ACA vs Al-Anon

The information passed on by my ACA Fellow Travelers helped to give me clarity when I first came to ACoA type recovery.

Besides the different First Step and the different Tradition Seven funds I have learned ACA has the copyrights to The Problem ,The Solution and The ACA Promises "is" ACA WSO conference approved literature.

The Problem,The Solution and The Promises "is not" Al-Anon Adult Child Anonymous conference approved literature.

While Al Anon and ACA are Twelve Step programs, they are somewhat different in focus and approach. Al Anon primarily focuses on familial alcoholism and how to live detached and serenely with a drinking alcoholic or to live a better life with an alcoholic, who has found recovery. In Al Anon, the Al Anon focus on self and works their own program.

In ACA, we focus on ourselves as well and work our own program. With the Twelve Steps, we focus on recovering from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home. We believe the effects of a dysfunctional home guide or steer our behavior and thoughts as adults. Unlike, Al Anon, we look at the family system in addition to inventorying our own behaviors in recovery.

The ACA member looks at dysfunctional family roles, harmful messages and other abuse involved in growing up in a dysfunctional home. We believe it is essential and healing to work the Twelve Steps and to look at the family system as we also concentrate on our individual behaviors and thoughts.

If you look at Al Anon's First Step and ACA's First Step, you will see the difference.

Al Anon -- Step One:

`We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.''

ACA -- Step One:

`We admitted we were powerless over the effects of alcoholism and other family dysfunction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

ACA WSO has done its best to present the answer to these questions in ACA literature and through this forum and we will continue to do so while remaining respectful to Al-Anon and other Twelve Step fellowships.

With the publication of our new fellowship text, more and more people are understanding that ACA is an autonomous 12-Step program that is separate from other fellowships.

They understand that this separation is reasonable and in line with the separation called for by AA and Al-Anon and which works for AA and Al-Anon. More adult children are finding ACA and embracing our solution to the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family.

Additionally, I respectfully ask that ACA meetings should not be confused with outside entities or other Twelve Step approaches that use ACA material but who do not use our fellowship name.

Adult Children of Alcoholics was the first Twelve Step fellowship to write literature that is specific to the adult child experience.

ACA meetings use the Laundry List (Problem), the Solution and the ACA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

ACA meetings include ACA's foundational language of alcoholism and recovery from the effects of alcoholism.

ACA has widened its focus to gladly include adult children from other dysfunctional family types but we remain Adult Children of Alcoholics with a focus on the the effects of alcoholism.

ACA is totally different...........it is the most difficult of all the Programs, as it focuses on 

why I am an Addict.It gives me the reason.........for my addictions.

At al-anon we learned that his drinking was not our fault and that we should not be 

enablers to his drinking. Easier said than done in most situations. I assume, but can't 

say for sure, that ACoA would deal with how the drinking affected you as a child and

 the effect it has on you today as an adult.

Al-Anon has separate meetings called AAC, Al-Anon’s Adult Children. While the Laundry 

List is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature, groups may use it if they take a 

group conscience.  Many AAC groups use the Laundry List this way. There is still tension 

over use of this document; in some states the Al-Anon groups will not list AAC groups 

that use it. My experience is that the people who are most against it, that is, they attend 

meetings and then dramatically announce that that Laundry List is not approved, are the

one in most need of Adult Child recovery.
  ACA, the fellowship which began in California, 

has an awesome Big Book which has just begun circulating where I live and it is having 

a huge impact.

How interesting! My Sponsor also told me the same thing about Alanon focusing on the 

alcoholic for when in Alanon she was told many times not to speak about codependency.

I, too,  was told not to speak about other addictions except alcoholism – ended up having 

a blue with the woman who runs the Alanon office in my state when I was a desperate 

newcomer seeking help from Alanon and told I could not speak of my partners alternate

addiction.
  Whilst I think it’s important for Alanon to focus on how to deal with the 

alcoholic on one’s life, it’s also important to them to focus on issues such as inner child/ 

FOO and codependency issues.
 

