Dad Street

My last post was about how we as adults have paradigm shifts early on in life. I spoke about how we begin to give ourselves false beliefs, essentially lying to ourselves about who we are. Those paradigm shifts started taking place at a very young age.

It’s become clear to me that the reason we made that paradigm shift was out of self defense and preservation. As children we were abused on one level or another to the point of having to protect ourselves. This abuse could have come in many different forms. Again, it’s not about what form the actual abuse was in but rather how it impacted us personally. That abuse/trauma could have taken many different forms including but not limited to:

1. Physical abuse

2. Sexual abuse

3. Emotional abuse

4. Abandonment

One form of childhood trauma that I think doesn’t get talked about enough and would probably fall under emotional abuse is shame. Shame is one of those things that has become so common in today’s society that I don’t even think most of us notice when it’s happening. I know because I was shaming my children without even knowing or being aware of it.

One common thing I’ve said before and I’m sure you’ve heard is when a parent gets mad at their child and says, “What were you thinking?” or “What is wrong with you?” On the surface it may not seem like much. However, to a small child or toddler this can go very deep. To a child, their parents are the God and Godesses in their life. Hearing this kind of abusive language makes them feel “less than”, “stupid”, “embarrassed”, “confused”, among other things. This shame that they feel as a result of hearing this can last for a lifetime and certainly well into adulthood. It’s language like this that sets the stage for how children begin to see themselves and think about themselves. When children feel these “less than” feelings early on awareness of their inherent nature gets obscured with lies. The child that was born loveable, good enough, worthy, and intelligent now sees him or herself through new lenses. A paradigm shift has taken place and now every meaning that child assigns to the thoughts they have is blurred by these new lenses.

So, as parents we have an incredible gift and responsibility. While our children are young and still living life aware of their inherent nature we can foster that. We can take steps to remind our children of their inherent nature. Every time we shame or abuse our children in any way we put holes in their inherent nature and help them form false beliefs about who they are. Children aren’t old enough to have boundaries and they are extremely impressionable. The shame, pain, and unresolved hurt that we carry from our own childhoods can’t be given to our children. Once we understand that much of who we are today is a result of what we were “given” as children we can begin to take the steps necessary to stop that cycle.

Loving our children isn’t just a feeling we have. To love our children is an act and an intentional one. Love has to be intentional, thoughtful, and with purpose. Loving our children starts with loving ourselves. Take a look at yourself and think about how you feel about yourself. Do you think you’re good enough? Do you think you’re attractive? Tender? Thoughtful? Intelligent? Worthy? Precious? Loveable? If you have difficulty in thinking any of these things could be true about you (and most of us do) then that is the first step. Just being aware that you feel this way about yourself will help to identify whenever you may be passing that on to your precious, loveable, worthy, and tender child.

Ever tell yourself you’re ugly? How about tell yourself you’re stupid? Not good enough? Maybe you tell yourself you’re a screw up?

It’s not uncommon for us, at different times in our lives, to talk to ourselves like this. We often complain about how others talk to us but sometimes we’re our worst critic. Even worse than being critical about ourselves, we outright lie. The truth of the matter is we’re not ugly, we’re not stupid, and we’re not screw ups.

We all live according to paradigms or maps. These paradigms are the lenses with which we view the world around us. Everything we say, feel, and do is filtered through these lenses. Somewhere along the line, from when we were babies, we decided it was appropriate to change the maps we were born with. We convinced ourselves it was okay to lie and so we changed our paradigms.

This can be a very hard subject to digest so let’s start at the beginning. If you’ve ever held a baby close in your arms, gazing deep into his or her eyes you see so much beauty. You see a baby that’s precious, beautiful, innocent, joyful, good enough, worthy, intelligent, and many other qualities. We don’t even think twice that these things are true about babies. It’s not something we need to try and prove or convince ourselves of, it’s just the way it is. These qualities we see in these babies are their inherent nature. They’re born with these qualities. Every child is born with these qualities, including you. These qualities never go away, they’re always there.

Somewhere down the road from baby to toddler, to child, to pre-teen, to teen, to adult that inherent nature gets covered over. It becomes too foggy to see and we put on new glasses. Only the new lenses are filled with lies we tell ourselves. Usually we come up with these new maps/beliefs as a way to protect us from childhood trauma. It doesn’t have to be trauma in the sense of physical or sexual abuse. Remember, what’s important to reflect on is not “what” happened to us as children but rather “how” it impacted us. No two people are alike and what causes you trauma and distress can be totally different than someone else. It’s not important to focus on the what but more so the how. We easily get caught up in the, “Well I wasn’t beaten half to death as a child so I didn’t have any trauma.” The reality is shame plays a huge role in most of our lives and how we are shaped as young adults. Parents shame children every day and in fact it’s so common that many of us don’t even notice we’re doing it to our children or that it’s being done to other children around us. This shame and childhood trauma, however brought about, shapes these new maps that we carry with us today.

These maps are the basis for our beliefs. Our actions are tied so close to our beliefs. They can cause us to pull away or overcompensate. Take for example the person who doesn’t think they’re attractive. Most of us who think we’re unattractive will give up on obtaining what we consider being attractive. We may not work out, we may eat poorly, we may not get annual physicals. We don’t take care of ourselves because we don’t think we’re attractive. On the flip side, some of us might overcompensate for our beliefs. We don’t think we’re attractive and because we feel so much shame around that we go out of our ways to make others think we are. We may spend and exorbitant amount of money, time, and energy on trying to look (in our eyes) attractive. This is an example of the extremes that we face when we carry these false beliefs. We’re much more moderate when we’re living in our adult realities and aware of our inherent nature. It’s these false beliefs we carry that swing us back and forth in these extremes and ultimately become the basis for how we respond to everything in our life.

Imagine what your life would be like if you believed you were intelligent, attractive, good enough, loveable, precious, innocent, committed…

You already are all of these things, you just need to believe it.

You Have the Greatest Impact On The Future of Your Children!

Stop Lying To Yourself And Start Believing Again