Parenting your Fear

Parenting is difficult. Whether you are parenting your inner child or your off spring even your relationship with your animals, it is always challenging to know what to do. And sometimes when you do something, you can screw it up. I think that is the nature of being human and being a parent. So how do we embody a parenting role and what does it look like for each of us?

For me, parenting my inner child through her fear was a huge huge milestone. In my experience I have marinated in a lifetime of fear from the adults I was surrounded by my entire life. What I learned was how to manage (or in my case not to manage) fear. It was called flying away from fear, or freezing in fear, or by-passing, or using my anger to deny the fear. I also learned how to resist the fear. It was debilitating. I was not in a space where I was able to fend of other people’s fear, being an empath, enough to know what was my fear and what was someone else’s fear. It has been a nightmare.

Part of the spiritual journey for me has been learning how to reestablish a new relationship with my fear through my inner child. She is fearful of everything. It is difficult to make even the slightest move without being in fear. She is not confident, she is alone and she needs support. The best thing I can do as a parent is to hold her hand and go through this with her. But I also realized my inner child was holding fear of other people. So we had to let that go.

When I work with my inner child I want her to feel safe so I literally invoke my support village to help me and my inner child through this. As a energetic support, Mother Earth plays a huge role in supporting our process. Emotionally I need to be there for my inner child and ask her what her needs are. How would she like me to relate to her in this moment? Mentally, I have a detached neutrality and ask where this came from and how can I relate to this differently. There is a lot of information to be processed in a space of time when you are working through fear and we need all the help we can get.

The biggest thing I can do for my inner child is to hold her in the deepest of love and compassion that I can muster. When I do this, it literally dissipates the fear and allows the space to process and re-relate to how we are experiencing our fear. I have also found that I need to listen to her intently, without judgment or fixing. I have learned patience with her, she has taught me so much.

Inner work is deep and when we have been raised in a fear based environment, it doesn’t mean we have to stay in that fear, especially if it isn’t ours to hold on to. We can choose to move through it with ease and grace and to know that when we do move through our fear it is usually to something bigger and more expansive. This is the place where we can take 100% responsibility for ourselves and live the human existence that we were meant to and on the terms that work for us. I always like to ask myself, how would I like to show up? What values are important to me as a human? How would I like to be remembered on my deathbed?

For me, I would like to make a positive difference in people’s lives. I want people to feel good around me. I want people to say, she made me feel good. I can’t do that if I am projecting my stuff on other people. I need to own my @#$&. Set my boundaries and have the courage to live by those rules or standards.

Being human isn’t easy because we are emotional beings. But we can be the best we can be when we give ourselves and our Little Selves the time and space to work through our emotions with the love, compassion, respect, attention, listening, grace, ease, partnership, boundaries, and whatever else that will raise us up to be responsible emotional humans. Do you know why???? Because you are worth it and you are loved.

I pray that you have a very very sacred relationship with yourSelf and your Little Self.

Blessings,

Jackie