Mothers, Fathers and Re-Parenting Ourselves

Mother's Day is tomorrow, and Father's Day will be coming up next month. These "holidays" often remind me that our parents gave us the best they could; the best they knew how to give --- but often it wasn't what we needed. Or it wasn't enough. Or it was too much.

That reminds me of a line at the end of the movie Smoke Signals where the voice-over comes in and says:

How do we forgive our fathers? Maybe in a dream. Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little? Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all? Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying, our mothers? Or divorcing, or not divorcing, our mothers? And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing, or leaning? For shutting doors or speaking through walls? For never speaking, or never being silent? Do we forgive our fathers in our age, or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them or not saying it. If we forgive our fathers, what is left? 

That applies to mothers as well.

As a hypnotist I deal with the subconscious and I believe that most if not all of our problems have their roots in our subconscious mind. That means childhood for a lot of things, and if our souls have been engaged in repeating patterns it could be many childhoods of many lifetimes, each time the problem going deeper and deeper into the subconscious. If the messages have been compounded enough or traumatic enough, it may even be necessary to "re-parent" ourselves as part of our own healing.

There are special techniques in hypnosis that deal with this re-parenting technique from Alchemical Hypnotherapy, and I have known some who have needed to re-parent themselves with an entirely new family. I have also known some who have "lost years" of growing up---indicating a family life so horrible, that their conscious minds have completely blocked all recollection of them.

In hypnosis, we can recapture those years if wanted. Or we could just work to repair the damage of those years. And some of the techniques used would indeed involve "re-parenting" yourself, comforting yourself, and bringing in your "adult" self to work with the "inner child" self.

So even though your own parents may not have been the best or most loving or most understanding, you CAN claim control of that part of your life in your own self-help work. Because in the end, we are all responsible for ourselves, our own actions, and our own reactions.

Happy Mother's Day,
---melodie