The Alateens and Tony formed a specially focused meeting that broke away from Al-Anon

and became the first ACA group.  The new group, Generations, focused on recovering from

the effects of being raised in a dysfunctional family rather than the Al-anon focus of being

powerless over alcohol.

While Tonys' story mentions our eventual separation from the Al-Anon fellowship, ACA cooperates with Al-Anon and enjoys a mutual respect of this program.

Hope For Adult Children - Adapted from an Interview With Tony A.

At the end of 1976 or the beginning of 1977,  four or five young people who had recently "graduated" from Alateen joined Al-Anon, a Twelve Step fellowship for the spouses, friends and relatives of alcoholics

In Alateen, these young people had explored the impact of being raised by alcoholic and co-alcoholic parents now known as codependents. The teens looked at the effects of living in an alcoholic household.  Entering Al-Anon, they were faced with the concept of learning to live serenely in a dysfunctional setting.  Stepping up to Al-Anon meant they were faced with attending meetings that focused primarily on adult issues or spousal drinking.  Some of the Alateens felt unsafe in their homes and believed they could not relate in Al-Anon.

Tony said Al-Anon taught a few skills to the young people, including how to get their own needs met. These bold teens formed their own Al-Anon meeting which they named Hope for Adult Children of Alcoholics. This first meeting met in the Smithers Building in Manhattan.  This group used the Al-Anon format but improvised the meeting discussion. The discussions involved the neglect, abuse and fear that the Alateens thought they could not fully share about in Al-Anon. A second meeting known as Generations would be formed but it would have no affiliation with Al-Anon.

While the first new group was being formed, the Alateens heard about an Alcoholics Anonymous member sharing in AA about his experiences of growing up in a violent alcoholic home. This was Tony, a 50-year-old recovering alcoholic and New York City stockbroker. Cindy, a member of the Hope for Adult Children of Alcoholics group, heard Tonys' AA story and asked him to be a guest speaker at the newly formed group.

Tony said he was 30 years older than the Alateens but their age difference dissolved when he began telling his story. "When we began," Tony said, "There was a wonderful feeling of mutual love, empathy, and understanding."

Hope for Adult Children of Alcoholics was technically an Al-Anon meeting, however,

something special was happening with each meeting and with each story being told, 

Tony said. The founding principles of ACA were being unearthed and spoken in these

early meetings. The dysfunctional family rules of "don't talk, don't trust and don't feel.. 

were being challenged. However, the meeting struggled because of a lack of structure and 

focus, Tony said. After six or seven months, instead of the increasing membership as 

expected, the fledgling meeting had dwindled to three or four people. The meeting was 

about to fold. Out of instinct and spiritual insight, Tony said he invited members of AA to

join the little group. He reasoned that some of them, after all, had alcoholic parents of 

their own. He was right. Seventeen AA members showed up for the next meeting of Hope 

For Adult Children of Alcoholics. At the following meeting there were 50 people. At the 

next there were more than 100 people mostly from AA. The somewhat radical Al-Anon 

meeting was on its way with a lot of help from some good AA friends. Yet, the group still

lacked consistent structure and clear distinction of its message.

Family alcoholism could and did cause life-long patterns of dysfunctional behavior even for those who never took a drink. The family systems concept of addiction and family dysfunction became more visible as well.  Before that time, most addiction or mental health models focused on the individual addict.  Black and others were saying that the disease of family dysfunction had long-range effects on the children, who became adults. The children were affected by the alcoholism even though they were not putting alcohol into their bodies.

10 Signs You May Be an Adult Child - Judy Klipin

10 Signs You May Be an Adult Child

Four years ago I had never even heard the term ‘adult child’ now I use it every day – in my coaching, my writing and my work as a change catalyst. The more I work with it, the deeper I understand it and the more convinced I become that we are all – to varying degrees – adult children.

