219. Re-parenting and self care

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Hello darling heart and welcome to this episode of the drink less live better podcast.

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This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.

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I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.

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I'm here to support you with your alcohol free or drink less adventures.

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You can follow me on Instagram at drink less live better or find resources on my site drinklesslivebetter.com. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get straight to it. Reparenting and self care.

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Today we're going to explore the powerful concepts of reparenting and self care, two approaches to personal healing that share similarities but serve distinct purposes.

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We've all heard about self care, those essential practices that keep us functioning and thriving, but reparenting?

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That's a term that might be new to some of you.

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Let's start by understanding what these concepts mean and how they differ.

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Self care is the practice of taking deliberate actions to maintain your physical, emotional, and mental health.

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It's about recognizing your needs and taking steps to meet them.

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This could be as simple as ensuring you get enough sleep, eat nutritious meals, or take breaks when you're feeling overwhelmed.

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It's the everyday maintenance work that keeps your life running smoothly.

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Reparenting, on the other hand, goes deeper.

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It's the process of healing yourself by giving yourself the care, guidance, and nurturing that you may not have received during childhood.

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It's about identifying and addressing the emotional wounds or gaps in your development.

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While these concepts serve different purposes, they do share important similarities.

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Both are forms of self nurturing, both require self awareness and intentionality, and both aim to improve your overall well-being,

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but there's a fundamental difference in their approach.

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Self care tends to focus on meeting your present or current needs.

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It's about maintaining balance in your life right now.

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Reparenting, however, looks backwards to help you move forward.

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It addresses the root causes of your patterns and behaviors by looking to the past.

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Think of it this way: self care might be taking a mental health day when you're feeling burned out, reparenting would involve

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exploring why you consistently push yourself to the point of burnout in the first place, perhaps because you internalised

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messages about your worth being tied to your productivity. Here's a personal example.

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For years, I practiced what I thought was excellent self care.

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I'd schedule massages when I felt tense, take holidays when I was knackered and treat myself to nice dinners when I felt low,

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but I kept finding myself in the same cycles of stress and emotional depletion.

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It wasn't until I thought about reparenting that I understood why.

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Growing up, my achievements were celebrated, but my emotional needs were sometimes dismissed. Stop crying. Don't be so sensitive. Just get over it.

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These were common responses in my childhood.

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Through reparenting, I learned to validate my emotions.

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When faced with difficulty, instead of pushing through at all costs, as I was taught, I began to ask myself, what do I need right now?

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And it's okay to feel this way. I became the nurturing parent myself. Why is reparenting so important?

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It's because it addresses the foundation upon which your self care practices stand.

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Without it, self care can become merely symptomatic treatment, like continuously treating it treating a fever without addressing the underlying infection. Reparenting can help you.

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First, identify and change beliefs formed in childhood.

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Those inner voices saying, you're not good enough or you must be perfect to be loved, can be formed through conscious reparenting. Second, establish some healthier boundaries.

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Many of us struggle with setting boundaries because we're taught how or our boundaries weren't respected as children.

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Reparenting teaches you to honor your limits.

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Third, develop some emotional intelligence by recognizing and validating your emotions, something many of us weren't taught to do.

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You build resilience and improve your relationship with yourself and with others.

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The beauty is that reparenting and self care work best together.

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As you heal through reparenting, your self care becomes more effective because you're addressing both symptoms and causes.

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For instance, if you struggle with perfectionism, self care might include taking breaks and setting realistic expectations,

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but reparenting would involve exploring where that perfectionism originated from and actively challenging those beliefs by

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giving yourself the compassion and acceptance you might have needed as a child.

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Can you reflect on your own relationship with self care and consider how reparenting might complement your wellness journey?

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It's never too late to give yourself the love, understanding, and guidance you deserved all along. Thank you for listening in today. Come back again next week.

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Check out the show notes for a link to a hidden podcast episode that will help you with your 5PM cravings and details about

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my one to one life coaching and sober coaching programs, and, PS, I believe in you.