Re-Parenting
I was in my forties when I was given the news that my Dad had died. It had been nearly twenty years since my Mum had lost her battle with cancer. I wasn’t invited to attend my Dad’s funeral – wouldn’t have wanted to go if I’d been invited – but I stood in the supermarket amongst the milk and cheese, chilled by the refrigerated air around me and suddenly felt altogether lost and alone – shocked to realise I was now, technically, an orphan.
Of course, in reality, I was an orphan long before death had snuck into either Mum or Dad’s life. Orphaned by Dad’s greed and Mum’s inability to keep me safe. Orphaned by my own desperation to get away.
I had grown up without their support, without their assistance.
It struck me powerfully when I had my first baby. I was at a Nursing Mothers meeting (the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s name back then) and sitting with a little group of new mothers – my closest friends at the time. They were talking about their earliest days – how it was when they first came home from the hospital with their new babies and how they coped with their first days of being a new mother. They all spoke of their own mothers. Some came to stay. Some were just around the corner. Some gave too much advice and the women spoke of their longing to be free, to be left to make their own decisions. Some spoke of their mothers coming and cleaning everything and changing things around. There was a lot of laughter. Of nodding and smiling – shared acknowledgement of the tension between the needed and valued support and things that felt more like control .
For me there was silence. I’d had no trouble with my mother.
The day I had my beautiful baby, I rang to share my news, delighted and full of joy. Mum chose that moment to tell me her own - that she had cancer and it was terminal. She had possibly three months to live.
In my first days as a new Mum, struggling and confused, so deeply hesitant when I was sent home from hospital with this tiny, needy person who I was supposed to know how to care for instinctively, my Mum was laying in a hospital herself, struggling for breath as cancer stole her life from the inside out.
I’d flown up to see her as soon as I felt able to manage and spent a week caring for her and my two week old baby, trying to rebuild what we had long ago lost, trying to soak up like a hungry sponge, all the support she would ever be able to give me. She died when my new baby was three months old. And then she was gone and I cried for her loss, her own suffering and for the life she had never really known.
I had to find my own supports. I had good friends, accepted the wisdom of the older women in my life as if in combination they were a composite of the mother I had lost, but no one ever knew me well enough to offer me the depth of support I guess I really needed.
After eighteen years and eight children I realised one day that my broken marriage was never going to mend and that living with the broken-ness was doing us all harm. I found the courage to leave and become a solo parent to my tribe. I thought long and hard about how I was going to be everything to them, mother, father, good cop/bad cop. It would be a tough journey in many ways but I was determined, had always been determined, to be the best mother I could be and if that meant being their father too then I was determined I could find a way. That’s when I began to grasp that I had to do the same for myself. And that I could.
A dear friend had challenged me around that time to begin to focus on caring for myself. It was a new idea. She encouraged me to think about what things I could do to nurture myself on a daily basis. It really made me think. But it became profound as I began to realise that self-care is in its essence a form of re-parenting that we do for ourselves.
I began by making a list. At first this was all I knew how to do. I listed things that if someone else did them for me, would make me feel cared for. Little things. It included buying myself flowers, the latest informative magazine. I enjoyed going out for a coffee, giving the children a simple tea and going out to the movies alone or for a long energising walk. In time I added many more things – many, many more, as I learned to relish thinking up kind things I could do for myself.
I had for a long time victimised myself with negative self-talk – put downs and criticisms that played over and over in my head like a record with the needle stuck. I was a master at it and never needed anyone else’s help to remind myself of all that had failed in my life. I realised that this self-talk – the voice in my head that I gave so much power to, had to go. It had to be dealt with if I was to practice real self-care. I had to reprogram it to be on my side.
I learned that there was a whisper within that I didn’t listen to so much that was my ally, a voice that told me more often that I could do it, that I was strong, that I was courageous, that – and this one was really a tiny, tiny whisper – that I was beautiful. I began to understand that I could give this positive voice more room and that this was in itself a very powerful act of nurture and of self-care.
My positive inner voice often told me that I was doing a good job when I was scared. It would find examples for me and I recorded them in my notebook. One of the things it did was to tell me things I needed. It would say, ‘you need to go for a walk, take some time away from the noise here and just calm down.’ It would remind me of things I would say to my children and say them to myself – like, ‘You aren’t silly, you just made a mistake,’ or , when someone said something unkind, ‘That person doesn’t know you, or care about you, don’t listen to their harsh words.’ I said these things to myself when my ex-husband wrote nasty emails, or when I said something I later regretted. I began to be more gentle with myself and really mean it. I began to look for affirmations that would strengthen this voice. You can look at some affirmations here.
