Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation

...Until You Take Responsibility to Heal 

A few weeks ago I was listening to an extremely moving TEDx talk by Mataio Brown whose own childhood had been less than idyllic. He said “Your childhood trauma is not your fault, but your healing is your responsibility” and my heart sang loudly in response; I feel this speaks to the very core of what is needed to evolve individually and collectively right now.

I deliberated for quite a while about including the word trauma after childhood in the title but decided to leave it out. In my experience, people tend to associate the word trauma with things like physical and sexual abuse, warfare and life threatening illnesses to name a few. While these are unarguably traumatic and horrendous, most of us experience emotional and psychological trauma on some level that comes as part of a normal childhood. 

This is often caused completely subconsciously by well meaning parents, who themselves have grown in a form reflecting their own childhood. However, I feel this is an era where are becoming aware of these cycles and have a responsibility to break them.

Trauma can arise from any event or situation that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. This can range from issues with the way a parents interacts, to childhood illnesses, injuries and accidents, developmental trauma, exposure to violence and chronic stress to name a few.

A trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience, so it makes sense to me that –  especially as helpless babies and young infants beginning to interact with the world – it would be traumatizing to feel rejected in any way. For example, Dr Gabor Mate talks about certain disruptions in the attachment process leading to developmental trauma.

To put that in plain English, I am talking about the job I might have to go to, which places my attention elsewhere, not on my infant seeking far more connection than I am able to give him or her. Or the constant distraction of a device and countless other things in this day and age when there is far more screaming for my attention than I am capable of giving.

Then there are the inherited patterns of behaviour in our parents that we react to, and unwittingly develop patterns in response to. These are essential for our survival in childhood but become unhealthy patterns later in life, and will certainly pass on unless we take action.

The best description I’ve seen of these is in James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy, he describes control strategies that we each develop in order to stop others draining our energy. These sit on a scale of aggressive to passive and he describes four archetypes; it’s often easiest if you start by taking a look at which strategies your parents employed:

• Intimidator’s threaten verbally or physically and come on too strong, making others frightened. They are so wrapped up in their own anger they don’t care what is happening inside the other person.
• Interrogator’s constantly question, criticize, nag and find fault, making others self conscious and eroding their confidence.
• Aloof’s shut down when confrontation happens. They often withdraw physically or verbally, forcing others to struggle and dig to find out their true feelings.
• Poor Me’s tend to guilt trip, projecting themselves as the helpless victim in need or care and attention. This makes others feel guilty even if they know there is no real reason to feel this way.

Each of these are linked with the corresponding strategies that created them, and that they create. For example, Intimidators create Poor Me’s appealing for mercy, or, the child will endure until they are old enough and big enough to fight back, creating another Intimidator, and so the cycle continues.

To break the cycle I have to become aware of the strategies I employ, and those being used by others around me. As James Redfield’s characters say, a person cannot play these strategies unless we play the matching drama. While the answer lies in becoming a more detached observer of our own interactions, rather than getting pulled into the drama, and calling out what is actually happening, this is something that requires learning and practicing new skills that I will talk about later.

While I found these archetypes of how humans interact exceptionally useful, Jen Peters points out the many ways in which unhealed childhood trauma manifests:

• Fixing others
• People pleasing
• Co-dependency
• External validation
• Living on high alert
• Fear of abandonment
• De-prioritising one’s own needs
• Need to prove one’s self
• Tolerating abusive behaviour
• Attracting narcissistic partners
• Difficulty setting boundaries

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives an indication of the common types of ways in which childhood trauma can limit us in adulthood if we let it.

Yet when I take responsibility for my shortcomings and seek to heal them, I break a cycle that has been repeating uninterrupted for thousands of years. I become less encumbered, more connected, happier and more able to fulfill my potential. I become the very best version of me, and the best partner, best mum, best friend, best sister, the best of me reflects into all my relationships.

Circling back to the inspirational Mataio Brown telling his story in the TEDx talk, whose first memory of Christmas was as a three year old witnessing his father beat his mother half to death with the Christmas tree, he now says this of his father "That man who was my childhood monster, I now see his pain and loving him releases me to be the father for my children that I wanted".

This is an excellent example of what Tony Robbins means when he says “Heal the boy and the man will appear”. Mataio could have become another generation of monster, or he could have played the Poor Me drama his whole life, instead he now campaigns with the slogan "She is not your rehab” and advocates for awareness and a healthier approach to childhood trauma.

I agree wholeheartedly, and I also think you could easily widen the scope in the broader sense of trauma and say “your partner/your children are not your rehabilitation centre". As I’ve said before, whether psychologically, emotionally or physically The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth.

There are many things in this world that need to change: poverty, having access to education for all and the way we treat the planet to name a few of the big ones. But I am swimming upstream until I take responsibility for my own healing.

I realised life is not about having, life is about being, being who I truly am; not the misshapen version I’d become. Like most people, I would go to work to just exist, albeit it in a nicer lifestyle than that which I’d grown up in. It is easy to get distracted by the glittery baubles of day to day living, but they soon lose their sparkle yet require the money wheel to keep spinning anyway.

Becoming the observer of my own life, consciously aware of what is really tripping me up, is one of the most fundamental skills I have learned; and that is a whole lot easier when I take regular time out to meditate. The other skill that helps me take ownership of my part in all of it, is building my energy through appreciation of the beauty and awe of intelligent design that abounds on this planet; in people, animals and our environment.

The alternative, the default setting we have developed, is to steal energy from others, winning points in rounds of interactions.  It is some time since Newton told us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Well, here it is, this is what our actions and reactions among each other have come to look like after generations of just living on the wheel, acting and reacting subconsciously.

There are many ways to heal childhood trauma, but the common thread between most that are successful is to recognise and learn from the emotions we have locked inside us. My own approach has been to deal with one issue at a time, starting with whatever is my biggest block or trigger in the moment, including what’s happening on a physical level with my body.

I sometimes self heal using techniques and practices I’ve learned like The Completion Process, other times I use healthcare practitioners to help. I have some trusted confidantes that willingly dive into issues with me when they are raw and we keep each other honest, looking for the lessons rather than to blame, and I have a mentor that keeps me focused on the big picture.

This is not easy, it is not quick work, but it is everything.

Be the you that you are destined to become, you are not just destined to take from this Earth and provide for your family, get off that wheel. Until you feel connected to yourself you are cut off from your connection to everything else. You are here to be somebody, so wake up and be that person, this world needs you.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy some of my other articles like: Embody Your Spirituality – a Healing Journey, Learn to See What Is in Plain Sight, Leverage Your Feelings to Find Your Authentic Self, Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary). To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog