Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

by Becky Kennedy

You have your brave self, your anxious self, your confident self, your deferential self. You are multifaceted, not any one thing. And none of these parts are bad or worse than or superior to another—you are the sum of all of them, and the more comfortable you are when any of these parts “acts up,” the more at home you’ll be with yourself across a variety of situations. Our confidence and sturdiness and sense of self depend on our ability to understand this. When we feel overwhelmed and become reactive, it’s almost always because one part of us has essentially taken over; we lose track of our identity and instead “become” these feelings. The language of “parts” allows us to articulate, internally and externally, our conflicting—or at least coexisting—emotions: to feel grounded while experiencing distress, to feel centered while also being conflicted, to have angry thoughts while knowing we are a good person.