When Your Mind is Hurting Let’s Talk Childhood

Hurt and Pain by Any Other Name

Nothing can be more important than understanding the role of childhood in our growth and development. I hope that you will read this post and that it will be of comfort to you, your loved ones, or someone you may know. If you feel that this does not pertain to your experience, it may help you understand someone you know better.

Your husband or wife does not cause our pain. Neither your employer nor your friends are the cause of the pain that you feel. The pain that you feel is caused by no one other than you. It does not matter from where it came; you allow it to do what it does. It is not the job, the neighbor, or anyone else or thing. The source of the pain is your thinking.

Childhood the Root Cause of Hurt and Pain

A cluttered mind leaves no place for good things to go. You let your pain caused by others be the reason why you suffer from the pain you do cause.  When how you think and act is the result of the pain you feel, you must trace your pain to where it leads. That would be your childhood.

Stressful experiences in early childhood can have long-lasting impacts on kids’ health that persist well beyond the resolution of the situation. We now know more about emotional trauma and abuse in childhood and its effect on the mind. This is good. What is not so good is that those who know do not know what they should. It seems that what no one wants to admit, and we (society) will not own up to, is what we are doing to us. So, I ask myself what the end game is. Does anyone know? A childhood of pain and hurt can only lead to one thing, a life of the same. That is if we do not listen to what we hear. And it is difficult to do that when you are still clinging to debris from your childhood. But, you can learn to listen to what you hear. First, though, you must learn to listen and listen to learn.

Your childhood is real, and the effect that it has on you is real, as well. You must look back one last time. First, though, you have to let down your defense, drop your guard, maybe, for the first time. You can do it when you change how you think. Yes, many of us have been hurt. Our pain has its roots in and grows from a life being interfered with. You have to go back to this point. It is where your path to the right way of thinking begins.

Stairway to Self

 Knowing who you are and being the real you is how you become the person you were meant to be. That goes for all of us. It is a journey that begins with the first step, and this first step should always be taken in early childhood, where the basis of our personality and sensitivities are formed. Yes, the first step to becoming you should always be taken in early childhood, but to the detriment of way too many, it is not. The caregivers failed to do their job. What allows a child to develop a sense of worth and belonging depends on the makeup of their environment. In our mental and physical environment is where our thoughts are formed by way of the senses and are molded in the image of the messages we receive through awareness and perception.

When your self-esteem is low, you will not be the best that you can be. It is not that you cannot be your best. You just will not let yourself do it. You are weak though you act strong, and that is not pretty and fools no one. You have to be Self-aware. It will never leave you; it is with you for life. It is how a child develops a healthy sense of self-worth. This is when you can say I am “somebody” and mean it. And it does not always happen when it should.

What has the most negative impact on our lives is when our self-esteem does not develop at all. You need it to live an emotionally mature life. It is not likely that you can have a productive life, or longevity without a heavy dose of self-esteem. We all need it. If this does not happen in early childhood, it will cause you to think, feel and act how you would rather not. Life will be difficult, at best. It can take years if ever, to gain what you never had but always needed. And I know this.

The American Academy of Pediatrics

 The American Academy of Pediatrics in a Healthy Children article defines self-esteem as “the way in which an individual perceives herself—in other words, her own thoughts and feelings about herself and her ability to achieve in ways that are important to her. This self-esteem is shaped by not only a child’s own perceptions and expectations, but also by the perceptions and expectations of significant people in her life—how she is thought of and treated by parents, teachers, and friends. The closer her perceived self (how she sees herself) comes to her ideal self (how she would like to be), the higher her self-esteem.”