What Part Of You Needs To Grow up

Whenever I speak in front of a live audience

(seems like ages ago right now) and ask this question,

I get a chuckle as a response.

It’s like we all inherently know

that there’s something within us that is stunted,

not fully developed,

needing to step up and grow up.

For me, it was in relationships.

I was crushing it at work,

but for some reason

I couldn’t get the personal relationship thing right.

I was showing up immature,

either needy or controlling

and I would project that onto others

and make everyone else the problem in my drama —

much like a child refusing to grow up.

That “reason” turned out to be quite common:

My unaddressed and unresolved attachment wounds.

Without getting to the core of this issue,

we can get university degrees,

become multi-millionaires,

create a body of work that is appreciated by the entire planet,

but still find a way to sabotage ourselves

and just “blow shit up” in our personal lives

when things seem to be so good externally for us.

That was me.

I couldn’t figure it out until I came face to face with the reality

that we are all called to address sooner or later:

That our reactivity reveals our unhealed wounds,

each trigger knocking us back

to behaving like the little children

that didn’t feel seen or heard.

You can easily see it in others.

But the challenge here is owning it within ourselves.

The ego doesn’t want to admit it (or even look).

When we avoid looking at this truth and unpacking it,

we get into repetitive cycles,

the same arguments,

the same patterns within our relationships:

One day we wake up to realize our lives are not in our own hands — we hand them over to gaining approval of someone else.

Then we blame that other person for not getting it right,

then we try to control and manipulate ourselves and our environment,

much like a child would,

to get our needs met.

We lie, deceive, pretend, wear a mask,

hiding our shame in fear of “getting in trouble”

or “looking bad/weak”.

Makes perfect sense when we experienced painful consequences of not conforming,

or not performing, which was often punishment,

sometimes in the form of painful withdrawal of love and

emotional connection from our care givers or people around us.

As a child that equates to isolation, and loneliness, which equates to death.

No matter what we can accomplish —

emotionally we are still stunted at that same time period,

as we fracture from our true selves,

and fabricate new roles and characters and parts in a play (directed by someone else) in order to get our needs met.

It works for us too.

It becomes our “winning formula”.

Our “Superpower”.

It helps us get there.

That is — until the burden of the mask becomes too much to bear.

We lose sight of who we really are,

and become so disconnected from it,

And the little child inside revolts and if ignored,

starts to act out.

HOW CAN WE TELL THIS IS HAPPENING TO US?

Often we get signals, but we are taught to ignore them or shut them up.

The first sign your body gives you is a state of “alarm” as if to say “stop the bullshit and be true to yourself. Tell the f**ing truth — you’re a grown ass adult”.

It feels like a weight on your chest. A shortness of breath.

It feels uncomfortable, so we go to the doctor and they might tell you “You have Generalized Anxiety Disorder” or any other chronic illness — and prescribe medications.

Many of the people feel relieved by a diagnosis.

“Finally! I know what’s wrong with me!”

Desperate for a solution, we turn to podcasts and books to solve the issue.

“Maybe I can just listen to an anxiety podcast that teaches me how to breathe.”

Although this is an important start, and I’m all about these tools — we need to make sure we don’t assume that’s the end of the road — and it doesn’t distract us from the REAL work,

which is to address those younger parts of us that need some assistance with growing up:

The parts that you’ll find saying:

“I’VE BEEN PLEASING OTHERS MY ENTIRE LIFE I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE”

Or

“I use people transactionally to get what I need from them and don’t really know what love actually is — I don’t even know if I’ve genuinely ever loved anyone… I don’t remember really receiving it or feeling it as a child.”

(Those parts)

Without helping those parts grow up,

They get triggered and become exposed,

seeking your attention,

and shit starts to blow up and fall apart.

Keep ignoring the signs, and

Boom… relationships explode.

Boom… kids start developing anxiety and acting out on everything we’ve been hiding from within ourselves.

Boom… our health falls apart and we develop a relapse of symptoms of digestive and auto-immune problems.

Our nervous systems become fried and frazzled in a physiological REVOLT from the lie we’ve been living

in an attempt to hide the parts of us that need some help growing up.

I saw this all the time in my practice.

