Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents Quotes

“In childhood, when people invalidate or dismiss your inner experiences, your inner world seems unworthy of being taken seriously.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“A rigid or easily threatened parent will make it very clear that certain traits and behaviors are bad and deserve rejection or punishment. At the same time, such a parent may show warmth or approval if the child acts in ways that the parent can relate to.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“Your relationship with yourself is the most vital relationship you have, essential for real connection with other people.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“But in childhood you may have learned to disregard your inner messages and do what other people thought was right for you. There’s a huge cost for that later, setting you up for living a life that is not what you want. Instead, try to rediscover yourself from the inside out, listening for those cues that tell you what to seek and what to avoid.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“It’s the people who don’t listen to their soul and don’t feel that self-connection who end up causing the most suffering for others.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“DNA is not a life sentence.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“The pleasure you get from task completion is powerful, but it has a short half-life. It does not linger to sustain you over the days to come. Enjoyment of task completion fades surprisingly fast, just like a drug high. That is because there is no heart in it, no warm, glowing feeling of connection to the world and other people. It is a sugar high compared to the sustaining nutrients of relational, experiential living.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“Growing up subject to others’ emotional immaturity can be frustrating and emotionally painful. Consequently, you may feel especially grateful when delightful people come along to make you feel like all is right with the world. Around them, it feels natural to be yourself. Your thinking is clear, your heart feels warm, and they draw the very best out of you. You simultaneously become more yourself—and more than yourself.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“This is often the result of trying to be something that you are not, such as trying to fit in with or please an EI person. But when you are attuned with your soul, the meaning of life feels self-evident, and you feel right with the world.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“When you disregard your own feelings and thoughts, your inner world feels empty and you start obsessing over other people and external circumstances. You then try to get other people to fill the vacuum left behind by your own emotional self-neglect.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“In childhood, when people invalidate or dismiss your inner experiences, your inner world seems unworthy of being taken seriously. If others won’t listen to your deepest feelings, you start tuning out what goes on inside you. You learn to turn away from the rich inner world that could sustain you regardless of outer circumstances.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“That is why it is so crucial for caretakers and those who have to deal with difficult, dominating people such as EI parents to get away and engage in other replenishing activities and diversions. The tired brain wants to slip into a mode in which there is no need to watch your step, think of others, or inhibit thoughts and impulses. That is why laughing at a TV show or being with good friends is so relaxing. Your brain can just let go and no longer has to work at putting the brakes on itself. Free, unopposed mental functioning is relaxing and energizing.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“People who lacked emotional engagement in childhood, men and women alike, often can’t believe that someone would want to have a rela- tionship with them just because of who they are. They believe that if they want closeness, they must play a role that always puts the other person first.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self, and Live with Confidence

“So if you catch yourself saying, “I’m not that kind of person,” ask yourself, “How do I know that?” Is it true deep in your soul, or is it because you were made to feel uncomfortable about those interests?”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“Another practice that has given healthy pride a bad name is excessive praise for the smallest childhood success, from earning tokens in the classroom to the trophy glut at Little League. Many adults are turned off by this overpraise, sensing that the children are being done no favor. In fact, research has shown that many children overpraised for success end up becoming more cautious and less motivated than the kids who were praised only for their amount of effort, successful or not.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“If others won’t listen to your deepest feelings, you start tuning out what goes on inside you. You learn to turn away from the rich inner world that could sustain you regardless of outer circumstances.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“If you grew up putting others first too much, you may end up living a life of reaction rather than one of fulfillment.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“It now sets goals without consulting the emotions at all. Whoever gets you to accept an idea—especially when it goes against your deeper feelings—owns your soul. This has been the goal of brainwashers for centuries, and EI parents do it too. Once you’ve been trained to trust your thoughts over your feelings, you can be made to believe that bad situations and exploitative people are necessary in your life and even good for you.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“What fascinates me is how we decide which of these inner voices to listen to. How do we tell which voice is a good source of guidance and which is going to get us into trouble? Many people have told me that they had a quiet knowing about a situation way before they took action on it. They could remember when a still, small voice told them the truth, even if they were not ready to accept what it had to say. Have you had this experience? Even years later, you recall that you knew all along that something was a bad idea. Yet instead, you followed the insistent voice telling you that you must do otherwise, regardless of how you felt or what you knew.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence

“This further disconnects you from your inner world, reinforcing the false belief that security and stimulation can only come from outside yourself. Relationships become frustrating under these conditions because you’re looking to other people for a validation that is already yours.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self & Live with Confidence