Reparenting Little Ann

There is a very young part inside me whose emotion I don’t feel often. But when this specific part of me surges up into my consciousness, the power of her emotions breaks me.

I have been reparenting my inner child for 10 years now. Since I also started integrating parts work (e.g. IFS Internal Family Systems) into my inner child healing journey, it has expanded my awareness and appreciation of just how many different “parts” have been exiled, repressed or numbed into oblivion inside me. Slowly they have been making reappearances as my core (adult) self has become stronger and more integrated. It is almost as if they were coming to me as they realised that now there is a parent they can trust and who will protect them.

Since I started integrating parts work (e.g. IFS Internal Family Systems) into my inner child healing journey and it has expanded my awareness and appreciation of just how many different “parts” have been exiled, repressed or numbed into oblivion inside me.

So this particular young part I mentioned at the start of this entry – she’s about 4-5 years old, and the powerful emotion she brings is a deep yearning for those she loves to be happy. She really just wants them to be happy and to love each other, and when they are happy, her little heart is full and she wants to partake in their joy.

Because she is so young, she has no sense of boundaries. There is just a purity of longing for intimacy and an innocent assumption that everyone would be happy for her to come close to them, and that everyone is trustworthy and safe. And when she is hurt by others, she is heartbroken, but she still believes the best of them and never stops hoping for reconciliation.

For a really long time, this aspect of my inner child ruled all my relationships at a subconscious level. Because of her experience of family dysfunction she seems always drawn to others who are unhappy – she yearns to help them be happy. Inevitably, because I didn’t have a mature enough Core Self that could protect and guide this part, she would get terribly wounded.

Because of her experience of family dysfunction she seems always drawn to others who are unhappy – she yearns to help them be happy. Inevitably, because I didn’t have a mature enough Core Self that could protect and guide this part, she would get terribly wounded.

In retaliation, when this young part gets hurt, another part of me would swoop in and whisk her away into some place so hidden that I would have no access to her. This protector part of me (in IFS terms, a ‘manager’ part) also cuts off anyone that threatens the vulnerable parts of me – abruptly and completely.

For decades, my friendships and relationships with those I grew close to seemed doomed to repeat this pattern of being ruled by that hopeful, yearning inner child and then when a threat of abandonment looms, this other fierce and uncompromising part cuts off the relationship and I just go numb inside.

I recently came face to face again with this very young part of me. It wasn’t the first time she let me feel the strength of her emotions. She was inconsolable because the people she loved most in the world can never seem to be happy. Her grief and longing gets intensified whenever there is any glimmer of an upturn because – in her words to me – “All I want, ALL I want is for them to be happy! Why can’t they be happy?”

The tragic thing for this young part of me is that the people she loves most are caught in an unending cycle of dysfunction and conflict and she is unaware of how traumatised she is by being triangulated and entangled by them. She remembers all the snatches of happy times they have had with her and because there have been such happy times before she believes with all her heart it is possible for all of them to be happy as a norm. She shows up unguarded when it is chronically unsafe to do so and gets even more traumatised when she is yet again dragged into conflict.

The tragic thing for this young part of me is that the people she loves most are caught in an unending cycle of dysfunction and conflict and she is unaware of how traumatised she is by being triangulated and entangled by them.

A breakthrough happened in my reparenting relationship with this part of myself a couple of days ago when she surged up again into my consciousness. I let her cry, and I let her air all her yearning and hope again (futile as it truly seems to the adult part of me). But then I finally had a eureka moment about her. And I had a very moving conversation with her and ended up writing a letter to her in my journal. This is what I wanted to share with you…

My dearest young, Little Ann Ann,

I have been feeling your emotions. Your tender yearning and hope that has never ceased for Dad & Mum to be happy together, and how terribly painful it is for you when you see and hear their conflict instead. All you want and anticipate is loving warmth, but so often the surprise you get instead is cold, hard conflict. And you cannot understand – for how could you? You are very young.

Yet for all the hurt that you have experienced over the years there is so much love in you, Ann! So much unconditional love that is pure and generous. And this is so precious about you. You just want everyone to be happy. I see you, little me. Yet the world – both our small world and the bigger world out there – is never going to be what you yearn and hope for.

But that’s OK. It doesn’t mean you need to stop yearning and hoping. That’s who you are. And that’s also your “calling” as part of the full, whole ME. And you cannot survive on your own – you were never meant to!

I – Big Ann – am here now. I will protect you. I will be wise where you are innocent. I will be firm and assertive where you are helpless. I will draw the necessary boundaries to keep you safe so that you can continue being you. You don’t have to change. I will determine when our limits are breached because while your tender heart’s love is unconditional, our dignity and safety is not to be compromised.

We have limits. And that is very good because God made us so.

I love you very much and I am here for you.
Big Ann.

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A Personal Note

I share this because as Henri Nouwen once wrote, “What is most personal is also the most universal.” I wish to give voice to the voiceless – for children of marital conflict are voiceless when we were young, and even when we have grown up we often still react from that young part of us that can never get out of a sympathetic nervous system state of fight / flight / freeze / fawn.

I also share this because I love my family and always will even if this young part of me can never have her most ardent wish fulfilled in this life. It is BECAUSE I love my family that I will exercise boundaries because the only way to authentically love someone who cannot help but keep wounding you is by loving from a safe emotional distance. I believe this is mature and wise love. I would even say I believe this pleases God because it honours him to honour our own dignity.

My capacity to love without sacrificing my dignity will change according to the measure of grace God gives me. It is my prayer that He will increase this grace so that my ability to love authentically continues to grow beyond what I can imagine now. But I will not run ahead of God’s grace, and I will not cave to perform acts of love others expect of me (be it expectations from family, society or church).

Finally… Dad & Mum, if you ever read this sharing, I want you to know that I am so sorry for your suffering, and I am sorry if reading this adds to it. But one day I hope you will know that all this is part of my love for you and our family too. Let’s keep doing the best we each can, knowing our best will still disappoint and hurt one another, but that God’s all encompassing love more than makes up for our lack, and that his love is renewed each and every day no matter what we do or fail to do. Truly no matter what.