Have a look at the these 10 traits and see if any sound familiar:

1. You struggle to ask for help

2. You feel responsible when people disappoint you

3. You are motivated by the unconscious belief: “if I were better it would be better”

4. Other people’s needs and desires take precedence over your own

5. You haven’t felt good enough at any of the jobs you have had

6. You haven’t felt good enough in any of the relationships you have had

7. You seek approval but don’t really trust it when it comes

8. When your boss says ‘this aspect of your work could be better’ you hear ‘you are not good enough’

9. You feel compelled to make things better for everyone else.

10. You often feel voiceless and choiceless.

If more than a couple of these apply to you, you are in very good company; most of the people I know, and all of the people I love, are adult children.

The good news is that you can break free of the challenging aspects of being an adult child, and embrace and celebrate the unique strengths and talents that come with it – you can change how you are while retaining who you are.

These ten signs? They all used to apply to me. Every last one, and a whole lot more for added flavour. And now, after reading, writing, and coaching (myself and others) I am happy to say that most of the time (I do have the occasional lapse) I am free of all of them.

Judy Klipin is a Martha Beck certified Master Life Coach based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

http://judyklipin.com/contact-me/

Out of the Playpen...

My parents never drank a drop of alcohol in their lives, nor did their parents before them.  They were highly respected members of the church.  I read somewhere that our earliest childhood memory is often symbolic of our lives.  My earliest memory is sitting in a playpen on a front veranda,  feeling alone,  trapped, and unable to get out.

I was born and raised in a little farming town.  After my parents married,  three babies were born in three years, and my mother had no idea how to cope with us.  My father worked in the medical field and constantly brought home drugs and pills for mothers' nerves and migraines.

In our family, there was a very sharp distinction between the family image in the community and what I actually saw at home.  To the community , my parents were esteemed leaders and church workers, models of family life and community service.  Our family life at home was actually far from this idealistic picture.

My father was a workaholic, always “on-call.”   When not at work, he attended meetings for a myriad of community organizations.  One of his addictions was to become president of every organization he joined.  My mother struggled at home with her nerves, her migraines, and her children.  When I misbehaved,  I was beaten, even though my misdeeds were never more than average childhood explorations.  Mothers'  worst threat was that she would walk out of the house and leave us if we did not behave.  She often did walk out the door and down the road, taunting us with,  “See! I‟m leaving you until you learn to behave.”  Crying, we would plead for her to come back and promise behavioral perfection.

I became a workaholic like my father and almost as neurotic as my mother.  I was unable to sustain any kind of meaningful, intimate relationship.  By the time I was forty, I had the same dual world as my parents...A wholesome public image of success and service and a private life of loneliness, suppressed feelings, and sexual dysfunction.

I found a therapist who helped me explore the long-lost child imprisoned in the playpen of my soul. One day he mentioned that I might find meetings for Adult Children of Addictions  helpful.  I thought he hadn't been listening when I told him of my family's history of proud sobriety.  He said I didn't have to join, pay or say anything.  I went to a meeting.  I was shocked.  “The Problem” was the story of my life.  It all fit.  It is five years later now and I am still working the program.  With the help of my Higher Power,  I claim my life and spirit separate from the web of past family dysfunction.  The miraculous combination of therapy and working the Twelve Steps set me free from the prison of my childhood playpen to explore and experience my real and unique self. 

Me, My “Inner Child,” My Depression and My Dad By Christine Stapleton ~ 3 min read

Let me just start by saying I was not a touchy-feely, self-help-book kind of girl. I was more of a You-want-a-piece-of-me? kind of gal. Comes with the profession – journalism – and the more time you spend in a newsroom, the more refined your sass. So, when I came out of my last major depression and my therapist suggested I do some “Inner Child” work I rolled my eyes, thanked God for our confidentiality agreement. No one would find out about my “Inner Child.”


It seemed really silly at first. REALLY silly. I drew pictures, wrote letters with my left hand from my “Inner Child,” went through boxes of old picture and visualized my “Inner Child.” I have very few memories of my childhood. But after a couple of months of working with my “Inner Child” weird stuff started happening. Memories struck like lightening – totally out of the blue. I could suddenly recall the tile and and door knob at the swimming pool. I could see myself as a 6-year-old with long pig-tails, ridiculously short bangs and my favorite red check dress with the black velvet ribbon around the waist. My sister helped me remember the library with the creepy stuffed bald eagle.



