What Exactly Did Our Parents Do To Us?

When we are really small, the world is a very exciting and strange place. We spend much of our time working out who we are and the only thing we really have to go on is the feedback we receive from the big people around us. If you have been fortunate to grow up in an environment where your parents had all the time in the world for you and helped you to learn and grow into the world then you’re one of the lucky few.

The reality is that being a parent is really tough work. Parents are stressed and don’t ever seem to have enough time to do everything. For example, when the child makes a mess, it’s hard for the parent to stay calm and relaxed and some of the time the child will be told they are stupid, or messy or some other thing.

The problems occur when the child undergoes a trauma of some kind – normally something that involves physical pain, but can be emotional or mental pain too. The things that they observe during these times help their brain to make some judgements and beliefs that it hopes will help the child avoid similar pain in the future. It is a survival instinct – to prevent and protect yourself from pain. This is where limiting beliefs are born – they are then cemented in by the child’s brain as they grow up – by searching for similar events where the belief can be validated and upheld. The strangest thing is that we completely dismiss, distort and delete any evidence that goes against the belief. It’s like having a spam filter – except it only allows the spam through.

The solution is to accept you have limiting beliefs and then work on yourself to find and remove them. Books, workshops, coaching and therapy will really help you in this endeavour. Of course, you can accept them and then do nothing about them… but bear in mind that if you have children of your own, then any lack of happiness, confidence and mental wellbeing that you experience, is going to be passed to your children.

Remember, a parent can only be held accountable for this if they are aware of it. So few people have any idea that this happens, and it’s certainly not something that we are taught to understand. You can’t blame your parents for how your life has turned out, they only did the best they could with the information and experience that they had at the time.