Healing and Moving On: Dealing with Childhood Messages
Have you ever fought with someone, but it felt like you were fighting with yourself instead?
Once, I was really upset during a conversation with someone I cared about and I asked myself, “What’s wrong with you?” It wasn’t because of anything they said or did, but because of what I was feeling inside. I felt really hurt, and I wanted someone to pay for it.
After thinking for a bit, I saw that my anger wasn’t really about the person in front of me. It was because things happening now reminded me of stuff from before. Have you ever felt like that, talking unkindly to someone because of old, unresolved emotional hurts?
You probably know about the importance of personal growth as a business owner. But have you thought about how stuff from your childhood might be affecting how you act now?
As a life coach who helps business owners, I often see how old hurts can stop people from doing their best. In this article, we’ll talk about why it’s important to understand and deal with childhood messages, how they affect you now, and what you can do to heal and move on.
First, let’s talk about your present fears and how they are linked to old childhood memories.
Scared people often do silly, costly and stupid things. As a result, they avoid responsibilities, avoid trying new things, or fight against things that might actually be good for them because their fears seem so scary.
Unmasking Your Fears
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Scooby Doo episodes. Each episode repeated a common theme: the bad guys wore scary masks to manipulate people into doing things they didn’t want to do. And what happens when people are scared? They usually end up losing focus and feel easily overwhelmed.
Can you relate? Are you finding yourself doing things that are rooted in fears and worries?
When fear takes over your mind, bad stuff like this happens:
- Skip Responsibilities: You might avoid doing what you’re supposed to.
- Wasting Your Time: Burning daylight on unimportant/distracting things or steering clear of trying new things.
- Fight Against Good Things: Pushing away stuff and people that could actually help you.
Until you challenge old childhood messages, they will continue to haunt you until the day you die.
When the Need for Safety Hurts More than Helps You
We get good at what we practice. If you did a good job of avoiding the need beneath the desire, which is safety, it can come back and haunt you in many different ways.
For example, if someone was really critical of you when you were young, you might be scared of failing now. Or if you didn’t always get the care you needed, you might be scared of being left alone. Sometimes, people who remind us of authority figures tell us what to do. We might resist because of bad experiences we had with authority in the past.
If this isn’t bad enough, our view of ourselves and what is normal can get skewed. In the next section, we will discuss how old childhood messages can distort what is healthy and reasonable.
How Past Childhood Messages Shape Your Self-Perception
Confession: Until recently, I never thought I was a clean person.
In fact, I thought I was a downright filthy pig because I didn’t spend all day cleaning my home like I did when I was living with my father and my now-ex girlfriend, Sandra.
As an adult, I believed I was slacking – yes, slacking – if I spent 2-4 hours cleaning each morning. You see, I had an incredibly high standard imposed on me as a child, and even though I could outsource or delay my cleaning schedule as an adult, I still wanted to cling to that identity of “clean people clean all day.”
But what about you? What messages do you have about what you are supposed to be doing as an adult?
Whatever messages you're telling yourself that make you feel sad or anxious, remember they weren't helpful back then and they're hurting you now. It's time to change those old, negative messages into healthier ones.
Examining Childhood Messages
The things we hear or see when we’re young really affect how we feel about ourselves and how we get along with others.
If people always tell us we must be perfect or prioritize being nice above all else, it will cause problems later on. And unless checked, it can create a horrible life script. Your life script is based on messages that may or may not help you later in life.
Psychologist Taibi Kahler talks about five “curses” that give us bad messages as we grow up: Be Perfect, Be Strong, Hurry Up, Please Others, and Try Harder. So, you might be thinking, “What does this have to do with me?” Great question!
Many of us try too hard to live up to these things, even though they’re not practical or good for us. For example, you might keep doing a job perfectly even if you don’t like it anymore because you think it’s the only way to make money. Or you might stay in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy because someone told you that good people don’t get divorced.
End the desire for perfection
Whatever messages you’re telling yourself that make you feel sad or anxious, remember they weren’t helpful back then and they’re hurting you now. It’s time to change those old, negative messages into healthier ones. Instead of aiming for perfection, aim for doing your best. And instead of always trying to make others happy, take care of yourself first.
In the next section, we will talk about several ways you can heal from those old childhood messages and claim your right to be as happy and productive as an adult.
5 Tips to Claim Happiness & Healing as an Adult
Healing Tip #1: Heal You Inner Child
Getting better from childhood hurts involves understanding what happened in the past and ensuring that we meet our needs now. Now is the time to talk to the child within yourself that felt ignored, betrayed or abandoned. This might involve dealing with pain, feeling sad, and getting help from coach like myself or therapists who understand about trauma.
Writing letters to the little kid inside you or joining groups where people understand can help you feel better and express yourself safely.
Healing Tip #2: Be Kind to Yourself
Being nice to ourselves is really important while we’re getting better. When we treat ourselves well and understand our own feelings, we can slowly heal old hurts and feel complete again.
Find ways to take care of ourselves, like taking any type of art class or buying something we couldn’t have as a kid, can make you feel better and help you heal your emotional wounds.
Healing Tip #3: Own Your Resiliency
Knowing that healing takes time helps us stay strong and peaceful inside. When we accept that sometimes things don’t go smoothly, it helps us handle tough times with calmness and keep going. Think about how your past made you stronger and better can help you see your own power. Resilience and adaptability are skills every trauma survivor has learned in order to get past hard times.
As an adult, my parents were wildly irresponsible financially. But because of that, I learned how to be organized and methodical because my parents were ill-prepared. What about you? Acknowledge the good that came out from the bad experiences.
Healing Tip #4: Develop A Plan that Works for You
Deciding to keep improving ourselves is really important for getting past childhood hurts. When you set goals and make plans to get better in your work and your personal lives, you are making a map for good changes. Writing down goals for the next month or two will help you stay focused, positive and motivate to keep going.
Healing Tip #5: Keep Yourself Safe
Learning to say no and set boundaries is really important for breaking away from bad habits. When you prioritize your own needs, even if it differs from what everyone else thinks, it helps you stay safe from people who aren’t good for you.
Be clear about your needs and write them down. Next, discuss them with someone you trust to reinforce their importance, which will help you stay accountable for your personal safety and security.
The image below summarizes my tips. Next, I will share my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Understanding how our past affects us is important for growing emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. By looking at old messages, healing old hurts, and being nice to ourselves, we can get rid of beliefs that hold us back and have a better future.
If you want to start this journey of getting better and growing, I can help as your life coach. Together, we can handle the tough parts of healing and bring out your best. Click here to learn more about my personalized coaching program.
Also, you can listen to this episode from my entrepreneur podcast where we talk about getting better and facing hard times. Remember, you can heal, and you don’t have to do it alone.
