Becoming A Person Means Reparenting Yourself
You Can Still Give Yourself What Your Inner Child Needed. And Still Needs
If I stayed on that path long enough, I believed it would eventually lead somewhere meaningful
On my 40th birthday, I posted a text update on my favourite social media app: “This is 40…” and something else I can’t remember now.
Within 12 hours, I switched the post to “only me.” I didn’t feel like I had anything worth celebrating.
I was alive, yes, but life itself didn’t feel like a gift and everything else, by the world’s standard, had fallen apart.
That was March 29th, 2025.
But I decided to keep developing my mind and self-awareness.
If I stayed on that path long enough, I believed it would eventually lead somewhere meaningful.
The first time I heard about “The Law of Attraction” was in 2012.
It planted a seed in me.
I didn't understand any of it, but something in me recognised it as true.
By 2019, when I studied yoga in India, more seeds took root.
At first, my goal was to be a yoga teacher, but I quickly learned that didn't fit how I wanted to show up in the world.
Quickly is after 5 years of doing it.
I was clear on one thing, though.
If I kept elevating my mind, strengthening my spirit, and expanding my self-concept, something would give.
And something did.
The Quiet Cracking Open
My twenties were filled with mental activity around childhood experiences and why I wasn't getting my act together.
Getting married on my 30th birthday seemed like the ultimate comeback.
Only it wasn't.
I didn’t just fall apart.
I quietly cracked open.
‘There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.’ Leonard Cohen
It wasn’t like the dramatic breakdowns of my twenties.
It was more subtle, more still… more sobering.
A weird but undeniable truth echoed in me:
I was growing wrong.
Or maybe, not growing at all.
At least, not in the way I imagined a woman in her thirties should be.
I had three children. A failed marriage. A half-grown yoga business. And a compulsive writing habit that gave me deep satisfaction.
Deep down, something felt broken. Something I had been desperately trying to mend.
Looking back now, I realise most of my thirties were spent excavating old wounds from childhood.
Sitting with the weight, the detours, and the silence.
All while raising new humans, through my whole and wounded spaces.
After a decade and a half of confusion, remembering, unlearning, and relearning, I hit a deeper wall:
What now?
What next?
What do I do with all this?
Who do I become now that I know where I’ve been?
The Questions That Changed Everything
I started asking harder questions:
- Why did I follow spiritual leaders so blindly?
- Why did I ignore my gut in the name of “respect”?
- Why didn’t I know what I wanted to be? Even as I was already grown up?
- What part of me was still waiting to be rescued?
These questions began to build me.
They called my attention to deeper considerations, and soon my journaling became deep self-inquiry.
At some point, blaming my parents for where I was lost, lost its edge.
They gave what they knew.
Now it was my turn to learn what I needed.
After I released blame and my brooding over my childhood experiences that hindered me, I decided to reparent myself.
What Is Reparenting?
Reparenting yourself means becoming the parent you needed. Not just for your inner child, but for the adult you are today.
It means teaching yourself what no one else did:
- How to feel safe within yourself
- How to take responsibility for your own direction
- How to define success on your terms
The problem was, I didn’t have a goal.
Defining success for me started with a quote I heard from Bob Proctor, originally from Dale Carnegie:
“Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy goal.”
For a brief moment, success felt within reach.
All I had to do was focus on moving toward my goal
The problem was, I didn’t have a goal.
I was living a life scripted by other people: what to believe, how to behave, who to love, what to chase.
None of it belonged to me.
I Had to Learn To Be A Grownup
Even though I was a mother of three, I’d been infantilised by systems, family, and religion for so long that I didn’t know how to be a grown-up..
But learning has always been my strong suit.
So I knew I could learn.
I began asking:
- What does success mean to me?
- Do I need a goal right now, or do I need space?
- Who do I trust with my growth and why?
- What part of me still believes someone else will fix me?
It wasn’t a linear journey, but it was real.
Slowly, I stopped trying to manage pain.
I stopped performative healing.
I started building my mental faculties.
I stopped outsourcing decisions.
I stopped tolerating bare minimums, especially in friendships.
I realised the version of me I was trying to become needed only my permission and commitment to manifest.
So I bet on myself.
The Real Turning Point
At 39, something began shifting.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
But steadily.
Turning 40 looked quiet on the surface, but internally, everything was changing.
By 41, I returned to Bob Proctor’s work again, this time, not to escape religious trauma, but to understand and apply the principles he so passionately swears by.
He teaches about the six higher mental faculties:
Imagination, Intuition, Will, Memory, Perception, and Reason.
These aren’t just cognitive functions. They’re the spiritual tools we use to build a meaningful life.
I had heard and started training these faculties as a yoga practitioner, but I didn’t think of them as deeply as I did after hearing Bob Proctor’s lecture.
These mental faculties are tools no one taught me to use.
But I was learning now. And I am good at learning.
My children weren’t just children anymore. They were becoming people.
And they looked to me not just for protection, but for example.
That meant I had to keep showing up for myself in all the ways I once wished someone had shown up for me.
And I do.
Every. Single. Day.
By sharing my process in this newsletter, I hope to invite you on this path of self-actualisation.
I hope to spark just enough curiosity in you that you reflect on what it means to become a person.
An Invitation To Breathwork Invitation
As a yoga practitioner, I often invite people to breath and be aware and mindful of thoughts and mental activity at least a few times daily.
Permit me to invite you to try here -
Place one hand on your heart, the other on your belly.
Breathe slowly and deeply for three minutes.
As you inhale and exhale, repeat:
‘I am safe.’
‘I am here.’
‘I am learning’
You’re Allowed to Begin Again
Even if you feel behind.
Even if you’re already grown.
You can still become someone new. Someone truer.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
On Becoming A Person, your story matters. This isn’t just my journey.
It’s ours.
Hit reply and share (if you’d like to):
What does reparenting look like for you right now?
What part of you is asking to be seen, loved, or guided?
You can also keep your answers to yourself.
These questions are meant to stir up thought in and for you.
Until next week,
With grace and breath,
Ese | WriterYogiMum