If you have spent any time in the healing space, you have likely come across the term "reparenting yourself." And if you are like most of the women I work with, you nodded along — and then quietly wondered: what does that actually mean? And how do I do it?
Because reparenting is one of those concepts that sounds profound but is often explained in ways that are either too vague to be useful or so clinical that they feel out of reach for the woman trying to heal her patterns while also running her life.
This post is my attempt to change that. To explain what reparenting actually is, why it matters specifically for high-achieving women who over give, and what it looks like in the ordinary moments of an ordinary day — because that is where real healing happens.
"Reparenting yourself is not about going backwards. It is about becoming, for yourself, the safe, present, unconditionally loving adult that you always deserved."— Jasmine, Eminence: Becoming Her
What Reparenting Actually Is
At its core, reparenting means learning to give yourself what you did not receive in childhood — the emotional safety, consistent love, validation, and guidance that every child needs to develop a secure sense of self.
This does not mean your parents were villains. It does not mean your childhood was a disaster. It simply means that — like most humans — the people who raised you were imperfect, and in their imperfection, they left some gaps. Gaps in how you learned to relate to your own needs. Gaps in what you understood love to require. Gaps in whether you believed, at the deepest level, that you were enough.
Those gaps do not disappear when you become an adult. They become the invisible architecture of how you move through your relationships, your work, and your sense of self.
Reparenting is the conscious act of going back and filling those gaps — as the adult you are now.
Not to change the past. Not to assign blame. But to stop letting the wounds of your childhood silently author the choices of your adulthood.
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Three Common Myths About Reparenting
Myth
"Reparenting means imagining yourself as a child or doing inner child visualizations."
The Truth
While visualization practices can be helpful for some people, reparenting is far more about how you treat yourself in real time — how you respond to your needs, your emotions, and your mistakes in the present moment. It happens in the ordinary, everyday choices more than in any formal exercise.
Myth
"Reparenting is only for people who had traumatic childhoods."
The Truth
You do not need a dramatic history to benefit from reparenting. Many high-achieving women had objectively "fine" childhoods — and still learned, through the subtle messages of their environment, that their needs were secondary, that love required performance, or that they were most valuable when they were most useful. These are the wounds that reparenting addresses.
Myth
"Reparenting requires a therapist or years of formal work."
The Truth
Professional support is valuable and sometimes essential. But reparenting also happens in small, daily, personal moments — and you can begin right now, today, with no credentials required. It is a practice, not a programmed. And like all practices, it grows through repetition.
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What Reparenting Looks Like in Practice — 4 Starting Points
These are the four foundational reparenting practices I share with every woman who comes to me — because they are accessible, they are immediate, and they directly address the patterns that keep high-achieving women stuck in cycles of over giving and self-abandonment.
1
Notice and name your feelings without judging them
One of the earliest things many children learn is that certain feelings are not acceptable. That big emotions make adults uncomfortable. That sadness makes you difficult, anger makes you ungrateful, neediness makes you too much.
And so they learn to suppress, minimize, or bypass their own emotional experience — carrying it internally while presenting a managed, palatable version to the world.
The first act of reparenting is simple, radical, and deeply uncomfortable: feeling your feelings without immediately rushing to fix, suppress, or justify them.
Not because feelings should run your decisions. But because a feeling that cannot be felt cannot be healed. And a woman who cannot feel her own emotional experience cannot hear the signals it is sending her.
Practice
When an emotion arises this month — before you assess, fix, or move on — pause and name it. "I am feeling resentful." "I am feeling afraid." "I am feeling overlooked." Then ask: what is this feeling trying to tell me? Nothing else. Just listen.
2
Keep small, consistent promises to yourself
Self-trust — the ability to rely on yourself, to know that you will show up for yourself — is built the same way that trust in another person is built. Through consistent, reliable action over time.
For the woman who has spent years over giving, her relationship with herself is often characterized by a pattern that looks like this: she makes an intention, something external takes priority, she abandons the intention, she feels guilty, and the cycle repeats. Over time, she stops trusting herself — because her track record with herself is one of abandonment.
Reparenting reverses this through small, kept promises. Not ambitious ones. Not the kind that require perfect conditions. Small, daily, achievable ones — because the size of the promise matters less than the consistency of keeping it.
Practice
This month, choose one small promise to keep for yourself every day. It can be as simple as: I will drink water before I check my phone. I will rest for ten minutes after lunch. I will write one true thing in my journal. Keep it. Every kept promise is a vote for the belief that you are worth showing up for.
3
Speak to yourself the way you would speak to someone you love
Most women who over give are extraordinarily compassionate toward others — and brutal toward themselves. They would never say to a friend what they routinely say to themselves in moments of struggle, mistake, or imperfection.
"You are so stupid." "Why can you never get this right?" "What is wrong with you?"
The inner critic voice is often a direct echo of the voice that was once external — a parent, a teacher, a relationship — now internalized and running automatically. Reparenting interrupts that voice and replaces it, slowly, with something more resembling the voice of a loving, patient adult who believes in your capacity to grow.
Practice
When you notice the inner critic arriving — particularly around a mistake or perceived failure — pause. Ask: if my closest friend were going through exactly this, what would I say to her? Then say that. To yourself. Out loud if possible. The brain does not distinguish between internal and external compassion — it responds to both.
4
Honor your needs without waiting for permission
Many women who grew up in environments where their needs were minimized or dismissed learned a very specific adaptation: they stopped acknowledging their needs, even to themselves. Not because they stopped having them — but because wanting things that were not given felt too painful, or too disruptive, or too much.
So they became masters of need suppression. And in adulthood, they find themselves unable to answer the simple question: what do I need right now?
Reparenting, in this context, means practicing the act of noticing and honoring your needs — not because someone else has finally given you permission, but because you have decided to give it to yourself.
Practice
Once a day this month, ask yourself: what do I actually need right now? Not what do I need to do. Not what does everyone else need. What do I need. Then honor one small version of that answer. Rest if you are tired. Eat if you are hungry. Ask for support if you are overwhelmed. The noticing is the beginning of everything.
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Why June Is the Perfect Month to Begin
There is something about the beginning of a new month — particularly one that arrives in the fuller light of summer — that carries an invitation. A natural threshold. A moment where the question "who do I want to be this month?" feels genuinely answerable.
I am not suggesting that healing requires a perfect moment, a clean slate, or ideal conditions. It does not. It begins in the middle of the mess, on an ordinary Tuesday, with an imperfect first attempt.
But if you have been waiting for a sign that this is the right time — consider this your sign.
June is your invitation to begin returning to yourself. To take the first small step of reparenting — of becoming, for yourself, the reliable, loving, present adult you always deserved.
You do not need to have it figured out. You just need to begin.
What Reparenting Yourself Looks Like — This Month
- Catching the inner critic mid-sentence — and choosing a kinder response
- Keeping one small promise to yourself — every single day
- Asking "what do I need?" and honoring one version of the answer
- Letting yourself feel something without immediately shutting it down
- Receiving care or compliment without deflecting it away
- Staying in a difficult emotion long enough to hear what it is trying to say
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The 3 hidden patterns keeping high-achieving women stuck in over giving, burnout, and emotionally draining relationships — and how to finally break free.
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