08/11/2026
After working with a handful of men the last while, I've learned that the Inner Child and "softer" parts of them become prisoners and orphaned due to the resistance to feeling and being witnessed.
Nothing has shown itself more moving than hearing a full grown man be told "I need you to stop letting people hurt me... I need you here... Not them" by the inner child.
We've all seen it and been there; when the man or even woman we love rushes to be mothered or fathered by their partner. You love the person, but you did not sign up to parent them. They, however, do have a responsibility to nurture, protect, and care for themselves.
*and that's what's crossed*
When we aren't brought up in such a way that promotes our healthy independence, whether because of parental or childhood experiences or otherwise, we ultimately send our child selves out into the world to look for parents that they'll never really find. Our partners are treated like caretakers to our innocence, and then we wonder where the power and responsibility dynamics, emotional mismatch, or burn out came from. The parent our "inner child" needs is not even our own parents – they need us grounded and confident in our ability to move through life.
We have a responsibility to ourselves to learn and relearn how to healthily nurture and hold ourselves accountable. In Hypno-Journey, we do this through meeting the inner parents to begin the old phrase "reparenting."
We consciously meet and dialogue with inner representatives of the parents to begin not only healing, but withdrawing any projected responsibility off of those we're close to.
Men need therapy, absolutely; but they also need spaces to be witnessed, to cry, and to dialogue with other people who may be starting that same homecoming. Their inner children are often scared and searching for relational safety, but unfortunately are also held really close and quiet unless projected outward onto partners. Reparenting helps to untether protection from self-imprisonment, and we're able to learn new ways of keeping ourselves safe emotionally.
Long thought piece but definitely a theme recently!
Thanks for reading,
Talon
BodyMind Integrations
Learn about Hypno-Journey: www.bodymindintegrations.com/hypno-journey
