Why are we even concerned with childhood trauma as adults. Isn’t it something that is in our past and no longer affecting us? Why should we go back there and dig into the pain, memory or even the feelings from so long ago. The title of my book “My Childhood: Getting Over it” answers so many of the whys. Are those traumatic events from long ago even important today? The answer to that question may surprise you. Let’s get into it.
There’s a lot of talk and podcasts about the limbic brain, the oldest part of the brain that deals with feelings, instincts, flight, fight or freeze. The brain that begins to hold feelings even before you are born. Holding the feelings from your mother and her anxiety, love, fear, anger and state of mind during her pregnancy.
That part of the brain holds those memories of feelings. Do you know what your early childhood was like. Many people don’t even have early memories until the age of four or five. What about everything that happened before that time. These early imprints are the ones that gave us our beliefs in trust, love, fear, hope, worthiness, having a voice, self-love and our confidence, all of these shaping our personality, long before we are able to articulate and understand our language to communicate our feelings. Many times, by the time we are five we know whether or not we can voice our opinion or if it is unsafe to do so.
Do you ever lose control, feel anger rising up, feel unsafe, unable to speak up for yourself, feel stuck in the same abusive repeating relationship just with a different face? Are you afraid to try new things, can your self-confidence be bigger and stronger than you currently have? Do you follow a religion, parents, siblings and family without question? There are so many more patterns and cycles we are caught up in that started in early childhood in our unconscious. We continue to follow them because we have never stopped to question them. Taking the time, now that you are an adult, this is the presence it is going to take to Get Over It. The presence with yourself to begin to look at how the patterns, and beliefs began. Who gave them to you, and are they really true for you now? Did your mom quietly shush you as a child? Were you told that your religion was the only religion and all others were bad? Were you beaten when you made mistakes? You can begin to see that not all actions by the adults in your life were as benign as you first thought. What beliefs of yourself did you take away from these learning experiences?
So how do we begin to recognize these beliefs and patterns? By becoming aware, conscious of our actions when they arise. Begin to ask yourself what was triggered by her or him what feelings came up for you, just you. Your feelings have nothing to do with him or her. She or he are not responsible for what you are feeling. Think back to when you were a child, when you felt this same anger, fear, sadness rise. Begin to see that the trigger is just that, bringing up that which was already there. This is a practice; it becomes easier the more you actively practice this. When he or she doesn’t answer you when you are talking to them, think, when has this happened before in my life? Who didn’t listen to me as a child or teen? Were you able to talk freely as a child, were you told children were to be seen and not heard? The need to be heard is fundamental to children and as an adult this need is still there. Once you can get conscious of what need or pattern you are recreating and living, it will begin to fall away, simply because you now understand how it began and how it rises in your adult being.
Begin this first step of consciousness to recognize what rises, where it started or came from and then release it by understanding that the belief or pattern no longer serves you or is true for your adult self.