How we reclaim the self that was blamed for needing love.
This map is about repair.
Not surface-level healing.
But the kind that goes deep—back to the part of you that never got to feel safe.
Because trauma isn’t just what happened.
It’s what didn’t happen:
- No one protected you.
- No one helped you understand your emotions.
- No one showed you it was okay to have needs.
And over time, you began to believe you were the problem.
This framework helps you find that part again—and bring them home.
DISCLAIMER
This framework is still in the making. Some sections are unfinished or may evolve as we continue refining the language, tools, and structure.
8.1 – When Nobody Came to Help: The Emotional Blueprint of Childhood Trauma.
8.1 How We Abandon Ourselves to Survive8.2 Becoming the Caregiver You Always Needed8.3 Bringing the Crying Baby Home8.4 How to Hold Pride Without Shame8.5 Finding the Self Behind the Mask8.6 When You Stop Being Who Others Wanted You to B8.7 Real Love Requires Real Safety8.8 Healing the Lineage - Rebuilding Generational BridgesYou’ll move through eight pages:
- How We Abandon Ourselves to Survive
Why disconnection was once a strategy—and how we start to return
- Becoming the Caregiver You Always Needed
- Bringing the Crying Baby Home
- How to Hold Pride Without Shame
- Finding the Self Behind the Mask
- When You Stop Being Who Others Wanted You to Be
- Real Love Requires Real Safety
- Healing the Lineage – Rebuilding Generational Bridges
A new parenting model that begins with reparenting ourselves
A somatic healing practice to meet the part of you that still hurts
Why taking responsibility can feel like liberation—not self-blame
How to reclaim the real you beneath performance and survival
Why healing often changes your relationships—and how to hold your ground
Love is not a test of endurance—it’s a space where truth can live
The legacy of emotional repair: ending the story of silence and pain
This is where the cycle ends.
And where a new one begins—
based on truth, safety, and the quiet courage to care for yourself.
You’re not alone anymore.
You’re home.
⌗ Comparative Framework Chart
Framework 6 – “Healing the Inner Child & Re-building Ourselves” × Developmental Psychology • Attachment Theory • Somatic-Bodywork
Paretas Phase | Core Task (“What’s Happening”) | Developmental-Psychology Mirror | Attachment‐Lens Translation | Somatic / Neuro-biological Correlate | Key Thinkers / Modalities |
1. Naming the Abandonment<br>(“How we abandon ourselves to survive”) | Recognise childhood emotional neglect & the adaptive false-self. | Erikson’s early crises (Trust vs Mistrust, Autonomy vs Shame) – unmet stages lock in threat schemas. | Internal working-model forms “I’m too much / not enough” → insecure (anxious/avoidant) patterns2. | Limbic alarm → chronic sympathetic tone; implicit memory stores “emotional flashbacks.” | Bowlby, Crittenden, Bruce Perry |
2. Self-Reparenting<br>(“Becoming the caregiver you needed”) | Build an internal secure base that offers attunement, soothing, structure. | Winnicott’s “good-enough mother”; Self-Compassion training. | Induce earned security by offering consistent felt safety to younger parts. | Vagal toning & oxytocin release during self-soothing; strengthens vmPFC ↔ amygdala coupling. | Kristin Neff (self-compassion), IFS “Self energy” |
3. Somatic Retrieval<br>(“Bringing the crying baby home”) | Contact preverbal affect through imagery, breath, touch. | Piaget’s sensorimotor traces; implicit procedural memory. | Repair mis-attunement by co-regulating body states first, words later. | Somatic techniques: grounding, pendulation, therapeutic touch—proven to down-shift autonomic threat4. | Levine (SE), Ogden (SP), Rosenberg (Polyvagal) |
4. Integrative Accountability<br>(“Holding pride without shame”) | Own past survival-based harm withoutcollapsing into toxic shame. | Kohlberg’s post-conventional morality; Erikson’s Integrity vs Despair. | Move from fearful/ambivalent strategies to secure protest + repair. | dlPFC-mediated reflection while staying in ventral vagal safety; prevents shame freeze. | Brene Brown (shame research), Janina Fisher (Parts & Memory) |
5. Unmasking Authentic Self<br>(“Finding the self behind the mask” & role disruption) | Differentiate real needs from learned performance; tolerate relational push-back. | Rogers’ organismic valuing; Marcia’s Identity-Achievement. | Shift from “attachment for survival” to “attachment for growth.” | Increase interoception (insula) → clearer boundary signals; reduce cortisol via authenticity. | Carl Rogers, Gabor Maté |
6. Relational & Lineage Repair<br>(“Real love needs safety” & “Healing the lineage”) | Create new attachment contracts; transmit secure patterns forward. | Trans-generational models (Kerr’s family systems, Schore’s right-brain attachment). | Adult secure base = buffer that rewires child nervous systems → breaks cycle. | Neuroplasticity windows reopen in co-regulation; epigenetic stress markers can reverse with care. | Daniel Siegel (Interpersonal Neuro-biology), Ed Tronick (Still-Face) |
This is a place for people who care—about dignity, about repair, about building something better.
We believe emotions are real knowledge.
That clarity and safety should be universal.
That healing shouldn’t require perfection.
Here, we grow. Together.
The Emotional Gradient Blueprint (TEG-Blue™) © 2025 by Anna Paretas
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
This is a living document. Please cite responsibly.
🌐 emotionalblueprint.org ┃ 📩 annaparetas@emotionalblueprint.org