It’s Never Too Late to Heal Your Parent Wounds

The other day I was talking with someone in his 50s who still carried a lot of frustration toward his mom. As he shared, what I heard beneath the anger was something deeply human: the longing to be acknowledged and for her to take accountability for the ways she had, and still sometimes does, hurt him.

It reminded me how many of us, no matter our age, still feel the sting of old wounds from our parents. 

On the one hand, yes—they hurt us, neglected us, or expected too much of us. 

On the other hand, if we don’t choose to heal those wounds, they echo forward. We carry them into our relationships, and eventually, we risk passing them on.

Healing your parent wounds isn’t about excusing what happened. It’s about reclaiming your power so the cycle ends with you.

My Story: The Parentified Daughter

From a young age, I was the capable one. At five years old, I’d come home from school, sit down at the table, and do my homework without anyone asking. I was the dependable daughter—the one who kept track of where my parents were, how they were doing, and whether they needed me.

A lot was expected of me, but I was given little support. There were many reasons for that, but a big one was that because I was smart and mature, they assumed I didn’t need to be worried about.

My mother leaned on me emotionally, and our relationship was complicated and codependent. For much of my childhood, she was largely absent, which was deeply painful. When she eventually moved across the country, I only saw her a handful of times between ages 11 and 17. We were able to work through some of our issues while she was alive, but it wasn’t until after she passed away in 2021 from stage 4 breast cancer that I truly began to understand the depth of her impact on me.

My father, on the other hand, was strong, gruff, and demanding. He held me to a high standard, and I often walked away feeling like I wasn’t enough. We’ve since worked on our relationship and are close now, but back then, I carried the constant weight of trying to measure up.

Looking back, I can see how the lack of healthy examples from both of my parents shaped the way I related to my own energy. Without strong models for what healthy masculine and feminine looked like, I leaned heavily into their wounded forms. 

The father wound showed up in me as hyper-independence—always in my “doing” energy, uncomfortable resting, and afraid to fully receive support. 

At the same time, the mother wound fueled my over-giving and people-pleasing, leaving me stuck in wounded feminine energy where love felt tied to self-abandonment.

Here’s the challenge with these kinds of wounds: they don’t just affect how we interact with our parents, they influence almost every part of our lives. They shape how we show up in relationships, how we see ourselves, and even how we understand what masculine and feminine energy is supposed to look like. 

And since every one of us carries both energies, when we inherit unhealed wounds from our parents, it ends up distorting those energies at the very core of who we are. 

That distortion of masculine and feminine energy can ripple into everything—romantic partnerships, friendships, work dynamics, and even how we parent our own children. 

It’s why we might confuse drive that’s fueled by anger or fear with healthy masculine strength, or mistake self-sacrifice and people-pleasing for healthy feminine care.

This is why it’s so important to look at masculine and feminine energy—because without healthy models from our parents, we often confuse the wounded versions of those energies with who we are.

Masculine and Feminine Energy (and How They Get Wounded)

Healthy masculine energy looks like protection, structure, direction, and the ability to take action with confidence.

Wounded masculine energy shows up as control, rigidity, anger, aggression, or detachment.

Healthy feminine energy is receptive, nurturing, creative, intuitive, and fluid.

Wounded feminine energy often looks like over-giving, people-pleasing, self-abandoning, or emotional chaos.

When our parents are carrying their own wounds, we inherit the ripple effects. This is what creates what’s often called the father wound (linked to trust, safety, and structure) and the mother wound (linked to self-worth, nurturing, and belonging).

The father wound might leave you feeling unsupported or doubting your ability to stand strong on your own. 

The mother wound might leave you believing your needs are too much, or that love has to be earned by caretaking others.

These wounds don’t just live in your mind. They live in your nervous system and unconscious programming, showing up as triggers, self-doubt, and relationship dynamics you can’t quite break free from.

The Role of the Unconscious Mind

To really understand how these parental wounds shape us, we need to talk about the unconscious mind. Think of it as the hidden operating system running beneath everything you do. 

It runs on 21 key operating principles and dictates over 90% of your thoughts, behaviors, and actions. It stores every memory, belief, and emotional imprint you’ve ever absorbed—not just from childhood, but also from generational and even past-life experiences.

The unconscious doesn’t judge whether something is healthy or harmful. Its job is to keep you safe, so it clings to whatever once gave you comfort, protection, or belonging. 

That’s why you might consciously want to let go of self-doubt or people-pleasing, but unconsciously, you still feel pulled back into it—because at some point in the past, and especially in your childhood, that behavior “worked.”

This is why change can feel so discouraging. You can read all the books, journal every day, or remind yourself that you “know better,” but until your unconscious programming shifts, you’ll keep slipping back into the same old instructions. Willpower alone can’t undo what’s wired beneath the surface—and the unconscious mind can’t be bullied into submission.

This is where the work gets deeply personal. Understanding the unconscious mind in theory is one thing. But living with the impact of its old instructions—in your relationships, your self-worth, and your ability to care for yourself—is another. 

