Michaela Coel’s 2021 Emmy Speech and Re-Parenting Our Inner Child
Did you also catch Michaela Coel’s powerful speech at the 2021 Emmy Awards ceremony?
Michaela invited us to dare to go against the grain and embody our own authenticity. This invitation is exactly what decolonized healing through re-parenting our inner child is all about at Come Back to Care.
“Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable. I dare you. In a world that entices us to browse the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to, in turn, feel the need to be constantly visible — for visibility, these days, seems to somehow equate to success — do not be afraid to disappear from it, from us, for a while. And see what comes to you in the silence… I dedicate this story to every single survivor of sexual assault.”
In her brief remark, Michaela touched on why resilience needs both stillness and story- the former is body-based awareness (which is a core component of the “Through” in our In-Out-N-Through™ framework) and the latter is storytelling or the “Out.”
Michaela’s remark on disappearing and observing what arises in silence makes me think of body-based awareness. When you’re still long enough, you tend to notice your body’s subtle cues that take place moments before your coping habits kick in and the inner critics start to roar.
My body’s cues are tight knot in my stomach, heat in the back of my neck, dry mouth, and sweaty palms that precede a deep sense of shame…right before I start to google another certificate training to do. I mean if I have another institution to certify my legitimacy that means I’m good enough, right?
If you have no sense of what your body is doing or how it’s responding, please know that you’re not alone. White supremacy and capitalism ask us to override our body’s communication/wisdom so that we can maximize the number of hours we trade for labor. Many of us have gotten really good at this, so much so that we overemphasize cognition and don’t pay attention to our body’s senses.
For bodies of culture (as Resmaa Menakem calls people of color) we override our needs because to survive systemic oppression we gotta keep moving.
It’s hard for us to be still in silence long enough to come back to our body.
I’m not advocating for us to come back to the body to be mindful or Zen or do self-care. These things are great.
What I want to focus on rather is another thing that lives in our body: our inner child wounds, or attachment injuries formed in our childhood.
It’s not even about rehashing the past because these inner child wounds show up today in what’s called parenting triggers. Yup, it’s when your buttons get pushed when your child either wants to connect with you or be independent and away from you.
These triggers are our outdated survival strategies that kept us alive as a child. We developed them unconsciously. I learned fast to blend in, be invisible, and work hard at school because being quiet and excelling academically were the only ways I felt connected to my parents.
Just to be clear my parents weren’t out to get me; they weren’t cold or harsh. The point is I was adapting to my parents’ preference and that adaptation became my habit or go-to style for building and maintaining relationships.
Remember my tight knot in my stomach, heat in the back of my neck, dry mouth, and sweaty palms when I feel shame? They’re still alive and well.
What’s different however is what I do with them when I notice them. I no longer fly on autopilot and reflexively Google a Ph.D. program whenever I feel I’m not worthy enough. When I’m centered and grounded, I use that tight knot in my stomach as a cue to sit a bit taller, stretch my neck side to side, and take a mindful breath.
Parents in the In-Out-N-Through™ program practice this body awareness in each of our six classes. It’s not just noticing your cues but practicing this pivot to form a new habit. Consider those outdated survival resources getting an upgrade from your nervous system as you’re installing a more adaptive coping habit.
When we deepen our awareness of how the parenting triggers or inner child wounds unfold in our body, it’s as if we pointed our flashlight into dark corners in the room. We make those unconscious habits and patterns conscious. And with this consciousness you are no longer hijacked (unknowingly) by your past when you say “Oh crap, I sounded just like my mom.” You’re more conscious and intentional about how you show up as the parent you know you can be…most of the time.
This body awareness (Through; bottom-up healing approach) becomes much more impactful when it’s paired with cognitive awareness via storytelling (Out; top-down).
Michaela also put it so beautifully: “Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable.”
You know how literal I am about “being the author of your own life’s story.”
Journaling and storytelling are the Out in the In-Out-N-Through™ framework.
When your life stories are hard to make sense of because they’re fragmented by early childhood wounds or systemic oppression, it's important to tell these stories to integrate those fragmented parts into a wholesome, coherent story. With this coherence, you’re able to make sense of your own life experience. It translates to how well you make sense and understand your child’s behaviors and personalities too.
As your neurons can re-wire and form new connections, you can re-write your life’s story.
The body-based awareness shines a flashlight into the unconscious habits. The storytelling puts words to the unconscious and even adds a highlighter on top of it too…making this unconscious conscious and shiny.
That’s why the re-parenting our inner child needs all three elements- In (self-reflection), Out (storytelling), and Through (body-based practice). Michaela Coel called it!
If you’d like to go beyond the “what” of parenting and arrive at your “how” and “why”…
If you want more than parenting knowledge where you implement parenting strategies flawlessly…
Rather, you want parenting wisdom where your parenting decisions emerge from many reps of practice, mistake, repair, and U-turn…
I’d love to invite you to join the In-Out-N-Through ™ program and deepen this decolonized parenting and intergenerational family healing together.