©Arlene R. Taylor PhD    www.arlenetaylor.org

articles200408STEP 1. I recognize that I have not completed all the developmental tasks of childhood and admit that in my own strength I am powerless to reparent myself successfully.

STEP 2. I believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to wholeness and enable me to effectively reparent myself.

STEP 3. In this reparenting process, I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand my Higher Power.

STEP 4. I am making a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, doing family-of-origin work to discover the factors that interfered with the satisfactory completion of some of the development tasks of childhood.

STEP 5. I admit to my Higher Power, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of the areas in which I need reparenting and am ready to have my Higher Power assist me in this process.

STEP 6. I am entirely ready to have my Higher Power help me to reparent myself and to complete the developmental tasks of childhood that I have not successfully learned.

STEP 7. I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings and to give me clarity of vision in the reparenting process.

STEP 8. I am making a list of individuals I have harmed because of my immaturity, contributed to by unsatisfactory completion of some of the developmental tasks of childhood, and am willing to make amends.

STEP 9. Wherever and whenever possible, I am making amends to people I have harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others.

STEP 10. I continue to take personal inventory during my reparenting process and promptly admit when I am wrong.

STEP 11. I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power, asking for wisdom and energy to reparent myself toward wholeness.

STEP 12. I am reparenting myself toward wholeness and am sharing my experience with others as appropriate, encouraging them in their recovery and reparenting process even as I practice these principles in my life on a daily basis.