of it feels like it's for you.
So I was having a hard day. Actually, I have those often, but especially in this pregnancy with how I don't feel well all the time. But it was… It was one of those days where I just felt so energetically low. I felt depressed. I didn't feel well physically, but emotionally, I just felt so low. And I was having a hard time. And that was all day.
My kids were at school, so it was quiet in the house. I can't remember the commitments I had, but I probably wasn't feeling well enough. I feel like I had to lay down and sleep some. And sometimes that can be even more depressing. It's not like I want to. I physically have to, to be able to put the nausea at bay with the pregnancy.
So I remember heading towards my home office to get some work done. And I paused right at the door where I was going to be leaving to exit and go into the office.
And I just felt this sense of, no, no, no, don't do that right now. Recognize your inner child. Recognize little Corinne because she needs your attention right now. So I put my work bag down. I walked into my bedroom and I sat on the side of the bed.
And I acknowledged to my inner child. Sometimes I put my hands over my heart. Like I just, like place them on my chest and I acknowledged to that little girl that. I was here for her, and I recognized I was emotionally flashing back.
And what I mean by that is the way I was feeling that day was actually similar to how I felt as a child. I grew up where I was homeschooled until high school. So I was home with my mom and my siblings on the regular, and the home I grew up in was dysfunctional, chaotic.
My mom was overwhelmed, doing the best she knew how, but it was a really stressful environment. I can remember having chest pains and stomach aches often. And the stomach aches and the chest pain, it was the manifestation of the stress and the anxiety that was in my surroundings that my body was absorbing.
And it was... A lonely existence, but I didn't feel that way as a kid. As a child, I thought I actually, even as a teenager, I thought I had a pretty good childhood. It wasn't until I was deeper into doing the inner work that I realized, wow, I actually experienced a lot of traumatic events. Sometimes emotional neglect is what's traumatic. Sometimes it's outright abuse. And I experienced both. But I recognized this time a few weeks ago that the way I was feeling that day was actually what the little girl knew.
Little Corinne knew this feeling. And I sat there and let the tears flood me. I was sobbing. You know, when you're like just really sobbing. And I was feeling for that little girl. And I was... I was just speaking out loud to her. Visualizing her in my mind's eye.
Putting my arms, you know, like kind of giving myself a hug where, you know, I was putting my hands over my arms and rocking back and forth as I sat on the bed.
Because all of these are ways that our body is able to release some of the stored trauma. Experience some of the nurture and care from us. Because we've always lived in the same body. So the body you had as a little kid is the same body you have now. And as this grown adult, I was able to give attention to that little girl.
And to express, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sad. I'm so angry that you didn't have the attention that you needed. That there weren't people there to notice how you were doing. To help you feel better. Or to give you an outlet. To give you an outlet to be heard. I'm sorry that your mom didn't know how to be the mom that you needed. I'm sorry that your every day was so often lonely and sad and depressing”.
I'm interrupting the episode because I want to invite you to a group session. If you're interested in what you're hearing on today's episode or previous episodes.
Then my guess is you would really love coming to a group meeting. What we talk about varies. And it's different every meeting. So you're not going to necessarily feel like you're out of the loop.
You can show up. We're going to talk about a new topic. And you're going to get a chance to ask your questions. To get my feedback. My groups are very warm and inviting. They're usually on the smaller size. So that I can give my focused attention to everyone that's there.
And if you want to join, you can either come live on a Tuesday evening. They're held at 7h15 Eastern Time. Or you can watch the replay. We meet virtually. So no matter where you live, you can join.
Definitely check out the show notes for a link to sign up and I hope that you will continue out today's episode and enjoy it.
And again, I was in the moment. I don't know all the things I said to my inner child. To my inner self. But I spoke out of my heart. I spoke the words that I felt my heart needed to hear. That the little girl needed to hear. It was soothing. It was healing. It was cleansing.
As I sobbed and I held myself. And this was a prime way that I was reparenting, that I was self-parenting, that I was taking back time because time is relative. And I'm so grateful that it is. I could step back into that past memory, that time in the apartment I grew up in.
I could visualize it so clearly and I could acknowledge the pain that my heart, my psyche, my body knew. And everything didn't get better after I did that. It wasn't like, oh, I felt so much lighter and so much better, but I did feel a sense of cleansing. I did feel a sense of comfort. I felt like I had acknowledged a part of me that I never knew needed an acknowledgement. I felt like I understood a part of me that hours before I didn't understand.
And healing is layered. So it's not to say I never touched in with these emotions or with this pain. It's not to say I never touched in with this pain. It's not to say I never touched in with this pain. It's not to say I never touched in with this pain or with this experience in the past, but it showed up in a different form. It showed up in another way. And I was able to be present with it and offer the loving attention and the healing that I needed, that my little girl, the girl I once was needed.
And in turn, my entire being was able to soak up that love and that care. So whether this is a familiar experience to you, or you're hearing something like this for the first time, I'm sharing it because it is not just something I experience. It's something a lot of the individuals I work with experience. It's something I guide people through when they're open to it, when they're ready for it, when they feel like, yes, this is, this is what I want. This may help. I'd like to try it. And it's also a one way of reparenting and self-parenting.
And it can be such a touchy subject to think, what am I saying about my parents? And this is not in any way me saying I didn't have a good mother or a good father. They did the best they knew how, but that doesn't mean that I received everything I needed. And you may have a wonderful mother and father, and they may have done the best they knew how, but it doesn't mean that you received everything you needed either.
And so I always invite people to acknowledge the fact that we're not disrespecting our parents by acknowledging the pain of our own experience. We are simply honoring our experience and not sugarcoating things. We're actually being honest with ourselves. We're being honest to how things really were.
So if any part of you feels like, “oh my gosh, I don't, I don't want to bash my parents”. That's not what this is. That's not what reparenting is. It's simply saying, ah, what do I need? How can I offer myself something that I didn't receive? That I'm feeling the void of, and it's showing up in my life now. And sometimes things aren't so clear. We don't know why certain feelings are manifesting, why we're experiencing certain things.
And that's where we just get curious. We don't have to understand it all, but we can honor our younger self. We can give attention to the child we once were.
And in return, it helps us out as adults. So if you have questions or you're interested in going on a healing journey for yourself, please reach out to me. Send me a DM through Facebook or Instagram, or email me, Corinne, C-O-R-I-N-N-E, at changeradically.com.
[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard? I hope that there's something you pulled out of this video that you're going to enjoy. And I hope that you're going to be able to learn more from today's episode and start implementing it into your life. Create the change that you want to see, the change that you hear about. You have the opportunity to transform your life. And I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live.
If you resonated with what you heard today and it touched you, would you share it with your friends? Would you also go ahead and rate my podcast and write a written review? It would mean so much to me.
I hope that we'll connect, whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people. You can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically, or on Facebook, Change Radically. You can also always email me, corinne@changeradically.com. If you have thoughts, questions, or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email.
I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like, in the moments that are quiet, maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking a walk, or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or the craziness of work, I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life, and that I, for one, am so glad that you're alive.
Catch you again next week.
