Do you find that you are easily angered? Feel like a victim or perhaps close off from others when uncomfortable?

We all have “triggers” that return us to patterns that we learned as children. Perhaps your parents argued a lot and now as an adult, you tend to “shut down” whenever there is confrontation. Perhaps, when faced with confrontation, you get angry and go on the offensive, attacking others. Again, a pattern that you discovered to be effective as a child.

None of these negative emotions feel good, so why do you keep choosing to experience them over and over?

Our mind has been conditioned to “cope” with negative situations from a time when we were very young-having had limited experiences and limited coping mechanisms. With few options, we did the best we could in the situation and then unfortunately adopted it as a permanent way of coping.

Here is an example.

One of my clients highly valued going to movies and watching television. He had a great but stressful career that he enjoyed, some casual friends and rarely dated for very long. He was not happy. What we uncovered together is that he had a negative experience as a child that made “losing himself” watching television was used to cope with his parents big arguments. At 3 years old he discovered that watching cartoons made him feel better. With the discomfort of the fight taking place, he made the unconscious decision to shut down his emotions and focus on the cartoons. In his adult life, he felt in control of his “world” when in front of TV and movies. He resisted having any close meaningful relationships as they represented pain.

The beautiful resolution to this story is that he was able to recognize his current behavior as a pattern that wasn’t serving his adult male life. He made a new conscious decision to place “having close personal relationships” as his new priority and value in his life.

What emotion do you gravitate towards when is a state of stress?

What situations in your life do you see this pattern emerge? Make a list over the next week when and where you were when you have experienced this. Sit quietly and go backwards in time in 5 year increments and try to discover the examples of what was taking place each time you remember experiencing this emotion.

When you have gone back as far as you are able, take some time to sit quietly with your former self.

Praise them for their resourcefulness.

Offer gratitude for them protecting you.

Let them know that you don’t need that negative emotion any longer.