childhood conditioning + Emotional Programming

In my Coaching Program, Getting Real: Discovering the True You, I guide people in exploring their experience of childhood conditioning and programming.
​
As I’ve explored my own childhood experience over the years, I can relate to feeling guilty around making connections or starting to see things from a different perspective.

Like me, you may feel, or even be told by others, that you’re trying to blame other people (specifically your caregivers) for your "problems". 

Your adult, rational, present-moment mind will make all kinds of logical statements:

• “I had everything I needed – it’s not like I was mistreated!”
• “I had a happy childhood – there’s no connection to why I’m struggling now.”
• “It was so long ago I barely even remember my childhood.”​
• “Get over it – stop living in the past!”

​Exploring your upbringing and earliest experience of life is not, in any way, meant to blame, shame, or point fingers at the people who raised you. Just as each of us is doing the best we can in this moment, with the level of self-awareness and emotional well-being we have, so were they. 

​We can love, honor, and appreciate our caregivers, being respectful of their experiences. But we also owe it to ourselves to honor our earliest experiences by uncovering beliefs that no longer serve who we are today. 

We don’t have to blame the past in order to heal the old emotional wounds that occurred there. 

​By building our level of insight into the programming of our past, it opens up the opportunity for emotional healing in the present-moment.

We explore childhood conditioning to understand the wiring that took place back then that is dictating your current life experience.
​
So, instead of causing resentment and judgment, it actually has the potential to raise our level of self-compassion and empathy for others.

​Our core beliefs formed in childhood. When we think of beliefs, it's often the conscious ones that come to mind, like, “I believe in God” or “I believe that people should be good to one another”.

They make up a tiny percentage of our overall beliefs. Much deeper are the subconscious beliefs that dictate how you see yourself and interpret what happens around you – beliefs that are basically creating your reality. 

​You don’t remember it now, but in your earliest years, based on what was happening around you, you decided who you were and what you were like, what you were capable and not capable of.

​You decided what parts of you were acceptable and which parts should be hidden away so that you would be loved + accepted by those around you. 

You decided what you could expect from other people and from life in general.

You internalized all the messaging (verbal, non-verbal, energetic) and turned it all into a story, a type of "Life Script", that helped you make sense of the world and stay safe within it.

​The problem with the story we wrote is that it was based on faulty information. We were trying to learn to navigate the world; we needed to figure out where we fit. Along with what was said to us directly, through verbal messaging, we also interpreted everything we saw and heard. 

Our mind told stories and connected dots that were often just not true.

​Your child-mind was in programming mode, with a brainwave pattern that allowed information to be "downloaded". As children, we are sponges. We are self-involved. We have to be.

​We relate everything back to ourselves – "what does this mean for and about ME?” Every experience was filtered through that lens and conclusions were reached that were often inaccurate and painful.

​For most people, that programming from childhood is still running the show today. From a deeply unconscious place.

​Our emotional programming was in place by the age of seven. Is it any wonder that adults still have temper tantrums? When that happens, we’re truly operating from the perspective of a young child. Our subconscious wiring has caused us to become emotionally dysregulated.

​Your emotional programming determines how you feel about, express, process, and experience emotions. In childhood, you watched how important adults to you handled their emotions. You grew to understand which emotions were okay to have and express, and which ones weren’t okay.

​You also decided how you FELT about emotions in general. Were they something to avoid, did they mean you were weak or needy? Did you believe you were you responsible for how others felt? Were emotions embraced, accepted, and openly discussed?

​It’s the blueprint you would have taken on as a “how-to” when it comes to emotions.

​If I had to guess, I would say that, like me, your “how-to” blueprint stopped working for you a long time ago. By doing self-work, you can uncover the subconscious wiring + programming you have around emotions. And by working with your emotional triggers (we all have them – big + small!) you can make the switch from habitually reacting to your emotions to intentionally responding to what is happening in the present-moment.

Learn More about a unique coaching approach that blends psychology, brain-science, and elements of spirituality

Author

Learn more about Bobbi Beuree, Halifax-based Coach + Facilitator