From the time we are conceived our personalities start to form. Tests have shown that babies in the womb can hear what is occurring around their mother, they sense her emotions and any upsets she experiences. The unborn baby starts to learn what is safe and what is not. It picks up it’s mother’s fears and will have these when born.
When born the baby has the potential to feel all emotions. All human beings do, however, as we grow we learn to shut out different emotions and behaviours depending on what we are rewarded or punished for.
Rewards can be as simple as a smile and a hug from Mum or Dad, having them stop their busy lives for five minutes so you can have a real talk to them, or it may be something larger like a present or an outing. Punishments vary too. A small punishment such as an angry look or a look of disgust can devastate a child who equates parental love with survival – warmth, food, and shelter. Other punishments may be going without a meal, being sent to your room, being grounded or missing an upcoming event that the child had been looking forward to. In some cases punishments may also include screaming and yelling, put-downs or physical violence from a little smack on the backside through to beatings. While the rewards and punishments vary in each home the same process occurs.
Children learn to do what gets them rewards and avoids punishments. A child who is raised by parents, who encourage the baby to explore and try new things, will do so. A child whose parents stop them every time they try to do something new in fear that the baby or child will hurt him or her self learns not to explore or try. They learn to be afraid and think that the world is not safe. Kids whose parents approve of sport become good athletes, those whose parents approve of academic achievement become bookworms and those whose parents do not show love easily and are tough with them learn to be tough, to be bullies and not to cry because that’s what they are rewarded for by their parents. This process is made more complicated in modern society where divorce rates are high. The child may receive conflicting messages about what is desirable behaviour from Mum, Dad and their Step-parents. This creates confusion for the child who does not know how to behave to gain reward from all care-givers. This can lead to low self-esteem and associated difficulties.
This process of a child forming a personality that reflects what their parents’ value most strongly only holds true for the first child. In order for the subsequent children to gain individual attention from their parents they need to be different from their older brother or sister – to stand out in some way. These kids will choose a different dominant personality that will get their parent’s attention. The more children there are, the less options the last child has on how to get it’s own attention. A family of five, for instance, may have a child who is an athlete, one who achieves high grades at school, one who is artistic, one who is an inventor / a builder of things and finally one who felt the only way they could get attention is to be a clown, a bully or a rebel.
This child becomes known as the ‘black sheep’ of the family when really all they wanted was love and attention from their parents. If parents are aware of this process and provide their children with unconditional love and attention, the adverse affects of this process can be minimised enabling the children to choose their personalities based on what they themselves like doing.
As we grow this process of adopting behaviours to win acceptance and avoid rejection continues. We learn to behave in ways that get us acceptance at school and work, with friends and with partners. By behaving in these ways we shut out the parts of us that do not comply with our community’s standards – we may bury our angry self inside or our dramatic self, or our dreamer or our relaxed self or our hard worker, depending on what the people around us approve of. These buried or disowned parts of ourselves are often called our shadow.
Human beings have the potential to do all types of behaviour and feel all emotions. The psyche does not like to be split into pieces with some buried inside. These buried parts want to surface and become integrated into our being. Keeping them buried takes lots of energy and leads to pain and disease in the body. Life lessons occur to force us to resolve the splits. These lessons if not learnt repeat, so we receive repeated patterns and experiences, in our lives until we do learn. We attract to us people and events, which can help us, resolve our unfinished emotional business from the past. This can be painful if we don’t understand what is occurring. It can be really frustrating to think I’ve done it again, I’ve fallen for the same type of person again or
I’ve been fired from my work again or simply I’ve made the same mistake again. Why does this keep happening to me? Why am I so stupid or hopeless or weak or … (there’s lots of different ways people scold themselves). Once we understand how this process works, we can look for the real reason that the pattern has occurred and learn the lesson it has been sent to teach us.
Through this process we break free from that pattern and can move forward in our lives. We understand our behaviour more and we regain choice. We can now use whatever parts of our psyche are relevant to each situation that we face. Sometimes anger is appropriate, it motivates us to stand up for ourself or to take action to change our circumstances. It doesn’t have to be negative or destructive. By having this choice and a greater understanding of our self and our reactions, we become more conscious. As a result our pain levels decrease and our energy returns.
The main point to understand is that we cannot ignore our hurts or our past as they will come back to haunt us in our work, in our friendships, and in our relationships. This will continue to occur until we face the issue and let ourselves feel it, release the emotion associated with it and let it go. We have to break free through facing it. Trying to deny a part of our self won’t work – it doesn’t go away. It stays inside and grows more powerful. By understanding how this process works we can learn to accept our self and our behaviour, acknowledging that these behaviour patterns or defence mechanisms developed to help us, to protect us from pain at an earlier time. By understanding and accepting this we can stop beating ourself up about our actions.
We can see that we’ve simply outgrown that defence mechanism or behaviour pattern and we no longer need it. We can thank it for how it helped us survive in the past and let it go. Forgiving our self and freeing our self to create the life we want.
So, take the time to stop and reflect on yourself and your life. Ask yourself some simple questions that will help you to understand yourself better. Why are you who you are? What events led you to develop the dominant personality that you have? What behaviour do you never let yourself do? What do you fear? Why? What makes you angry? Why? What patterns are repeating in your life? What are these patterns trying to teach you? Who have you not forgiven? You know the answers to all of these questions in your gut, but you may not want to hear them. The answers may be painful to face, but it is well worth the effort. It will enable you to break free and create the life you want.
Dr Jodi Smith is a Leadership Development Consultant and Executive Coach who has designed and facilitated leadership courses for government and business clients in most states of Australia. She also conducts personal growth workshops, counselling and coaching.
For more information:
Phone/Fax: 08 83350230 or 0416 089 600.
Email: jodi@emergingself.com.au
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