When I would hear this with my patients,

my gut would twist in knots and I felt frustrated,

wishing I could just tell them all of this

in the few minutes we had in our appointments,

having to just sweep it all under the rug

and continue to help with adjustments

for the deep chronic pain and tension and headaches,

and spinal misalignments that were showing up as a result of everything I mentioned above.

It gave ME anxiety in my practice.

I couldn’t keep going like this.

Only my lying was that of a lie of “omission”

from a truth I was withholding from them.

So in 2009 I began creating workshops to start telling the truth:

That your symptoms and life chaos and relationship limbo and struggle you’re going through is NOT a mistake or a sign that you’re broken in ANY WAY.

The REAL truth is that there are younger,

reactive parts of you that are RIGHT NOW

calling for your attention.

That the attention you’re putting in

trying to get somewhere, get someone,

look good, be successful,

level up can only be fully expressed

when the parts of you that you’re ashamed of,

denying, rejecting, and using success and pleasing to hide from are finally faced, and welcomed back home, and “Re-Parented” the right way into a functional adult.

We call that “integration” through “Reparenting”.

(Words I never really understood before).

Integration is what healing is all about.

To re-unite.

To “bring back home”.

Healing means “to make whole.”

We are not broken — we just become ‘fragmented”, souls

needing some guidance in growing up.

When we learn how,

we begin to move from wounded victim/child struggling and feeling unsafe in the world,

to taking full responsibility,

and creating a life where there’s a meaningful purpose behind it.

The wounded child inside of us

doesn’t know their purpose —

they want someone else to take responsibility.

The awakened soul within us does.

When we decide to heal those attachment wounds,

- relationships transform from insecure (child/adolescent) to secure, functioning adult.

- we are better able to manage our emotions, create safety within our own bodies and literally transform the entire family dynamic around.

All this because relationships are no longer scary.

They feel safe.

Because we’re able to parent ourselves.

So: What part of you needs to grow up?

(Some examples from interviews)

“The part of me unable to say no.”

“The part that’s still putting on a mask”

“The part that can’t handle emotions and loses it when things don’t go my way”

“The part that doesn’t think I’m good enough”

“I go from shut down to rage in 0.5 seconds”.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THIS?

To solve this riddle that comes up for so many of the people reaching out to me for help within their relationships and family dynamics, health, and sense of purpose, I created an event that helps not only explain deeper how all of this works, but you can actually begin the process of healing those attachment wounds altogether, and reparenting yourself.

We do it as a community.

It’s pretty badass.

It’s called “Breathwork and Badassery” and I started running these back in March after Covid hit and people were starting to unravel and families were crumbling.

It’s a 4 hour event that reconnects you with the very part of you that could use some help with parenting and “growing up” through an Inner Child meditation followed by a Breathwork session.

Every single parent that does this work tells me the same thing: “Since doing the work, I’ve become a much more patient and present and engaged parent. It’s like I’m so connected to my kids now.”

Which is great — because imagine how your life would be right now if your parents invested their energy into doing that for themselves.

How would that have impacted your upbringing?

If you’re wanting to break the cycle and learn how to deepen in your healing so that you can show your children how to emotionally regulate, develop a deeper sense of self, connect to a purpose greater than themselves, and have healthy relationships with firm but flexible boundaries, and lead by EXAMPLE….

Join us for Breathwork and Badassery.

Not only will you reconnect with those younger parts, you’ll learn a new breathing tool that will help you reconnect to yourself and lower your anxiety, and release emotional tension you’ve been carrying in this very challenging year and season.

I first did this work for myself and my relationships. Now I get to doing this for my community, my wife and son, and wanted to invite you if you feel called to “co-regulate” with us.

If we don’t do this now — then when?

What will determine if you win or lose on the other side of this pandemic is NOT going to be who the President is.

It’s going to be determined by the state of your Nervous System and how you sense, perceive, and act upon the world with emotional maturity in our “new normal.”

When is a better time to look at and take responsibility for healing what’s underneath it all?

If you feel called to join us into becoming grown ass adult leaders in a world that’s under some great turmoil,

Click HERE to join us at upcoming Breathwork and Badassery event.