My therapist insisted this was necessary work and that the memories were there and would come out when my inner child felt safe and comfortable. We finally got to a point where my “Inner Child” started dealing with her own “issues” – such as my father’s alcoholism and how he treated my mother. My father never hit or yelled at my mother but he was sarcastic and seemed to enjoy cutting her down. He was not affectionate. I never looked up to him like some little girls do to their fathers. He was not the hunter-gatherer kind of dad – not my hero.


I had a lot of resentment against my dad. He was a sloppy drunk. The kind who thinks he’s really funny when he’s drunk and would fall asleep in the lou. My father wasn’t around when I did my “Inner Child” work. He had died of cancer of few years earlier. I thought I had made peace with him. I apologized for being a not-so-good daughter at times. But I was still mad.


My therapist asked if I had any pictures of my father when he was a boy. My dad grew up in the depression. An only child, adopted by an older couple in a small, rural northern Wisconsin town. That’s about all I knew about my father’s childhood. He never spoke of it, or his adopted father, who had died before I was born. I don’t even know my grandfather’s name.


I found a picture of my father when he was about 5-years-old. There was a little girl in the picture, too, and a wagon. Here comes the freaky part. My therapist said she wanted my “Inner Child” to talk to the little boy in the picture. I rolled my eyes. I did not want to do this. This seemed really, really stupid. But these were the kinds of deep resentments that I needed to get rid of, she said, as part of getting mentally fit and avoiding another major depression. Because I will do ANYTHING to avoid another major depression, I did it.


I closed my eyes and summoned my “Inner Child.”


“What do you want to say to him?” my therapist asked her.



“How come you weren’t very nice to me?” my Inner Child asked the boy.


“Because that’s how my dad was,” he said.


I couldn’t breathe. I had never considered my father’s childhood. He never, ever spoke of it.


“I just didn’t know any better,” he said.


Instantly, all the hostility I had towards my father was gone. Decades of resentment vanished. Everything made sense to me. There was a reason he had never spoken of his father. I felt so sorry for that little boy and so much love for my father. He had done the very best he could. He was the best father he could possibly have been.


Today, I have a really great relationship with my dad. Even though he is dead, we’re very close. When I close my eyes and think of him I feel a warm embrace, like someone has wrapped a very soft blanket around my shoulders. I ask his advice on men, which hasn’t worked out too well. But my inner child and I have a father who loves me. That’s all that matters.

Understanding Loyalty - Judy Klipin

“Adult Children are intensely loyal, even in the face of clear evidence that that loyalty is misplaced.” Janet Woititz*

When we are little, we depend on our parents or caregivers for our survival. The grown ups are literally the only things standing between us and extinction. We love them with every fibre of our being (even if we may hate them at times too) and we want to be with them. Also, we don’t have the wherewithal to be able to go off and look after ourselves.

No matter how bad a job they may be doing, we aren’t in a position to say to them, “I don’t want to be here anymore, I want to go and live next door with the Joneses.” We don’t want to leave them and, even if we did, we just aren’t able to.

So we stay.

We make excuses for disappointments and let-downs. We try to exert some control on the situation by looking after everybody else in the hope that they will look after us. We learn to avoid the pain and discomfort by distracting ourselves and keeping ourselves busy. We tell ourselves (consciously or unconsciously) “If I were better it would be better” and try to do everything in our very limited power to make things better.

We develop an intense loyalty to our parents/caregivers that gets extended in later life to other relationships (platonic and romantic), to people, places, political parties, sports teams, ideas…We remain unthinkingly loyal to many entities that may not show us the same kind of support and consideration.

This loyalty really plays itself out in love and at work. We stay in jobs that we hate because we feel we need to look after colleagues, bosses or customers. We remain bored and frustrated because we are hard-wired to be loyal to people who gave us an opportunity. We keep going back to a job that makes us feel anxious, stressed and unhappy because we think that it is our fault; if we were better then work would be better.

