How many memories do you have regarding your first ten year of life? Turns out that those memories deeply inform and even seriously twist our future behavior. The meories themselves are actually stories we tell ourselves.
good memories are nice and bad memories are also bad news.
So yes repetative patterns of behavior, then imprinted on the automatic nervous system is a pretty good way to disrupt normal adult bonding. Who might have thought that?
February 4th, 2022
7 Non-Obvious Things That Have Influenced Your Love Life
February 4th, 2022Guest Writer for Wake Up World
Many of us often experience all kinds of love failures in our lives. We often wonder why we fail to build a happy relationship with another person.
Meanwhile, the cause of our failures can be found in our relationship to our feelings and emotions, which developed in our childhood. They can cause our inflexibility and inadequate responses to the needs of others. And problems with showing our feelings to our partner, expressing our opinion, or marking our limits. Very often, people who constantly fall in love and fall out of love seek in relationships to satisfy their needs of infancy without being aware of it.
So, what shaped our attitude towards our emotions and feelings?
1 – The nutritional value and quality of the foods our mother consumes during pregnancy
Yes, what our mother ate at that time have an impact on our relationships in adulthood. A monotonous diet, poor in nutrients, stresses the fetus as well as the development of its nervous system. Alcohol, nicotine, and other stimulants that your mother took, especially in the first weeks of pregnancy, could damage our nervous system. This is where our emotional problems may arise.
2 – Our first emotional and social experiences
Our nervous system is shaped from the moment of conception to around 2 years of age. Our contacts with parents and guardians during this time are therefore the patterns that shape who we are. By observing the behavior of our parents with the help of mirror neurons, we learn what gestures and facial expressions of people around us affect our well-being. From the expressions of our caregivers, we can guess whether they will bring us pain or satisfaction. Eye contact with the caregiver and observation help us understand other people’s intentions and recreate their emotional responses.
However, the birth of a baby is not always an anticipated moment. Sometimes they are an unpleasant surprise, the result of random sex, with a partner we don’t even remember. Sometimes it is even the result of rape associated with strong negative emotions and pain. Meanwhile, the fetus, from the earliest moments of its existence, records all the moods and emotions of the mother. And the high level of cortisol in the mother’s body affects the baby’s fearfulness and its future ability to cope with its own stress.
If our first moments were related to traumatic experiences, depression, stress, pain, and suffering, these were the emotions that shaped our first experiences.
3 – Our parents’ ability to identify, define and name feelings
When around the age of two a child begins to develop their language skills, they also begin to learn to convey their emotions verbally. Therefore, it is very important during this period to properly recognize the child’s emotional states by the caregiver. And helping your child develop the right vocabulary to express their feelings and emotional states.
However, if the parent has problems with naming their emotions or does not notice their feelings, they perpetuate the same model in their child. If they suppresses their emotions and feelings, they teaches the same to their child.
4 – Too early separation from mother
In the first weeks and even years of life, the child reacts very intensively to the external world with their senses. The caregiver’s smell, touch, the sound of their voice and physical closeness provides the child with a sense of security and help them develop empathy. The child also identifies with their guardian, treating them as an extension of themself.
The mother’s physical or emotional absence, absent-mindedness, incompetent juggling of family and professional life, and excessive use of babysitters may cause the child’s anxiety, fearfulness and sometimes even depression. It is also very often the cause of the child’s problems with rejection in adulthood. As an adult, such a child is often not convinced of the partner’s feelings and thinks that they love themselves too much. Early separation causes a feeling of emptiness and despair in you, as well as a deep belief that there is something wrong with you.
5 – Parents’ help in relieving stress
As you know, what the shell will soak in when you are young … If our parents stroked us, hugged us, satisfied our baby needs, showed us how to calm down and relieve our stress, they equipped us with the best skills for our further independent journey through life.
6 – A strict upbringing, shaming or humiliating a child
This way of upbringing causes excessive suspicion and lack of empathy towards others. It also causes problems with defining our own boundaries in relationships with other people. And sometimes it can also lead to paranoia. Such a person wants intimacy but also avoids it. They overly criticize themselves and often feel that they does not deserve love.
7 – Correct judgement on when a child needs independence
The ability to observe, the parent’s sensitivity and timing play a huge role in making a child independent. Letting them become independent too quickly, or even believing that they shouldn’t pamper children for too long, may be the cause of the child’s emotional problems in the future. On the other hand, satisfying a child’s needs for too long shapes a dependent adult.
Raising children is a very responsible job because it is our early relationship with the guardian that influences how we see the world, ourselves in it and how our relationships with others develop.
There is, however, a way to stop repeating negative patterns in adulthood. If you try to recall your childhood with your memory, you analyze memories and facts and you will become aware of hidden patterns. Then the unconscious will become conscious, and you will be able to take responsibility for your reactions and behavior. It is enough for you to forgive your parents in your head and take responsibility for your life.
If you want to open up to others and have deep and fulfilling relationships, joy and health, you must therefore first mend your relationship with your parents.
Sources:
Sue Gerhardt “Why Love Matters. How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain.”
Amir Levine Rachel Heller “Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep -Love”
Mark Wolynn “It didn’t start with you. How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle”.
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