I began to think about where this other voice came from. I reconnected as I did this with my Grandma, my mother’s Mum, with her mother too, my Great-Grandma – with the voices of other women in my family, my aunties and then more broadly with other women in my life – teachers and friends. I began to realise that as I allowed these women, through their voices, to re-populate my life, I reconnected myself to the positive things I had heard and learned as a child. As I did this, the other voices, the critical condemning ones, faded. This was a powerful act of nurture.
Those were happy days.
I was a caring Mum. When the children had flat days, when their father said he’d take them out for the week-end and then call at the last minute and cancel for no significant reason, I’d think of something to lift their spirits – we’d go for a walk to the park and swing and climb and run around or all pile into the van and go and get ice creams. I began to see how the skills I used to care for my children could be used to care for myself and I began to do exactly that.(Take a look at some of my suggestions for self care)
One of the things I knew I needed was to not look upon my childhood as a lost time. I did used to say to people that I’d had to grow up too soon. That I didn’t really have a childhood after the abuse began – that it robbed me of innocence and childish abandon. I decided one day to allow myself to be a child again.
One of my children had a book about silly things to do – all the things you shouldn’t – like walking the wrong way on an escalator, knocking on someone’s front door and then running away, silly childish pranks. I realised that I’d never really done any. And so, with my children as my cover, I embarked on a few. I can’t begin to say how silly and irresponsible doing some of these things made me feel – and how incredibly liberating!
You know, I was forty four the first time I ever ran down an up- escalator and I was so ridiculously happy to have done it!
I unlocked something inside myself in doing this – something big – I think it was the spirit of my inner child, though I don’t really like that language! I feel that in doing some of those silly things I gave myself permission to go back and be that child sometimes.
I swung with the children at the park much more after that. I got my bike fixed up and went for long rides with the wind in my hair. I bought the sweets I used to love as a child. I did things that I remembered doing fleetingly when I was young and I did as much of them as I could.
I didn’t realise how powerful this would be until much later, but in allowing myself to be a child again and I was connecting some dots in my heart that had never been connected – and in doing so I became more whole.
I’m lucky – I still have children in my life. I still let myself go and do the fun things with them – knowing that making a memory of happy carefree childhood can be retrospective. These days I sometimes remember as I sit with my older children and listen to them talking about things they did when they were little, I think about things I did when I was little too – in my second little years! This was a gift of love I gave myself when I realised that I might have not had a carefree childhood the first time around but that I could add it again in my present.
I still practice re-parenting of myself. I always will. It’s a skill and an art that once established I will never let go of again. Learning to hear that inner loving voice that thinks about what I need and what is important to me has brought profound healing into my life.
Begin a list today of the things that make you feel as if someone loves you. Make it your goal for the next month to do one of those things for yourself every day. Start right now!
♥ ~ Sue
© 2017 Susan Parry-Jones
Of course, in reality, I was an orphan long before death had snuck into either Mum or Dad’s life. Orphaned by Dad’s greed and Mum’s inability to keep me safe. Orphaned by my own desperation to get away.
I had grown up without their support, without their assistance.
It struck me powerfully when I had my first baby. I was at a Nursing Mothers meeting (the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s name back then) and sitting with a little group of new mothers – my closest friends at the time. They were talking about their earliest days – how it was when they first came home from the hospital with their new babies and how they coped with their first days of being a new mother. They all spoke of their own mothers. Some came to stay. Some were just around the corner. Some gave too much advice and the women spoke of their longing to be free, to be left to make their own decisions. Some spoke of their mothers coming and cleaning everything and changing things around. There was a lot of laughter. Of nodding and smiling – shared acknowledgement of the tension between the needed and valued support and things that felt more like control .
For me there was silence. I’d had no trouble with my mother.
The day I had my beautiful baby, I rang to share my news, delighted and full of joy. Mum chose that moment to tell me her own - that she had cancer and it was terminal. She had possibly three months to live.
In my first days as a new Mum, struggling and confused, so deeply hesitant when I was sent home from hospital with this tiny, needy person who I was supposed to know how to care for instinctively, my Mum was laying in a hospital herself, struggling for breath as cancer stole her life from the inside out.
I’d flown up to see her as soon as I felt able to manage and spent a week caring for her and my two week old baby, trying to rebuild what we had long ago lost, trying to soak up like a hungry sponge, all the support she would ever be able to give me. She died when my new baby was three months old. And then she was gone and I cried for her loss, her own suffering and for the life she had never really known.
I had to find my own supports. I had good friends, accepted the wisdom of the older women in my life as if in combination they were a composite of the mother I had lost, but no one ever knew me well enough to offer me the depth of support I guess I really needed.
After eighteen years and eight children I realised one day that my broken marriage was never going to mend and that living with the broken-ness was doing us all harm. I found the courage to leave and become a solo parent to my tribe. I thought long and hard about how I was going to be everything to them, mother, father, good cop/bad cop. It would be a tough journey in many ways but I was determined, had always been determined, to be the best mother I could be and if that meant being their father too then I was determined I could find a way. That’s when I began to grasp that I had to do the same for myself. And that I could.
