Parents Were The First Voices

Though you cannot actually remember your birth, your earliest recollections most likely involve your parents. From your earliest days, they gave you messages intended to improve your ability to take care of yourself and get along with others. If not, you tended to receive the opposite messages – how to be dependent and not get along with others.

Your parents were, in fact, in total control of life and death in your early years. They were the sole source of knowledge about the world, and much of your interpretation of the world, your environment and others are derived from these earliest impressions. Whether you have accepted, modified or rejected them, they are the central core of your belief history – your 'original programming.'

It should be no surprise, then, when you encounter these stored messages, personified and sometimes masquerading as the Inner Self. The Parent also sometimes masquerades as the Sage, the Wise and All-Knowing One, different from Ego only in its message.

• Parent focuses on 'shoulds.'
• Parent is concerned about relationships with others.
• Parent wants to be helpful, but sometimes is destructive.
• Parent is the keeper of history.
• Parent knows everything.

Your encounter with Parent will directly reflect your experiences with your parents throughout the years. This is one way you can identify this voice. Listen for messages telling you what you should or should not do, or those that want to be helpful – or conversely that threaten dire consequences.

Parent Is A Valuable Source Of Guidance

Like Ego, it is not in your best interest to try to destroy or frustrate the Parent. In many ways, Parent can be a valuable source of information and guidance that you should not ignore.

As long as relationships with others and personal history are important, you always should weigh messages you identify as coming from Parent very carefully. These messages can be very helpful.

They also can be very limiting. Because you must grow beyond our original programming, you must also be aware that sometimes you must set aside the Parent and continue to search for the more important source: the Inner Self.