Overcoming Childhood Programming

We should all look to where the old is interfering with the new.

We should remember that in order to heal the scars, and erase the old conditioning from past experiences, we must go after the problem.

We also need to feel secure in the belief that we can overcome the cause. My friends, do not fear failure, or you may indeed fail.

Experiences from our past do influence our present, whether we consciously acknowledge them or not. I happen to believe that we have chosen our parents for the lessons we need to learn from them. Whether you believe this statement or not, doesn’t really matter.

But, if you blame your childhood or your parents for the negative state of your life today, then it is probably time to look back and begin changing your thinking.

We can’t blame anyone else in life for our failures and disappointments. Not our mom nor dad, sister or brother, spouse or friend.

Instead, we must go inside ourselves for the answers and take responsibility for our own actions.

I don’t mean blaming ourselves for our responses, but instead, deep inquiry into who we were, who we are, and most of all, who we want to be.

Believe me, it’s never too late to change our thinking. I’ve made incredible changes at different points in my life.

Sometimes changing a thought pattern can be wonderfully simple. It all depends on how much fear is involved, and how many times the painful pattern has repeated itself. And of course, how much the results will mean to you.

For me, an alteration in my thinking was essential. I was after all, the girl who was going to be happily married till death do us part - spending my life with the ideal husband, raising a wonderful family in a picture perfect home.

Or so I thought. How then, could I have failed at my marriage? I decided to find out, no matter how difficult or painful it might be.

I had to stare the issue in the face, only then, could I change my thinking and alter the patterns.

I grew up in a modest little house in Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland with my mother, step-father and sister. We did not have much money, but I was happy in most of my childhood. Looking back, I’ve been able to recognize that being poor never bothered me, either consciously or subconsciously.

However, I believed that my main purpose as a child, and later as a woman was to be loved. This belief led me to avoid confrontation at all cost, no matter what I had to sacrifice or put up with.

For me then, being direct and assertive meant I risked inviting a negative response and thus, rejection.

To me, what was so frightening about rejection, especially as a child, was that I unconsciously linked it to my value as a human being. I believe that most women, at least to some degree, do unconsciously block their own power by being non-assertive. They do this in order to achieve or maintain peace.

I’m not sure where the root of my fear began, but I do recall an incident when I was very young which may have triggered it. One day, coming home from school I managed to get in to a minor argument with a girl. Her mother told my mother how badly I had misbehaved towards her daughter. That night, everyone in the family, from my grandparents right down to my older sister, made an enormous drama over my behavior in that incident, shaming me. In their view, little Caroline was expected to be sweet, loving, and above all, passive and submissive.

Whatever actually happened to me really isn’t the issue. Whether you’re able to pinpoint the source of the programming event is almost irrelevant.

But what essential to identify is the repetitious pattern. Then only,

can we start to rectify the problem.

We should always look to see what’s there, but recognizing the actual pattern is the key.

So then in my story, from very early on, I had resigned myself to being passive and submissive for my own survival and safety.

However despite that, one day things changed when I was the age of twelve. My mother gently broke the news that I was to leave home and go away to a school for girls. At that young age, I was totally bewildered and unable to cope with the reality of that situation. What I did instead, was virtually ignore and block out the fact I had been removed from my family and my friends. And that a major part of me felt not wanted and abandoned. I felt that I was not good enough, that I had not loved my family enough.

However, whatever lessons I should have learned from this, I disregarded and ignored. I was so overcome by the pain, grief and guilt, that for years it was too much for me to get over and heal.

The result was, I buried that entire experience and that part of my life. I never permitted myself to think about it again. I literally locked it away, blocked it out for twenty years until I was thirty-five. This early conditioning made me unconsciously determined that I’d never abandon anyone I loved. Not ever. No matter what! That was my pattern.

I didn’t know up to then, I could not recognize, that I was blaming myself.