"With you, trust comes naturally; you have honor woven into your fabric and that goes a long way when entering new territory in a coach’s office. Something that I learned early on in my sessions with you was that I truly was in the driver’s seat"
Free to Rise: Release From the Emotionally Immature or Personality Disordered Parent
Struggling With Poor Boundaries? Compulsively People Pleasing? How’s Your Inner Perfectionist Doing?
It’s Time to Defy Gravity, & Release Yourself from the Orbit of Your Emotionally Immature or Personality Disordered Parent
You May Present Yourself Well, And Others May Even See You As Confident And Capable.
But deep down, you're filled with self-doubt. You bite your tongue to avoid revealing how you really feel—because you know how it’ll go: they’ll either ridicule you or make it about themselves. You’re always on alert for signs of distress in others, because you’ve learned that it might turn into an explosion of rage. You’re terrified of conflict, because you’ll just end up being attacked, being wrong.
Even though you intellectually know better, you find yourself pulled back into your parents’ emotional orbit. And even though you want to break free, you notice the patterns:
🌀 You struggle with boundaries (even when you know you need to speak up).
🌀 You people-please (even if it means abandoning your own needs).
🌀 You aim for perfection (even though you know it’s impossible).
You’re stuck in a shame spiral—trapped between the anger you feel toward your parents and the desire to earn their approval. It's exhausting, confusing, and painful.
But maybe the hardest part?
You don’t really know who you are. You don’t even know that it’s okay to ask that question—or that it’s your right to live according to your own needs and values.
You are walking on eggshells.
Having an emotionally immature parent, even one with Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, or with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD, isn’t always easy to identify. Particularly if you’re the child of one. If you’re unsure, feel free to take this short quiz.
As you look around, you feel how foreign you are from others who aren’t constantly second-guessing themselves, who are at ease with being less-than-perfect, and comfortable in relationships where they can let themselves be themselves.
This is a love letter to all those not seen, to all those given the impossible task of being the parent to their parents. Of being the unwilling recipient of their parents’ often bizarre expectations. Of not being seen at all, for the wonderfully complex, unique beings you actually are. As an expert on immature parents, I found clients with the same issues coming in to see me. Like me, they were exhausted. Numb. Constantly overwhelmed, trying to control every facet of their existence.
You Are Not Who Your Parents Wanted You To Be. You’re Not Yet What You Can Be.
Professionally, moving beyond perfectionism to risk-taking and exploration, beyond poor boundaries to assertion. Personally, knowing the joy of true intimacy with another, rejoicing in what you share, and energized by your differences.
And finally, to know that you are inherently worthy, to savor another’s worth. It is not enough to know intellectually that you are worthy. You must feel it in your bones. That your greatest gift to the world, the gift that underlies all others, is the next breath you take.
Let’s take it together…start here!.
WHO AM I?
Hello, I'm Inga!
I was born to two Adulting 101 dropouts! I know what it’s like not to be seen. To be invisible. Mom: “Make me feel better about myself”. Dad: “Who’d you say you were again?”. I was becoming a person that didn’t match the ideal child of my educator mother and psychiatrist (yup!) father…and so instead, I became invisible. I ended up both taking responsibility for the reactions of everyone around me, and believing I would inevitably fail.
I arrived at the age of adulthood without the first clue of how to actually, well, “adult.” But along the way, I met my people. And they saw me, as I emerged, visible.
And over the last 25 plus years, I’ve had the profound privilege of fighting alongside my clients. Pulling the damaging lessons of their immature parents out by the root. Going to the intellect, then past the intellect, to the body. The body that shrinks, at the moment you know you’d be better served by standing tall. That surrenders when you need to assert, or shuts others out when you most need to lean into their comfort. I speak to you as one of you, and I see in you the seeds of whom you can become.
When I created my own group for Adult Children of Those with Personality Disorders in 2018, I brought what I understood was needed, according to my clients, and brought in my own somatic exercises…many generations of groups since, I now bring client-approved and -tested course to you!
WHO AM I?
Hello, I'm Inga!
I was born to two Adulting 101 dropouts! I know what it’s like not to be seen. To be invisible. Mom: “Make me feel better about myself”. Dad: “Who’d you say you were again?”. I was becoming a person that didn’t match the ideal child of my educator mother and psychiatrist (yup!) father…and so instead, I became invisible. I ended up both taking responsibility for the reactions of everyone around me, and believing I would inevitably fail.
I arrived at the age of adulthood without the first clue of how to actually, well, “adult.” But along the way, I met my people. And they saw me, as I emerged, visible.
