Parents themselves: healing children injuries
reliable parents who loved us and proper parenting, we must learn to educate ourselves in order to survive in the world. Parents themselves.
Nowadays, we hear too often about cases of domestic violence, which often affect children. This is an occasion to remind ourselves that even without reliable parents who loved us and proper parenting, we must learn to educate ourselves in order to survive in the world. Parents themselves.
And this applies to everyone - not only adults but also children.
Psychotherapist should not consider the situation from such a position. After all, this means recognizing the child as a victim, which will not help him cope with the problem. Pity is not the best helper for a person to move forward.
If your parents raised you perfectly, it means that you know how to freely express emotions, build boundaries and establish healthy relationships with people. But the perfect upbringing is rare in modern families.
The purpose of this article is to help you fill in the emotional gaps you have from childhood due to your parents' mistakes. Children's emotional traumas explain why you see the world, think, feel and behave one way or another.
The famous psychotherapist, the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud attached great importance to child trauma in shaping human behavior. Let's focus on some of his quotes that cover the question of how children's experiences affect a person's life.
Most people come to a psychotherapist to get rid of children's emotional trauma. People discuss, analyze, even demonize their parents, but very rarely praise them. We can say that the psychotherapist in such cases performs a parental role for the client. The process of psychotherapy requires a great deal of responsibility from the therapist and can be complicated by phenomena such as transference (for example, when the client is angry because the therapist builds boundaries with him. This reminds the client of childhood when he could not build boundaries with parents), projections, dependencies, etc.
If a child is brought up incorrectly, the world around him can frighten him. When such a child grows up, he must change his picture of the world or adopt it from someone else.
One of the greatest gifts of psychotherapy is that it creates a safe place for a person to be able to discuss their worries and failures. Today, even in medical institutions, cognitive-behavioral therapy is used to help the patient understand the relationship between his thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
"Depressed emotions do not die. They were silenced. And they continue to influence the person from within. "
I am always wary when my clients do not want to discuss their childhood. This is a sign that they are in pain inside. If you constantly enter into interdependent relationships or avoid intimacy, there is a high probability that as a child you learned about love and affection by the wrong examples.
However, for the most part we need to remember that as children we knew nothing about our parents' emotional experiences. If you have witnessed a disharmonious relationship between mother and father, it is likely that such parents were also emotionally abused as children, neglected their feelings, and so on.
"Being completely honest with yourself is a useful exercise"
Living in fear or discomfort, you do not allow yourself to be honest with yourself and build healthy relationships based on love.
If you can talk openly and honestly with your psychotherapist, you will be able to be honest with the people around you. It's worth it. Take your time, gradually accept the parts of your psyche that you are used to hiding.
"If children could, if adults knew"
As children, we are vulnerable, dependent on our parents, we know almost nothing about feelings and emotions. If we knew how to gain the unconditional love and trust of parents, we would do so. But our parents were also not taught how to love, cope with addictions and express their feelings.
They also do not know how to do it right. Of course, this does not justify the bad attitude of parents towards their children, but it makes it clear to you that parents do not aim to upset you or cause emotional trauma. This will help you realize that you could learn more than just healthy behaviors from your parents. Learning to drive with your eyes closed means putting your life at risk. The same goes for emotions: before dealing with them, it is better to be aware of where you got these or those patterns of behavior.
"No errors"
When it comes to life's mistakes, everything is a bit more complicated. Children who have had a difficult relationship with their parents have two options: play "catch up with me" all their lives, learn life lessons in practice, or take the bull by the horns and strive for success despite their unhappy childhood.
At school, we learn not only math and physics, but also social skills, learn to overcome disappointments, endure life's difficulties, think about the consequences of their actions and resolve conflicts. All this plays a big role in the development of our psyche. Of course, unfavorable relationships with parents slow down the process of such development. But at the same time, school is our second home, where you can learn a lot.
What we call life mistakes are often unconscious reproductions of our patterns of behavior. If in childhood you did not feel unconditional love, in adulthood you may find it difficult to express your feelings to loved ones. People are afraid of being rejected and therefore tend to tolerate disrespectful behavior. That doesn't mean you like it when you're treated with contempt, most likely you don't know how to stop it.
The frustration of not being able to satisfy your emotional needs or express your feelings deprives you of strength and can lead to passive-aggressive behavior.
Emotions are related to the mistakes we make. When you forget to meet your wife at the airport or go to the doctor, it can be a sign of unexpressed anger. We are afraid to get into conflicts and spoil relationships with loved ones, and therefore suppress our anger.
But emotions do not disappear anywhere. Eventually, depressed emotions can manifest in the form of painful ways of communicating, accusing, or insulting. Unfortunately, this behavior triggers an endless cycle of images.
When my clients say that they are most afraid of being abandoned in the world, I notice that they have two options: not getting close to anyone, thus guaranteeing that no one will leave them, or entering into a close relationship, risking breaking their heart.
To hide from heavy feelings, pain and feelings of rejection and contempt, we are forced to suppress them. It's safer that way, but the only way to let go of your feelings is to live them. To live your feelings means to be alive.
Useful tips on how to take care of yourself
- Love your borders. This means that you need to determine what is good for you and what is bad, and accept it.
- Take care of yourself. Stress exhausts you physically, so you need to watch what you take into your own heart, body and mind. Do not abuse alcohol and tobacco to relax. Healthy food is good, fast food is bad.
- Practice awareness. It will help you to be here and now. Accept everything that happened to you during the day. This does not mean that you have to agree with everything. The point is to understand your feelings at this very moment, not to let your past and future influence you.
- Plan a vacation during the working day. Your nervous system will thank you.
- Allow yourself to feel vulnerable, addicted and other complex emotional states. People tend to refuse outside help. Perhaps relying only on yourself helped you as a child, but in adulthood it cannot be called a healthy skill. People are social by nature, and therefore isolation is not conducive to emotional health.
- Control your behavior. Do not pour your negative emotions on others. Analyze your thoughts, try to understand how your thoughts, feelings and unresolved issues affect your behavior.
- Get enough sleep, do yoga, drink plenty of water, eat healthy food and chocolate.
- Learn to calm yourself. Practice deep breathing, relaxation, and awareness to overcome anxiety.
- Try to look at the world as a safe place where most people wish you well. It will teach you to trust the world and yourself. This is a very important skill because believing in your ability to deal with problems will make you happier. Even if your parents never taught you that ...
