As part of healing and awakening, we need to learn to be good parents for ourselves. Growing up, we learn to treat ourselves and the different parts of us the way our parents treat us and each other, and we also learn these things from siblings, friends, and the culture in general.
If we happened to have relatively healthy and genuinely loving and supportive parents, then this task may be more about fine-tuning things here and there. If not, it can be a bigger undertaking.
It’s a process of learning to meet, be present with, listen to, and find love for these parts of us that may not have experienced this before.
It’s a process of welcoming what has been shunned. Be available for the parts that were abandoned. Give safety to what doesn’t feel safe. Be company for what feels alone. Encourage what feels hopeless. Give understanding to the anger. Listen to what feels not heard. Love the parts that feel unloved – and all the other parts.
How do we do this? There are many forms of parts or sub-personality work that can be helpful. And in daily life, we can notice what comes up, notice what our habitual response to it is, and see if we can find a more loving and kind way to be with what comes up.
If this pain, fear, anger, frustration and so on was a child, how would I want to be with it? If I was a child feeling this, how would I like my parents to be with me?
One way to do this is to say to these parts of us:
Thank you for protecting me. I love you. You are safe here.
And then see if we can find this in ourselves. How is it to shift into this in relation to what’s coming up in me?
These parts of us are here to protect us. They come from care and love. When we shift into being with them, they are safe here. And when we recognize that they come from love, that they are part of us as a human being and also what we are, and that they are like scared children seeking a good parent and we are that parent, then we can find love for them.