How experiences from our past can go on to influence our future insights

How experiences from our past can go on to influence our future insights

When we first enter the world we come in as a completely innocent infant and therefore our initial learnings in life will always stem from our upbringings, the culture that we experience within our family will always be initiated by our parents and caregivers and as a result from childhood we will start to form opinions about life and others which will be directly related to what we have learned through our life experiences.

Our present attitude is therefore informed and influenced by our past history and there are 3 ego states, one of which we will undoubtedly adopt as taught to us by our role models previously.
Can you recognise yourself or someone you know from these descriptions? The first ego state is that of parent, in this state it is inevitable that this person feels they know what is best not only for themselves but everyone else around them, depending on the upbringing they have experienced they will either have a well-adjusted and mature attitude towards life or a fearful and insecure one mirroring their childhood and the beliefs they grew up with about themselves and others.

All of our learnings happen unconsciously and rather interestingly it is often the people who have grown up the least privileged who feel the greatest desire to help others in some way as subconsciously we often wish for others to have what we never did growing up, you can often see this with parents indulging their children as they ‘want them to have the things they never did’.

The second ego state is the child, have you ever met someone who resorts back to a childlike state if they do not get what they want? They may sulk or create arguments just to get their own way. Maturity is not determined by a person’s age but rather by that person’s willingness to take full responsibility for their choices in life and not blame others for their lack of judgement or insight.

Unfortunately this ego state is often created by poor boundaries when growing up and being taught by their parents that they can have whatever they want in life and I don’t mean that in a sense when they empower their child to become confident and well-adjusted but rather spoilt and over privileged and as a result the child becomes an adult not really appreciating or having to work for anything as it just gets handed to them automatically, is it any wonder this state suffers the most?

The third ego state is the adult which is the healthiest as it is guided by logic and evidence, these people are well balanced and have learned lessons from their past, yet remain humble as they understand that we never stop learning and evolving.

The roles we have assumed in the past will inform our present day attitudes and behaviours regarding how we choose to respond to other people in our lives. If we have unresolved childhood experiences in relationships with parents or other role models it can affect any future relationships we go on to have whether it is personal, professional or intimate and we may even unconsciously cause transference as we are not always aware we are doing it as people often respond more to what their personal perception is of a situation then what the actual reality is.

For example those who have had a challenging childhood with a strict authoritative guardian may develop uncomfortable feelings or attitudes towards those in a position of power such as the police, a teacher or an employer. The opposite is of course true, those brought up in a loving and stable home will be able to easily relate to society as a whole but particularly those who are naturally empathic towards others.

Every person’s reality has been created by a combination of external data and their own consciousness, our perception of a situation can easily deceive us, in the fact that we believe that things are the way they are and how we see them although this can often not be the case at all. Jumping to conclusions can therefore incorrectly inform our choices, decisions, responses or reactions towards those other people in our lives. We can all make assumptions based on what we see but we do not know the things in life that we do not know. It is human nature to make connections between our past and present and if we are carrying pain with us we may react in a particular way which we ourselves do not even understand, however if we do not deal with the pain which haunts our present we will then consciously or unconsciously transfer and relate that same pain onto others.

Sometimes people will enter our lives and say or do something that will trigger a certain response in us but we must understand that all behaviours are learned and if we are unable to control ourselves and our emotions then we may fall victim to assuming that what we feel is the truth is the actual truth but in reality we can be deceiving ourselves. When we become aware that situations may not always be what we perceive them to be we can then approach life and situations from a place of intrigue as opposed to automatic judgement.

It can be all too easy too make assumptions or jump to conclusions but in reality it is essential that instead we try to understand the reasons why people do the things that they do which may not always be for the reasons we initially think!
Sometimes we can all be guilty of taking the more aggressive approach in our thinking regarding situations because we assume the worst through patterns of destructive thinking through past experiences we have endured.

For example when I first came to London over 20 years ago, I was walking through Hackney one day and found myself completely lost, I asked many people and nobody would help me and I began to feel very vulnerable and alone. I noticed a gang of young men wearing hoodies watching me and I immediately found myself getting very anxious. Coming from a very sheltered and quiet upbringing in the country moving to the city was a real eye opener in itself but so were the fears which had been instilled in me and were now evidently making themselves felt! There were about 15 boys in this gang and about 5 of them made their way over to me, my first instinct was too run but I felt rooted to the spot. I imagined myself being mugged or attacked, instead the complete opposite happened….

These young men took it upon themselves to not only tell me where I was but actively take me to a place of safety as unknown to me the area I was in was not the safest! I was not only hugely appreciative but extremely humbled .I learnt a lot that day about the danger of making automatic judgements towards others and I’ll never forget the kindness of those young men, you see it can be so easy to form an opinion on what we may think we initially see, but if we choose to become more open in our thinking and look just a little bit closer, we can often be pleasantly surprised as I was that day.
www.yourinnerglow.co.uk       www.yourtantrictouch.co.uk