And over the last 25 plus years, I’ve had the profound privilege of fighting alongside my clients. Pulling the damaging lessons of their immature parents out by the root. Going to the intellect, then past the intellect, to the body. The body that shrinks, at the moment you know you’d be better served by standing tall. That surrenders when you need to assert, or shuts others out when you most need to lean into their comfort. I speak to you as one of you, and I see in you the seeds of whom you can become.
When I created my own group for Adult Children of Those with Personality Disorders in 2018, I brought what I understood was needed, according to my clients, and brought in my own somatic exercises…many generations of groups since, I now bring client-approved and -tested course to you!
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
Rise, & Release Yourself from the Orbit of Your Emotionally Immature or Personality Disordered Parent
My coaching program is your path to finally breaking free from the emotional orbit of an emotionally immature or personality-disordered parent—and reclaiming your voice, boundaries, and sense of self.
The complete program includes:
An extensive online course that you can access anytime, anywhere...and for years to come, so that you may continue to deepen your understanding...addressing six key areas where most Adult Children get stuck
Exclusive access to the Facebook community, where people just like you are there to encourage you, and share their wisdom...you are NOT alone
Weekly online meetings where we can explore, in real time, each area of release and recovery...do guided meditations and other exercises to support this recovery...and enjoy lively discussions
Additional support for those graduating from the program...you'll never be left hanging!
Real Stories. Real Change.
Each person you’ll hear from once felt stuck, shut down, or overwhelmed. These are their stories of reconnection, regulation, and renewal.
BLOGS
Explore the Deeper Dive
Unlock insightful articles and strategies for personal growth, healing, and living your fullest life.
Dancing Stillness
If you’re a shark, ignore this. Sharks must move; for them, stillness equals death. Of course, if your experience in life involves being chased by sharks, you’re probably not familiar with stillness either. As a coach and therapist for over twenty-five years, I found most of my clients fitting into that category.
Stillness is not frozen.
My clients are all too familiar with living in deep freeze; the held breath, the rigid musculature, even the tunnel-vision gaze are all too common. The essence of the frozen state is one of past and future; a body stuck in a past of thwarted defense mechanisms, a feared future of possible (probable?) attack. For these folks, stillness is unobtainable without help; as a good friend of mine points out, it’s hard to dance stillness when you still feel you’re being chased by a shark!
Stillness is a pause to simply…be
In stillness, there is aliveness sans action or intention. A dancer I loved embodied this, her grace easing into a moment of balance, and in that, pausing simply to be. The gift of her stillness profoundly affected her audience. We joined her in that crystalline present, becoming quiet with each other in a way few houses of worship have induced. Like what some people call a “female rain,” which does not pound the earth and result in runoff, but instead soaks deep, the slowing or stopping of intentional movement or thought allows us to perceive more fully the present moment in all its richness.
When my clients first come to see me, they hardly realize that their lives are in constant movement, distraction, and what some call the “gerbils” of racing thoughts. And oh yes, their bodies are frozen in telling places. They have spent years trying to relax, not realizing that that in itself dooms them to failure. Relaxation, like stillness, involves the lack of effort. But who can blame them, with a history of shark attack? Gradually in our time together, the thoughts slow, the body softens, and the first raw raged evidence of authenticity, as well as the sludge of unprocessed past begins to show. And with it, our work.
Nowhere is life more sweetly experienced than in the still moment,
soaking deep and expanding wide. It’s 1994, I’m in Austin, poor, relatively isolated, and have just joined Body Choir, based on Gabriel Roth’s five rhythms. The last of these is Stillness; slow movement until something in the body says, stay here. The other dancers and I have expiated ourselves with the more vigorous previous rhythms, and dissolved in the process at least some of the barriers to intimacy. We find each other for this moments, eyes softly gazing or mirthful, bodies touching or near. Sometimes, the spirit rises and joins with that of our companions’. The breaths of twenty dancers against a backdrop of tonal music, the slow ballet of others who have moved out of stillness, seeking another pause, the profound simultaneous awareness of internal emotional, physical experience and profound awareness of the other, all these are in this moment.
And in this stillness, I am satisfied.
It’s Time to Step Out of the Shadows—and Into the Life That’s Truly Yours
You are not broken. You were shaped by people who couldn’t meet your emotional needs—and it’s time to release their grip on your life. This course is your invitation to finally be seen, to reclaim your boundaries, and to live from a place of self-worth—not shame.
Here’s a free gift to get started:
My grounding exercise, to help you get centered in your busy day. I’ll occasionally also send special offers and insights (I promise, I won’t deluge your in-box!)