Over the last few weeks on my blog, I’ve focused on the stories we tell ourselves based on the scripts we hear and pick up as children from the people who raised us. For the most part, the posts have been somewhat negative, as if every person’s childhood was fraught with some major issue caused by their primary caregivers.
I know this isn’t the truth, but I also know that for those who did have traumatic childhoods, those issues have had long-lasting repercussions throughout their lives. And, many people need help to navigate their past so that they can live their future.
I try to help my clients learn how to rewrite their internal scripts—especially those based on long-held beliefs from their respective childhoods. But notice that I used the word “rewrite,” not “erase.” We can’t erase parts of who we are, even if certain parts are troubling. In fact, being able to look into such problematic areas of our lives from a place of self-confidence and security is integral to the healing process.
As The Stories We Tell Ourselves says,
Try as you might, it’s impossible to erase your family of origin scripts. It’s like deleting a file from your computer. All it does is go dormant, lying unseen in the trash bin. You can’t delete your childhood. It’s part of who you are. You can grow, learn, and break negative family cycles, but in order to do so, you have to confront your past, not ignore it.
If you’ve been ignoring your past in the hopes that your present issues will disappear, what’s preventing you from confronting it?
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