We stay in relationships-gone-bad because we remember how good it used to be, or imagine how good it could be. We keep associating with toxic, angry, abusive and destructive people because we are so used to making excuses for bad behaviour that we don’t think to hold people accountable for it. And again, we keep trying to make ourselves better – thinner, prettier, stronger, fitter, cleverer, richer… – in the hope that the relationship will get better.

Our misplaced sense of loyalty can really get in the way of us finding what we deserve – love that is kind and work that is a meaningful expression of our values and talents.

And that is a terrible waste.

Right now, choose to be loyal to yourself and let go of one – just one – thing that your loyalty is keeping you trapped by. It could be a piece of clothing, a diet, a political ideology, a person, a place or a thing. Let it go and release yourself in the process! (An eCoaching programme may help you to do that in a systematic and supported way.)

Be loyal to yourself – pick you!

* Janet Woititz identified 13 characteristics that are common to adult children (I have condensed them down to 11 in my book). While not all of us display every characteristic, most of us exhibit at least some of them.

Judy Klipin is a Martha Beck certified Master Life Coach based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

http://judyklipin.com/contact-me/

Cape Town ACA Meeting, Rondebosch, Western Cape

Cape Town ACA Meeting
Saturdays @ 10:30am

St Michaels Church (Gill Room)
Rouwkoop Road
Rondebosch

All Welcome

contact 0711994911 for more information

Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families

By Lisa A. Miles
~ 4 min read 

Charles L. Whitfield’s 1987 book Healing the Child Within is aimed at adult children of dysfunctional families. The ideas he presented synced up with the 12-step recovery movements for families afflicted by alcohol and addiction (Al-Anon, Nar-Anon). It made perfect sense that the pain of those with alcoholic parents was similar to that of individuals in families whose parents were dysfunctional even if not abusing substances.

Worldwide, formal ACoDF 12-step groups have become established, although fewer in number than 12-step groups. The ACoDF term certainly has been adopted by those within mental health circles — clinicians, therapists and a collective of people whose support groups (such as NAMI) more loosely attach the tag without 12-step trappings.

Many families termed “dysfunctional” are affected by mental illness, trauma from tragedy, or simply by being headed by individuals with very poor parenting skills. Whitfield and many other professionals have written informative books that have fleshed out the tribulations and sadness for adult children — those adults who have not resolved their childhood issues.

Whitfield, especially, eloquently speaks for the child, laying out theory and remedy for this all-too-common predicament. He describes the difficulties of establishing proper boundaries: Essentially what was once used for protection as a child does not help the adult. He writes clearly about this and all elements of codependent theory, which describes adults who become overly involved in others’ lives.

In his first book, Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, Whitfield gives full description of “the journey of discovery” needed to “[heal] our fears, confusions and unhappiness” from early family wounding. This landmark work further “develops the concept of adult children of troubled or dysfunctional families generally, rather than focusing only on the alcoholic family.”1

Whitfield writes especially of emotional and spiritual abuse. The latter he uniquely defines as a situation where boundaries were not only crossed, but roles unhealthily mixed up — as in a child being called to act as “surrogate spouse” or as caregiver to the parent. “What is mine? What is not mine?” have become critical questions in codependent theory. Whitfield’s readers are urged to contemplate this throughout his books. He gives in-depth examples, compassionate advisement and scholarly backed tables and charts.

The book draws on pertinent historical material as well as Whitfield’s own clinical observations. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs certainly is found at the core. Many pages are devoted to self-esteem, and especially shame, for the significant part they play in normally functioning adults. Whitfield also speaks uniquely on assertiveness and the true self — to prompt understanding and learn how to “peel away” the many layers of detriment this early dysfunctional environment has on adult life.

Whitfield’s companion workbook to Healing the Child Within is A Gift to Myself. Taken together, according to Santa Cruz therapist Erin O’Shaughnessy, they “provide two of the most comprehensive and detailed descriptions of the recovery process ever formulated in layman’s terms.”2 O’Shaughnessy writes, “Whitfield points out the concept of the ‘inner child,’ which represents our essence, true self, or that part of us that is ultimately alive, energetic, creative, and capable of fulfillment….”

