How To Start Reparenting Yourself & Healing Your Inner Child
I recently sat down with Nicole LePera, Ph.D., also known as The Holistic Psychologist, to talk about something that affects nearly all of us: the ways our childhood experiences shape who we become as adults.
LePera has built a massive following (over 9 million on Instagram alone) by helping people understand their patterns and how to change them. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, but one concept kept coming back: reparenting. It's a word that gets thrown around a lot in wellness circles, but LePera's take on it is refreshingly practical.
What reparenting actually means
LePera is clear that reparenting isn't about blaming your parents. "I always like to say it's not about fault. It's about understanding," she told me. "It's about understanding why we are the way we are."
Reparenting is essentially becoming the parent you needed, for yourself, as an adult. It's learning to give yourself the safety, validation, and support that may have been missing when you were young. And it starts with understanding where your patterns actually come from.
3 behaviors that feel like personality but aren't
LePera walked me through three common traits that many of us assume are just "who we are", but are actually protective adaptations from childhood.
- Hyper-independence. These are the kids who learned early that they couldn't rely on anyone else. "They shark-finned it through life on their own," LePera explained. Maybe their parents were emotionally unavailable, or maybe asking for help was met with criticism. So they stopped asking. As adults, they struggle to delegate, hate asking for help, and often feel like they have to do everything themselves.
- Overachieving and drive. LePera explained that many high achievers developed their drive because achievement was the only way to get attention or approval as kids. "The kid that was only seen when they were doing, when they were achieving, when they were winning the awards," she said. The problem? That drive can become compulsive.
- Heightened sensitivity. If you grew up in an unpredictable environment, you likely became hypervigilant. You learned to read the room, to sense shifts in energy and to anticipate what was coming. It's a survival skill that can feel like a personality trait.
What's really happening when you overreact
Ever had a reaction that felt way too big for the situation? It may feel like it's a character flaw, but LePera calls this "emotional flooding."
"When we're flooded, we are no longer in our thinking brain," she explained. We're reacting as a much younger version of ourselves.
The key insight here is that your nervous system doesn't know the difference between past and present. When something triggers an old wound, your body responds as if you're back in that original moment. That's why a small comment from your partner or a friend can send you spiraling. It's not about the comment, but what the comment activates.
Trauma isn't always what you think
One of the most important reframes LePera offered is about trauma itself. We tend to think of trauma as big, obvious events like abuse, neglect, major loss. But LePera defines it differently: "Trauma is any experience where we didn't have the support to process what happened."
This means you can have a "normal" childhood and still carry wounds. Maybe your parents were physically present but emotionally checked out. Maybe you were told your feelings were "too much." Maybe there was no space for you to be anything other than fine.
The point isn't to catastrophize your childhood. It's make sense of your patterns by seeing them as solutions to problems you faced as a kid.
Where to get started
So how can you use this knowledge in your own life? LePera offered a simple but powerful framework:
- Pause before reacting. When you feel that flood of emotion coming, don't act on it immediately. Even a few seconds can interrupt the automatic response.
- Drop into your body. Instead of staying in your head (analyzing, justifying, spiraling), notice what's happening physically. Where do you feel tension? What does the emotion actually feel like in your body?
- Ask yourself: What do I need right now? This is the reparenting moment. Instead of pushing through or going numb, asking yourself what the younger part of you actually needs. Maybe it's reassurance. Maybe it's rest. Maybe it's just acknowledgment that this is hard.
The takeaway
LePera's work shows us that our patterns aren't flaws, they're adaptations. They're creative solutions your younger self came up with to survive. The work now is recognizing when those old strategies no longer serve you, and slowly, patiently, learning new ones.
And maybe that's the whole point of reparenting. Not erasing your past, but finally giving yourself what you needed all along.