Becoming Your Own Loving Parent Guidebook Study

Meet Now

Loving Parent Guidebook - Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting Format

Welcome everyone! Thank you for being here this morning.

This is a study group meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. My name is ___________ and I am chairing this morning. This meeting focuses on recovery through the study, application, and practice of reparenting. The Solution named in the ACA program is to become your own loving parent. Working in The Loving Parent Guidebook helps us act as adults grounded in the present rather than reacting from childhood coping mechanisms. We meet to practice hearing, affirming, and speaking to our inner children and listening to others model these skills until 11:00 AM PST (end time).

Let’s open the meeting with a prayer/meditation followed by our silent guided reparenting check-in. 

 

Would someone please lead us in either the ACA serenity prayer or reparenting meditation?

 

ACA SERENITY PRAYER

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,

the courage to change the one I can,

and the wisdom to know that one is me. 

 

-AND/OR-

 

REPARENTING PRAYER/MEDITATION 

May I open my heart and recognize

the love that is already inside me.

May I trust that with love

I CAN become my own loving parent.

 

 

 

Thank you, ____________. We will now begin our weekly reparenting guided meditation. Please check that all cell phones are turned down.

 

Reparenting Check-in Chart

  1. GUIDED MEDITATION: (Extended Version)
  2. GUIDED MEDITATION: (Condensed Version)
  3. GUIDED PRACTICE: Discovering Your  Inner Teen
  4. GUIDED PRACTICE: Inner Child
  5. GUIDED PRACTICE: Loving Parent

Meeting Boundaries - Please read these if you are new to the meeting.

We ask that everyone respect the following meeting boundaries: 

  • We use relaxed crosstalk rules: commenting on each other's shares is accepted, but we avoid judgments, evaluations, and unsolicited advice.
  • Please use the words "I, me, and my" to share your personal experience.  Please avoid the use of "you, we, and us" except when speaking directly to your inner child or teenager, since it takes the focus off your unique perspective.
  • Anything heard at this meeting stays at the meeting. Please respect the privacy and vulnerability of those who shared here today.

 

(Top of Page 116, resume w/modifications in notes, just finished "No-one listens to me")

Okay, we're on page ___ in The Loving Parent Guidebook. We will take turns reading and sharing. We will end our reading and sharing time at 10:50 AM PST to ensure we end the meeting by 11:00 AM PST. 

  • When a member has passed, please feel free to share or relate to the subject matter just read and how it affects you.
  • Please keep your share to 1-2 minutes so that others may share.
  • When everyone has had a chance to share, another member is encouraged to read.

Who would like to start the reading? Thank you, _________!

 

(At 10:50 am):

Thank you all for your participation in today's meeting. Before we close, let's go around the room and share what we are taking away from this meeting.

 

To close, would someone please lead us in the reparenting prayer/meditation:

 

May I remember that reparenting is a journey.

I don’t need to figure this out right now.

I can read, pause, and take a gentleness break when needed.

I am loved, cherished and capable.

 

THANK YOU!

KEEP COMING BACK, IT WORKS IF YOU WORK IT SO WORK IT 'CAUSE YOU'RE WORTH IT! 

 

 

REPARENTING BOOK MATERIAL:

Chapter 2 Exercise: Letter to Your Loving Inner Parent

Journaling - Good Parent Messages

ACA_Reparenting Check-In Worksheet (acawso.org)

Feelings-Needs-Physical-Sensations-LPG-Help-Sheet_Appendix_D.pdf (adultchildren.org)

Inner Family Chart

 

The ACA Solution is to become our own loving parent. Reparenting is a skill that can be learned, and the more we practice the check-in, the more we deepen this skill. Initially, we might use the reparenting check-in primarily to work with triggers and address dissociation. While we cannot avoid getting triggered, we can choose to do a check-in to see what part of us needs love and attention. Later, we learn to do check-ins throughout the day. When we check in, we interrupt reactive behavioral patterns and create new healthy ones. These moments are where freedom lies. Checking-in helps strengthen the loving parent. It also develops our capacity to identify and feel our feelings, grounds us in our bodies, and helps us identify our inner family members and their needs. In this active practice, we turn the love and care inward that we’ve directed to, or sought from, others, often at our expense. We increase our ability to protect, nurture, and guide our inner children each time we do a reparenting check-in. Some find that writing down their answers to the check-in makes it easier to focus. Others like to do the check-in as a silent meditation.