Charles Whitfield’s Healing the Child Within has sold well over a million copies. Many people have been profoundly helped by it. He is an acclaimed physician and psychotherapist still practicing in Atlanta, Ga. He has been on the editorial boards of several professional journals and voted by his peers from the 1990s to today as being one of the “Best Doctors in America.” He has been a board member and been long supported, as well, by the Leadership Council of Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence. In 2008 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Atlanta Therapeutic Professional psychology and therapist group.

In a phone interview he identified Healing the Child Within as “Recovery 101” and it has been that for many troubled souls, according to online postings alone. All his work speaks to adults “traumatized as children.” He also treats those suffering with addictions in his practice, as “most addictions grow out of early dysfunction.”

Whitfield calls Not Crazy (published in 2011) “Recovery 102” and Wisdom to Know the Difference: Core Issues in Relationships, Recovery and Living (2012) “103.” He clearly believes and states, “Troubled families bring about much of life’s woes, with a child’s severe wounding commonly resulting in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).” His website states he is “A pioneer in trauma recovery…” (or “trauma psychology,” as he defined it by telephone), “including the way we remember childhood and other trauma and abuse.”

Boundaries and Relationships is a best-selling continuation of Whitfield’s theorizing (1993). As well, he has written Memory and Abuse; The Truth about Depression; The Truth about Mental Illness and many more.

Controversially, Whitfield is not a big believer in psychiatric drugs. He talks of “troubled families” as the main reason behind individuals exhibiting psychiatric symptoms, yet these individuals “are often misdiagnosed as just having severe mental illness.” Not Crazy: You May Not Be Mentally Ill takes this into fullest detail. The family is not the only focus for his critical eye, as he emphasizes a “troubled world increasingly in the current day.” The family unit, to him, is behind the need for so many to seek out temporary pain-relieving substances, circumstances and more. Indeed, his conviction is that early trauma plays a larger role, even, than genetics.

His website, clinical practice as well as publication, calls out to individuals who have had difficulty stopping psychiatric drugs. Whitfield finds these drugs toxic and laden with side effects. The subtitle of Not Crazy may make many families gasp, as they try usually unsuccessfully to get ill loved ones to accept therapy and psychiatric drugs as help for their emotional and behavioral symptoms and pain.

According to Peter R. Breggin, M.D. (author of Medication Madness), however, Not Crazy “combines the best healing principles of trauma psychology with holistic psychiatry.”3 Randy Noblitt, PhD (The California School of Professional Psychology) states it “tells the truth about how and why psychiatric drugs don’t work well [to heal such lingering pain] and too often make people worse.”4

Despite the controversy some may see with his later books, Whitfield has always unashamedly gone after the sad truths about early family pain, with the recovery of the wounded adult child clearly at heart. Through his latest works, as his first, he creatively and convincingly covers “the process of wounding” within “shame-based families” — which detrimentally shape life for an adult child.

Durban ACA meeting Glenwood KZN

Durban ACA
Glenwood Presbyterian Church
339 Esther Roberts Road
Glenwood

Thursdays

18:30pm-19:30pm  Step Meeting
19:30pm - 20:30pm - Fellowship Meeting

Healing My Inner Child

By Elisabeth Corey 
~ 3 min read 

Dear Inner Child,

You’ve been through so much and I am not sure how you coped. Your strength inspires me with every memory I recover. I know you are the reason we are alive today. And I thank you for all you did to keep going. Sometimes, others ask me how I lived through it and I don’t know the answer.

You carried that burden. And to some extent, you still do.

Unfortunately, some of those approaches you used to stay alive might be setting us back these days. The dissociation, the isolation and the anxiety were perfect coping strategies in an environment of prolonged and inescapable trauma. But we aren’t there anymore. We live in a different world, a more benign world.

Sure, there are still plenty of people who need an attitude adjustment (or much more). And the days when the kids just don’t care about boundaries can be a little rough. But in the current reality, there is safety, the kind you never knew as a child.

And I know you are tired. I know you are tired of the inner battles, the panic attacks and the attempts to thwart situations for which you should never have been responsible. And that is just it. You should not have to understand the adult dilemmas you were once expected to figure out. And I am here to tell you that you don’t have to anymore.

