SELF-Parenting: State of the Art
The SELF-PARENTING Program represents the state of the art when you want to love, support, and nurture your Inner Child. This can be said because the SELF-Parenting Program is the original and remains the easiest, gentlest, and most direct system for changing the parenting style of your Inner Parent from negative to positive. Other speakers and/or systems promoting “inner child” work are still mostly two, and at least one generation behind the core reality of SELF-Parenting.
SELF-Parenting is “Inner Parent” work — NOT “Inner Child” work.
Self-Parenting practitioners understand this fundamental truth, whether in the public eye or not. You can play paddy-cake all day with your Inner Child. You can do wonderful meditations and guided imagery, and you can blab all day about how much you love and care about your Inner Child.
However, until you practice daily half-hour sessions of Self-Parenting for at least 3 months, you won’t have a clue concerning the real problems you have to confront—a negative and/or weak Inner Parent as represented by internal abuse or neglect of your Inner Child.
SELF-Parenting: The Complete Guide to Your Inner Conversations was phenomenally successful at introducing people to the relationship between their Inner Parent and Inner Child. This book was designed as a structured introduction to readers and therapists alike for making changes in your Self-Parenting Style. This is the book that brought knowledge of the “inner child” to the psychology profession and “recovery therapists” in the late 80’s.
It’s lost to humanity that before SELF-Parenting was published in 1987, had never been descriptions or methodologies for parenting the Inner Child or even an understanding that this interaction was occurring. Even today most people are unaware that they Self-Parenting themselves (unconsciously) all day and all night, day in and day out, from the cradle to the grave.
The yellow book presents the starting guidelines. It introduces you to the personalities of the Inner Parent and Inner Child and the process of Self-Parenting as a non-stop daily mental activity of “inner conversations.” These key principles had never been laid out before, anywhere, by anyone.
There were some inklings before 1987 that the Inner Child was a part of us and that we should nurture it. But there were certainly no practical guidelines or procedures beyond “nurture your ‘child within,’ it’s a good idea.” SELF-Parenting was written to let people know they have an Inner Child AND an Inner Parent. It provided specific definitions and terminology in such a clear manner that it made the concept of “SELF-Parenting” appear to be everyday stuff that everyone knew.
The clarity and simplicity of the “SELF-Parenting” concept made the subconscious world of the Inner Conversations accessible and understandable. This new awareness spread quickly. That is why many therapists jumped on this new trend using the “inner child” as a marketing tool. If they wanted to sell their lame book, tired tape, or stale video, they put the words “inner child” on the cover. This even spread to magazine and TV ads.
Yet this new interest in the Inner Child was still one generation behind the reality of SELF-Parenting. Even today, 30+ years after the publication of SELF-Parenting: The Complete Guide to Your Inner Conversations, your average person who has even heard of it doesn’t understand that the key to healing the Inner Child is to train and maintain a positive Inner Parent.
SELF-Parenting is “Inner Parent work” — NOT “Inner Child” work. This is the revelation that people who practice daily S/P find out, but only through practical experience. If I could give you a brand new Inner Child, one perfect in every way, in six months you would create the same type of Inner Child you have now. If I could give you a perfect Inner Parent for 6 months, you would have a positive and loving Inner Child within three months, regardless of the Inner Child you have now.
Unfortunately, I can’t create your ideal Inner Parent for you. However, I CAN give you all the training and guidelines you need to achieve this goal for your own self. You can transform a negative S/P style, to a positive S/P Style simply by creating a “perfect” Inner Parent in yourself. So sign up, learn, and apply.
Simply “hearing about,” “getting in touch with,” or “knowing you have” an Inner Child is not going to accomplish much on the positive Self-Parenting scale. It’s a first step, but that’s all. Some people even use their new found “knowledge” of the Inner Child to get into trouble by trying to change or manipulate their Inner Child using the exact same negative tactics of their “normal” Inner Parent.
You began your S/P process by the “programming” you were given by your outer parents. If this was negative in your experience, then you will have to work through this programming in order to change your SELF-Parenting Style from negative to positive.
I have been testing and teaching Self-Parenting for over thirty years. I still do my sessions every day. As far as I know, I am the only person teaching in this field who has ever done so. If you are serious about improving your SELF-Parenting style as an Inner Parent it can happen here. I can’t do it for you; neither can anyone else. When you begin to practice regular half-hour sessions, I will be there to support you.
Yours in Positive Self-Parenting,
John K. Pollard, III