The easiest way to explain Self-parenting Life Coaching exercises to our clients is by using the four P's of self-parenting. Learn how to take your client from a "powerless child" to an empowered, Self-parented adult.
Do I Need to Heal My Childhood Wounds to be Truly Happy?
A Hu Note: These seven pieces of Self-parenting will take you from a powerless child to a Self-parented adult. The distinction between who you are now (an adult who can use the Four "Ps" of Self-parenting) from whom you were as a dependent child, will help you to differentiate your childlike ego defenses from your adult powers of Self-mastery.
The Four P's of Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercises Explained
The Four P's are one of the action “pieces” of Self-parenting Life Coaching exercises. The four “Ps” of a Self-parented adult are your Adult Powers that you will use to Protect your Self, the Permission Rules to live your life as you choose based on your own ethical and moral standards and the Practice that is necessary to achieve your Self-parenting objectives.
Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercise- Adult Powers
One of the first Self-Parenting Life Coaching exercises to teach is making the clear distinction between your "powers" as a child vs an adult. You now have adult powers that you did not have as a child. As a child you were small, but you are all grown up now. You have your own money, you support yourself and you no longer rely on your parents for food, shelter, and clothing. You have a car and a license now. You can drive away if you don’t like how you are being treated, whereas before you had to stand there and take it. You are old enough now to recognize and defend your boundaries. As a little child, you didn’t know that you had any boundaries – and you certainly did not know that you had the right to defend them.
Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercise- Protection
The next Self-Parenting Life Coaching exercise centers around using your adult powers for protection. You use your adult powers to protect your Self so that you can feel safe in the world. For example, “Remember when (name the person) yelled at you and made you feel scared? You are an adult now, who is much bigger and stronger, and you can use your adult powers to defend your emotional, physical and sexual boundaries so that you can feel safe and protected. When you were a child, you were small and helpless and therefore you naturally felt afraid. But now as an adult you can jump into your car and leave. Whereas before you could only look at the floor and wait for the yelling to be over, you can now, as an adult, look into the eyes of your abuser and defend your boundaries by calling the police or driving away in your car or by yelling or (if need be) by punching someone in the nose. As a child you might have falsely believed (parental idealization) that you somehow deserved your unjust punishments. Now as a fully functional and awakened adult, you realize that you can now protect yourself by using one of your many adult powers.
Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercise- Practice
The following Self-Parenting Life Coaching exercise is vitally important. You must practice Self-parenting on a daily basis when you are first learning it and every time thereafter when a situation arises where you need to nurture your Self. For example, when you find yourself in a situation where old feelings of insecurity arise, you need to immediately talk to your Self, using all nine Self-parenting “pieces,” which will help you to feel safe, sane, and secure in the world. You’ll want to practice Self-parenting techniques until you automatically do them (make them part of your consciousness); in so doing, you will feel safe because you are fulfilling your emotional dependency needs.
Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercise- Permission
The final P within the Self-Parenting Life Coaching exercise is giving yourself permission. As an adult, you can now give yourself permission to live your life by your own set of rules that in your own heart you feel are mature, ethical, and fair.
Self-Parenting Life Coaching Exercise Permission Rules
- IT IS OKAY TO FEEL WHAT YOU FEEL: Give your Self permission to feel your feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. No one can tell you how you feel. It's emotionally healthy and necessary to share your feelings.
- IT IS OKAY TO WANT WHAT YOU WANT: Give your Self permission to want what you want. There's nothing you should or should not want. If you're in touch with your inner Self, you'll want to expand and grow. It's necessary to get your emotional needs met. It's good to ask for what you want and to expect you'll get it.
- IT IS OKAY TO SEE AND HEAR WHAT YOU SEE AND HEAR: Give your Self permission to remember that what you saw and heard as a child is what you saw and heard, even if your caretakers have told you something contrary to what you know you experienced. You must learn how to trust your feelings and senses again!
- IT IS OKAY AND IT IS NECESSARY TO HAVE LOTS OF FUN AND PLAY: By allowing your Self permission to be and feel like a child again, you'll be able to enjoy spontaneous free play. Free play will help you to enjoy life again, while it also relieves stress and lowers your heart rate.
- IT IS OKAY TO ENJOY SEX: Give your Self permission to enjoy sex. It is an important part of adulthood. Without it, a healthy emotional state is almost impossible.
- IT IS IMPORTANT TO TELL THE TRUTH AT ALL TIMES: Lying will distort your reality, even so-called white lies. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected. Give your Self permission to tell the truth about what you think and feel, and then your word will become law in the universe.
- IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW YOUR OWN LIMITS: Giving your Self permission to know when "enough is enough," you'll feel when it is time to surrender to your Self and let your heart lead you in the right direction.
- IT IS OK FOR YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL AND TO BE FINANCIALLY ABUNDANT: Give your Self permission to be more (or less) successful than your parents and to enjoy the freedom that comes with financial success.
- IT IS OK FOR YOU TO DO THE WORK YOU LOVE: Give your Self permission to earn a living doing whatever makes you feel good. You don't have to live up to anyone else's model of what is right for you. Buddha put it best when he said, "If you do the work you love, you'll never have to work another day in your life."
- IT IS CRUCIAL TO LEARN WHAT WASN'T YOUR FAULT: This means that you must refuse to accept responsibility for anyone else's behavior, especially the behavior of your parents, and to give your Self permission to fully accept responsibility for only your own adult behaviors.
- MISTAKES ARE HOW WE LEARN: Mistakes are our teachers. They teach us, by a system of trial and error, what works and what doesn't work. Giving your Self permission to accept this simple fact will make your life a lot lighter and happier.
- IT IS OKAY TO VALUE YOUR OWN FEELINGS AND DESIRES: Many caretaker-type personalities confuse success with approval. You must give your Self permission to nurture yourself by learning how to be sensitive to your own needs, wants and feelings.
- OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS, NEEDS, AND WANTS, ARE TO BE RESPECTED AND VALUED, BUT NOT OWNED: Violating other people's boundaries leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and blame. Respecting other people's feelings creates feelings of love, harmony, and mutual respect. Remember to maturely detach because their needs are just that, their needs, not yours. Give your Self permission to put your needs first unless you willingly and consciously choose not to.
- IT IS NORMAL TO HAVE PROBLEMS: Problems are neither right nor wrong, good nor bad; they are simply a part of adult life. They need to be resolved. Most problems can be resolved by simply communicating how you feel. Give your Self permission to accept the fact that you will have daily "challenges" to overcome and that you will overcome them, for you have the Self on your side.
By applying these Self-parenting Permission Rules you'll be giving your Self permission to “break" the dysfunctional rules you learned by modeling "less than perfect" parents and caretakers. Once you internalize and emotionalize these rules they will become second nature to you. You will create new behavioral patterns to live your life by. Your new Self-empowering habits will foster unconditional love and Self-acceptance, which will help you to lead a Self-mastered Life.
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