The past can either predict the future or provide the information to free us from it, depending on our perspective.
What we have become familiar with in our formative years will predict what is familiar to us as adults. The old adage ‘give me a child until he is seven years old and I’ll give you the man,’ is disturbingly true. What we have come to know in the past is what we come to look for in others in the future. The devil we know.
When the parent/child relationship is one of the parent not allowing the child to think or feel differently, or disagree with the parent, the child will grow up and find a partner who doesn’t know how to disagree, or think and feel on their own. They will always look outside of themselves to find answers, and gauge how others feel before knowing how they feel themselves.
The child who grows up and finds a partner to behave in these ways will do the same, not voicing their thoughts or feelings and usually denying that they don’t know how to resolve conflict, think on their own, and feel however they feel without looking to see how others feel first.
Familiar seems safe. Better the devil we know.
The absence of the familiar causes stress, anxiety and tension. We notice that when we can park in the spot we are familiar with, we don’t have tension. If our parking spot is taken we experience some level of tension.
The absence of other familiar and unhealthy traits will also then cause an unconscious level of stress, anxiety and tension. If abuse was familiar, one will seek it out. Better the devil we know. This leads us to unconsciously seek out relationships that repeat our childhood, all the while thinking there will be less stress, tension and anxiety, even if the devil we know is abuse.
We are most familiar with our families and our history, although much of it lies in the unconscious mind acting on us from moment to moment. Unless we recognize the patterns that take the life out of our relationships, we are bound to be in relationships that duplicate our early experiences with our parents and siblings. This leads to a pattern of repeating life rather than living it.
The familiar and often unconscious parent/child relationship foretells the future unconscious relationships.
| IF THE PARENT /CHILD EXPERIENCE IS ONE OF THE PARENT: | THE CHILD WILL GROW UP THE SAME, AND: |
| · Appearing unable to care for the child | · Find a relationship with someone who is unable to care for them |
| · Uses fear to gain compliance | · Find a relationship where fear is used to gain compliance |
| · Abuses themselves with drugs, alcohol, food, etc. | · Find a relationship with someone who abuses themselves with drugs, alcohol, food, TV, etc. |
| · Working most of the time | · Find a relationship with someone who focuses on one aspect of living most of the time |
| · Professing love but not showing love | · Find a relationship with someone who professes but does not show love |
| · Never fostering the child’s passions | · Find a relationship where neither foster their own or the others passions |
| · Demonstrates that childcare is a troublesome task | · Find a relationship with someone who will not be able to help with the childrearing |
| · Criticizing the child | · Find a relationship with someone who criticizes |
| · Leaves the family | · Find a relationship with someone who will leave physically, mentally or emotionally |
| · Giving orders rather than making requests | · Find a relationship with someone who will give orders rather than make requests |
| · Has impossible expectations | · Find a relationship with someone who can never find satisfaction |
| · Behaves in a condescending way towards the child | · Find a relationship with someone who behaves in a condescending manner towards them |
| · Bragging to hide low self-esteem | · Finds a relationship with someone who brags verbally or by buying things worth bragging about without saying a word |
| · Disrespecting the child | · Find a relationship with someone who disrespects them |
| · Uses the child as free labor | · Find a relationship with someone who uses them as free labor |
| · Has strong opinions about how others should live their lives | · Find a relationship with someone who doesn’t know how to support |
| · Uses guilt to manipulate | · Find a relationship with someone who uses guilt to manipulate |
| · Uses shame to teach appropriate behaviors | · Find a relationship with someone who uses shame in the same way |
| · Uses embarrassment as a parenting tool | · Find a relationship with someone who is socially embarrassing and uses embarrassment as a social skill |
| · Blames others | · Find a relationship who is irresponsible and blames others |
| · Puts conditions on love | · Find a relationship with someone who must put conditions on to show love |
| · Sees anger as unacceptable | · Find a relationship with someone who represses anger |
| · Gives money in place of love | · Goes shopping when feeling unloved |
| · Withdraws from the child | · Find a relationship with someone who will withdraw from them mentally, physically or emotionally |
| · Relying on the child to replace an absent partner | · Find a relationship where they can ‘mother’/’father’ their partner rather than be a true partner |
| · Insists the child ‘do the right thing’ | · Expect everyone to do things their way |
| · Laughs at the child’s misery or missteps | · Find a relationship in which the partners laugh at, not with, the other |
| · Who is always sick | · Find a partner who is sick, emotionally, mentally or physically |
These unconscious behaviors that are hidden in plain sight are what we are drawn to because they are familiar, and we mistakenly think the familiar will cause us less stress. We live these behaviors ourselves and perceive them in others because they are familiar and therefore, we think, absent of stress and danger, and yet the opposite is true.
There is another way.
It is to know that our parents were tiny children and inherited these behaviors in the same way they inherited their mother’s eye color and their father’s nose. They taught us what they were taught and we are unconsciously teaching our children the same. The inheritance is a long silent list of ways for people to be in this world that no longer serve us individually or collectively.
Only when we stop blaming the parent and stop looking for someone else to nurture us, do we begin to nurture and parent ourselves, wisely guiding ourselves as no other can.
BreakThrough is a way out.
