TheAlchemist MJ

Missildine and Galton, in their book Your Inner Conflicts- How to Solve them, discuss the idea of self-parenthood. The way we treat ourselves as adults plays a major role in our mental health, happiness, and productivity.  It shapes everything we feel, achieve, or fail to achieve. 

Old Borrowed Attitudes:

Our parents lived with problems of their own which they carried from their own parents. These could be social, cultural, economic, emotional, and/or marital. These struggles shape their behavior, and in turn, certain hurtful attitudes are given to us, not because they intended to hurt us but because they were repeating patterns carried from their own childhood. 

If we internalize these attitudes, we eventually begin using them on ourselves in adulthood. With spending so much time with ourselves, this negative self-parenting can become continuous, harmful, and distractive. 

It’s important to remember that these isn’t reality but old borrowed attitudes. 

The Emerging Picture: 

When left unresolved, unhappiness begins to emerge in childhood, adolescence, and adult life. It can cause anxiety, depression, fear, loneliness, marital struggles, career failures, and often compulsive and self-defeating behaviors. 

Many adults are children still living in similar emotional atmosphere in which they were raised. Our goal is to become good parents to ourselves, be aware of the influences of these emotions, and regulate them. Notice how your parent treated you and how you treat yourself. 

Ask yourself, are you treating yourself your way or your parents’ way? 

Becoming a Better Parent to Ourselves: 

Attitudes carried from our childhood are found behind emotional disturbance manifested in problems of life: career and marital difficulties, psychosomatic disorders, interpersonal relationship difficulties, and general discontentment with life. 

To improve our state of being, we must identify what causes these, learn to control, and regulate them, set healthy limits on them.

Self to Self: The Most Critical Transactions

The way we talk to ourselves shapes how we interact with the world. To have a happier life and more fulfilling interactions with others, we must change the way we interact with ourselves first.