A dear friend had challenged me around that time to begin to focus on caring for myself. It was a new idea. She encouraged me to think about what things I could do to nurture myself on a daily basis. It really made me think. But it became profound as I began to realise that self-care is in its essence a form of re-parenting that we do for ourselves.
I began by making a list. At first this was all I knew how to do. I listed things that if someone else did them for me, would make me feel cared for. Little things. It included buying myself flowers, the latest informative magazine. I enjoyed going out for a coffee, giving the children a simple tea and going out to the movies alone or for a long energising walk. In time I added many more things – many, many more, as I learned to relish thinking up kind things I could do for myself.
I had for a long time victimised myself with negative self-talk – put downs and criticisms that played over and over in my head like a record with the needle stuck. I was a master at it and never needed anyone else’s help to remind myself of all that had failed in my life. I realised that this self-talk – the voice in my head that I gave so much power to, had to go. It had to be dealt with if I was to practice real self-care. I had to reprogram it to be on my side.
I learned that there was a whisper within that I didn’t listen to so much that was my ally, a voice that told me more often that I could do it, that I was strong, that I was courageous, that – and this one was really a tiny, tiny whisper – that I was beautiful. I began to understand that I could give this positive voice more room and that this was in itself a very powerful act of nurture and of self-care.
My positive inner voice often told me that I was doing a good job when I was scared. It would find examples for me and I recorded them in my notebook. One of the things it did was to tell me things I needed. It would say, ‘you need to go for a walk, take some time away from the noise here and just calm down.’ It would remind me of things I would say to my children and say them to myself – like, ‘You aren’t silly, you just made a mistake,’ or , when someone said something unkind, ‘That person doesn’t know you, or care about you, don’t listen to their harsh words.’ I said these things to myself when my ex-husband wrote nasty emails, or when I said something I later regretted. I began to be more gentle with myself and really mean it. I began to look for affirmations that would strengthen this voice. You can look at some affirmations here.
I began to think about where this other voice came from. I reconnected as I did this with my Grandma, my mother’s Mum, with her mother too, my Great-Grandma – with the voices of other women in my family, my aunties and then more broadly with other women in my life – teachers and friends. I began to realise that as I allowed these women, through their voices, to re-populate my life, I reconnected myself to the positive things I had heard and learned as a child. As I did this, the other voices, the critical condemning ones, faded. This was a powerful act of nurture.
Those were happy days.
I was a caring Mum. When the children had flat days, when their father said he’d take them out for the week-end and then call at the last minute and cancel for no significant reason, I’d think of something to lift their spirits – we’d go for a walk to the park and swing and climb and run around or all pile into the van and go and get ice creams. I began to see how the skills I used to care for my children could be used to care for myself and I began to do exactly that.(Take a look at some of my suggestions for self care)
One of the things I knew I needed was to not look upon my childhood as a lost time. I did used to say to people that I’d had to grow up too soon. That I didn’t really have a childhood after the abuse began – that it robbed me of innocence and childish abandon. I decided one day to allow myself to be a child again.
One of my children had a book about silly things to do – all the things you shouldn’t – like walking the wrong way on an escalator, knocking on someone’s front door and then running away, silly childish pranks. I realised that I’d never really done any. And so, with my children as my cover, I embarked on a few. I can’t begin to say how silly and irresponsible doing some of these things made me feel – and how incredibly liberating!
You know, I was forty four the first time I ever ran down an up- escalator and I was so ridiculously happy to have done it!
I unlocked something inside myself in doing this – something big – I think it was the spirit of my inner child, though I don’t really like that language! I feel that in doing some of those silly things I gave myself permission to go back and be that child sometimes.
I swung with the children at the park much more after that. I got my bike fixed up and went for long rides with the wind in my hair. I bought the sweets I used to love as a child. I did things that I remembered doing fleetingly when I was young and I did as much of them as I could.
I didn’t realise how powerful this would be until much later, but in allowing myself to be a child again and I was connecting some dots in my heart that had never been connected – and in doing so I became more whole.
I’m lucky – I still have children in my life. I still let myself go and do the fun things with them – knowing that making a memory of happy carefree childhood can be retrospective. These days I sometimes remember as I sit with my older children and listen to them talking about things they did when they were little, I think about things I did when I was little too – in my second little years! This was a gift of love I gave myself when I realised that I might have not had a carefree childhood the first time around but that I could add it again in my present.
I still practice re-parenting of myself. I always will. It’s a skill and an art that once established I will never let go of again. Learning to hear that inner loving voice that thinks about what I need and what is important to me has brought profound healing into my life.
Begin a list today of the things that make you feel as if someone loves you. Make it your goal for the next month to do one of those things for yourself every day. Start right now!
♥ ~ Sue
© 2017 Susan Parry-Jones