Healing the mother wound and father wound requires more than awareness. It’s about reprogramming the unconscious so it no longer mistakes old survival strategies for your true identity.

Even if your parent never apologizes, never changes, or is no longer alive, your unconscious mind is still carrying their imprint. The good news is, your healing doesn’t depend on them—it depends on how you work with the programming their wounds left behind.

You Don’t Need Your Parent’s Apology to Heal

It’s natural to long for an apology or for your parent to finally acknowledge the ways they hurt you. That desire for recognition is deeply human. But here’s the truth: your healing does not depend on their apology, their change, or their willingness to meet you where you are.

Focusing on what your parent will or won’t do is a recipe for frustration, because it puts your power in someone else’s hands. After all, it’s not about changing the other person—it’s about recognizing and shifting the dynamic that’s been playing out between you.

If your parent is open to processing with you, it can be a meaningful and even healing experience to share your truth with them. I’ve had powerful conversations with my dad that helped repair parts of our relationship.

But not everyone will have that opportunity, and for many people, it may not be safe or healthy to pursue it. Sometimes parents have passed away, or sometimes engaging them directly would only deepen the wound.

That doesn’t mean you can’t heal. You don’t need your parent’s participation to release the programming underneath your wounds. In fact, this is where unconscious reprogramming becomes so powerful.

In my work with clients, when it’s appropriate, I use an exercise called Perceptual Positions that allows them to step into a dialogue with their parent in a guided, supportive way—even if the parent isn’t present. 

These processes can be profoundly healing, but they’re not required. What matters most is updating the unconscious patterns those wounds left behind.

Because at the end of the day, your unconscious mind doesn’t know whether your parent has changed or apologized—it only knows the emotional charge that’s still living in your system. 

When that charge is released, you stop circling the same pain. You’re able to meet yourself, and even your parent, with compassion instead of frustration. And from that place, every relationship in your life begins to reorganize around your healing.

How I Chose to Heal

I carried my mother wound and father wound around for years. As a parentified daughter, I could have stayed stuck in resentment, replaying the ways my parents let me down. And for a time, I did. 

I struggled to use my voice, felt the sting of abandonment and not being chosen, and brought those wounds into friendships, work, and romantic relationships alike. The anger was real, and it kept me circling the same pain without resolution.

But as I moved further along on my growth journey, I realized something important: unless I addressed these wounds at the unconscious level, they would keep shaping my life. They would continue dictating how I showed up in relationships, how much I believed I was worth, and whether I could care for myself without guilt.

That’s why I’m so grateful my path led me to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnotherapy. These modalities gave me the tools to work with my unconscious mind—to release the repressed emotions and limiting beliefs that kept me tethered to old pain. 

Over time, I combined them with other practices like astrology and Reiki to support both myself and my clients in reconnecting with their soul’s purpose, integrating the lessons they came here to learn, and tapping into the universal energy we all share. This work is about more than healing and growing, it’s about reclaiming your power and autonomy, stepping into the driver’s seat of your life, and moving forward with clarity and direction.

Through this process, I came to understand something crucial: my parents truly did the best they could with what they had. Their wounds didn’t start with them; they were passed down from their parents, who also lacked the tools and language to shift those patterns.

Taking responsibility for my healing didn’t mean excusing their behavior. It meant deciding the cycle ends with me—a choice that felt both empowering and deeply liberating.

Why Healing Matters: The Choice to End the Cycle

If we don’t address our parent wounds, we carry them forward. We risk repeating the same unconscious strategies: chasing love, abandoning ourselves, or recreating the same dynamics with our partners or children.

Your unconscious mind runs on survival rules it created long ago—“this is how I get love, attention, or safety.” And while those rules made “sense” in childhood, they hold you back as an adult in so many ways.

Healing isn’t about erasing what happened. It’s about updating the programming so you no longer have to live as the hurt child. You get to step into the grounded, conscious adult who can nurture, protect, and guide yourself in ways your parents couldn’t.

While it may feel justified to hold onto anger or resentment toward your parents—and you may be right about the ways they failed you—if you don’t heal those wounds, you’re the one who continues to suffer.

Worse, you may unconsciously pass those wounds forward. Not because you want to, but because your unconscious mind is still running the show.

That’s why I do this work now, for myself and for my clients. To heal the unconscious generational programming. To stop the cycle here. To free ourselves so we no longer cling to the very wounds that disempower us.

Your Next Step

If you’re still carrying anger, grief, or unmet needs from your parents, it’s not too late. You don’t have to stay stuck in resentment, and you don’t have to keep repeating the same dynamics.

Even though your parents shaped your early programming, you get to decide how the story continues.

In The Reclaimed Mind, I guide clients through the unconscious reprogramming process—releasing repressed emotions, dissolving limiting beliefs, and updating the protective strategies so you can develop a new relationship with yourself and, by extension, with everyone in your life.

If you’re ready to release what’s been passed down and reclaim your power, I invite you to book a Discovery Call, and we’ll begin the work of healing your parent wounds so you can step fully into the life you were meant to create.