Why? Because there’s an adult here now. Not the kind of adult you are used to. Not the kind of adult that tells you lies, gains your trust and then invades your boundaries. Not the kind of adult that manipulates you to believe that all the pain is your fault.

This is an adult with your best interest in mind. This is an adult that never wants to hurt you. This is me, you, just older. And I want what you want. I want peace.

But peace doesn’t come the way you think it does. It doesn’t come by hiding or avoiding all difficult situations and people. That was the only option you had as a child. And I commend you for using it to stay alive. But today, peace comes from listening to that inner calling, that larger purpose.

Peace comes from standing up for myself and not worrying about what that other person thinks of me, or if they will retaliate later. Peace comes from knowing I am the full expression of my being.

I know you don’t agree. I hear you loud and clear. Some refer to their voice as an inner critic. They even talk about drowning it out or ignoring it. But I know better. I know you are a scared child and you are afraid of changing. You are afraid the change might result in death, or even worse, further abuse. While you may be critical, you are just trying to be protective.

I don’t want to drown you out. I want to work with you. I want to cooperate. I want to use your knowledge to help us grow and become stronger. Your caution is needed. But so is my passion for purpose. And the more we integrate, the closer we will come to the peace we both seek. Because the inner division will never bring peace. And since neither of us can have it completely our way, we will either continue without peace or we will work together. And with peace comes a meaningful life. They are the same. They must be.

So today I appeal to you, my child. And I know you aren’t sure what to think because honestly, nobody has ever appealed to you before. You have always been told what to do. You have always been forced to be someone different. And I know you don’t trust me. But I appeal to you anyway. And I will wait until you can understand that I am not here to manipulate or take advantage of you.

But I would like you to let me take care of that adult stuff that is just too much for a child to take on. I would like you to let go, just a little, so I can do for you what nobody ever did, let you be a child, let you grow and develop in the way you were never allowed. And as you do, all that you are will become who I am. And we will be together, living life in a unified inner world.

And you will finally be able to rest. You will finally be able to close your eyes without fear. You will finally find peace under my wing.

You will be home.

Love,

Me … And You

10 Tips for the Best Mothering & Self-Love

By Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT
~ 4 min read 

The idea of self-love and self-nurturing baffles most people, especially codependents, who by and large received inadequate parenting. The word “nurture” comes from the Latin nutritus, meaning to suckle and nourish. It also means to protect and foster growth. For young children, this usually falls to the mother; however, the father’s role is equally important.

Both parents need to nurture children. Healthy parenting helps the grown child be his or her own best mother and father. A child must not only feel loved, but also that he or she is understood and valued by both parents as a separate, unique individual and that both parents want a relationship with him or her. Although we have many needs, I’m focusing on nurturing emotional needs.

Emotional Needs

In addition to physical nourishment, including gentle touch, care, and food, emotional nurturing consists of meeting a child’s emotional needs. These include:

• Love
• Play
• Respect
• Encouragement
• Understanding
• Acceptance
• Empathy
• Comfort
• Reliability
• Guidance
• The importance of empathy

A child’s thoughts and feelings need to be taken seriously and listened to with respect and understanding. One way of communicating this is by mirroring or reflecting back what he or she is saying. “You’re angry that it’s time to stop playing now.” Instead of judgment (“you shouldn’t be jealous of Cindy’s new friend”), a child needs acceptance and empathic understanding, such as: “I know you’re hurt and feel left out by Cindy and her friend.”

Empathy is deeper than intellectual understanding. It’s identification at an emotional level with what the child feels and needs. Of course, it’s equally important that a parent appropriately meets those needs, including giving comfort in moments of distress.

Accurate empathy is important for children to feel understood and accepted. Otherwise, they may feel alone, abandoned, and not loved for who they are, but only for what their parents want to see. Many parents unwittingly harm their children by denying, ignoring, or shaming their child’s needs, actions, and expressions of thoughts or feelings. Simply saying, “How could you do that?” may be felt as shaming or humiliating. Responding to a child’s tears with laughter, or “That’s nothing to cry about,” or “You shouldn’t be (or ‘Don’t be’) sad,” are forms of denying and shaming a child’s natural feelings.

