Reparenting yourself

Finding and filling the parental void

The way we talk to ourselves mirrors the way our parents talked to us.

If you find that you have a lot of negative voices in your head, chances are you had a critical parent growing up. I used to think these voices were my own until I realised they were my father’s. 

In fact, I can hear that voice right now.

It’s telling me that I have nothing say, that no one is going to find this useful or entertaining, and that this needs to be the best essay on Substack otherwise it’s not worth writing. Before I started writing this it was telling me that I haven’t done enough in life yet and that in order to be a worthy of love, I need to do more.

The languages we learn growing up aren’t just limited to spoken languages. We can also learn languages of self-doubt, shame, and perfectionism.

I learned that my worth as a human being was tied to being perfect while simultaneously learning that nothing I ever do will be good enough.

Father: “What did you get on your Maths test?”

Me: “I got an A”

Father: “That’s pathetic. Why is it not an A+?”

Me: “I don’t know, I thought I did better”

Father: “You’ll never amount to anything. Your cousin Mohan got an A+”

Me: “I’m sorry, I’ll do better next time”

A conversation like this only scratches the surface, but it captures the essence of most interactions I had with my father growing up. You can see how a single conversation can plant seeds of self-loathing. And if it happens over and over again, you can see how it can grow into a forest of negative thoughts.

I used to think that these thoughts floating around in my head were my own. But over time, through years of therapy, meditation, and self-reflection, I realised that they’re actually the internalised voice of my father.

Throughout my life I carried a weight of resentment towards him and I never knew why, but now I do. Every time I hear these thoughts in my head, berating and belittling, it’s a painful reminder of the love and acceptance I felt I didn’t receive.

It’s easy to perceive our parents as all-powerful figures, as the ones who should have known better. But in truth, they too were once vulnerable children, shaped and moulded by their own parents and the world they grew up in. My father was not born with a script on how to be a parent. In fact, he lost his own father at a young age so he grew up without one for most of his life.

How can he give me love if he wasn’t given it himself?

Since he’s not going to therapy or working on healing himself in any way, I’ve accepted that he can’t. And even if he could, it’s too late now.

This still means, however, that there’s a parental void within me that needs to be filled.

And that’s what I’ve been learning to do. Every time I hear that critical voice, I first acknowledge that it’s not mine. Then I picture myself as a child and speak to myself in the way that my younger self needed.

Inner critic: “This essay sucks”

Me: “Nah I think it’s pretty good considering I haven’t written anything for a while”

Inner critic: “No one is going to read or find value in it”

Me: “I can’t control that, but I’m proud of myself for getting it done”

Inner critic: “You were supposed to finish it days ago”

Me: “I’ve been overwhelmed with life lately so missing an arbitrary deadline is not the end of the world”

Reparenting is like learning a new language; it's tough and takes persistence. But with each act of showing up for yourself, we can learn to reshape our inner landscape and make it a better place to live in.

If someone taught you to hate yourself, someone else has to teach you to love yourself.

And that someone can be you.