Even parents who have sympathetic intentions may be preoccupied or misunderstand and misattuned to their child. With enough repetitions, a child learns to deny and dishonor natural feelings and needs and to believe that he or she is unloved or inadequate.

Good parents are also reliable and protective. They keep promises and commitments, provide nourishing food and medical and dental care. They protect their child from anyone who threatens or harms him or her.

Tips for Self-Love & Self-Nurturing

Once grown, you still have these emotional needs. Self-love means meeting them. If fact, it’s each person’s responsibility to be his or her own parent and meet these emotional needs, irrespective of whether you’re in a relationship. Of course, there are times you need support, touch, understanding, and encouragement from others. However, the more you practice self-nurturing, the better your relationships will be.

All of the things a good mother does, you have the superior capacity to do, for who knows your deepest feelings and needs better than you?

Here are some steps you can take:

• When you have uncomfortable feelings, put your hand on your chest, and say aloud, “You’re (or I’m) ____.” (e.g., angry, sad, afraid, lonely). This accepts and honors your feelings.
• If you have difficulty identifying your feelings, pay attention to your inner dialogue. Notice your thoughts. Do they express worry, judgment, despair, resentment, envy, hurt, or wishing? Notice your moods. Are you irritable, anxious, or blue? Try to name your specific feelings. (“Upset” isn’t a specific feeling.) Do this several times a day to increase your feeling recognition. You can find lists of hundreds of feelings online.
• Think or write about the cause or trigger for your feeling and what you need that will make you feel better. Meeting needs is good parenting.
• If you’re angry or anxious, practice yoga or martial arts, meditation, or simple breathing exercises. Slowing your breath slows your brain and calms your nervous system. Exhale 10 times making a hissing (“sss”) sound with your tongue behind your teeth. Doing something active is also ideal for releasing anger.
• Practice giving yourself comfort: Write a supportive letter to yourself, expressing what an ideal parent would say. Have a warm drink. Studies show this actually elevates your mood. Swaddle your body in a blanket or sheet like a baby. This is soothing and comforting to your body.
• Do something pleasurable, e.g., read or watch comedy, look at beauty, walk in nature, sing or dance, create something, or stroke your skin. Pleasure releases chemicals in the brain that counterbalance pain, stress, and negative emotions. Discover what pleasures you. (To read more about the neuroscience of pleasure, read my article, “The Healing Power of Pleasure”.)
• Adults also need to play. This means doing something purposeless that fully engages you and is enjoyable for its own sake. The more active the better, i.e., play with your dog vs. walking him, sing or collect seashells vs. watching television. Play brings you into the pleasure of the moment. Doing something creative is a great way to play, but be cautious not to judge yourself. Remember the goal is enjoyment – not the finished product.
• Practice complimenting and encouraging yourself – especially when you don’t think you’re doing enough. Notice this self-judgment for what it is, and be a positive coach. Remind yourself of what you have done and allow yourself time to rest and rejuvenate.
• Forgive yourself. Good parents don’t punish children for mistakes or constantly remind them, and they don’t punish willful wrongs repeatedly. Instead, learn from mistakes and make amends when necessary.
• Keep commitments to yourself as you would anyone else. When you don’t, you’re in effect abandoning yourself. How would you feel if your parent repeatedly broke promises to you? Love yourself by demonstrating that you’re important enough to keep commitments to yourself.

A Word of Caution

Beware of self-judgment. Remember that feelings aren’t rational. Whatever you feel is okay and it’s okay if you don’t know why you feel the way you do. What is important is acceptance of your feelings and the positive actions you take to nurture yourself. Many people think, “I shouldn’t be angry (sad, afraid, depressed, etc.). This may reflect judgment they received as a child. Often it’s this unconscious self-judgment that is the cause of irritability and depression. Learn how to combat self-criticism in my ebook, “10 Steps to Self-Esteem,” available in online bookstores.