Remember the children When Your Mind is Hurting

Childhood Where Life First Comes To Light

Childhood is when the newborn has moved from darkness into the light. This nine-month-old child will continue to absorb the world around it. It is for us to prepare this place where the child will grow to be a product of its environment and teachings. The children are us.

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 better someone you know.

Your husband or wife does not cause your pain. Neither your employer nor your friends are the cause of the pain that you feel. You are the cause of the pain you feel now. It does not matter the point of origin; you allow it to live on and do what it does. It is not the job, the neighbor, children, or anyone else or thing. The source of the pain is your thinking.

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, which 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 is the end game. Does anyone know? A childhood of pain and hurt can only lead to one thing, a life of the same. Children are more vulnerable today than ever before because many parents don’t allocate the time to parent, teachers are not the parents and the community is not a village.

The only hope is if we listen to what we hear. And it is difficult to do that when you are still clinging to debris from your childhood. But you do have to learn to listen and listen to learn. Are you listening now?

A cluttered mind leaves no place for good things to go. You let the pain caused by others be the reason why you suffer from the pain you did 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 back to your childhood.

Your childhood is real, and the effect that it has on you—good or bad— 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.

Knowing who you are and being the real you is how you open the door to let your Self walk through. The Creator created you to be a complete person, and now you will be. That goes for all of us. It is a journey that begins with the first step, and the first step should always be taken in early childhood—though for far too many, it is not. Childhood is where our personality and sensitivities form. What comes next is the product of our environment. Our thoughts originate by way of the senses in our mental and physical environment. They 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 (we 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. It is when you can say I am “somebody” and mean it. And it does not always happen when it should. But there is no time limit, deadline, or expiration date.

What has the most negative impact on our lives is when our self-esteem does not develop at all or is hampered. You need it to live an emotionally mature life. It is not likely that you can have a productive life 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 when we are adults and thinking and feeling like children. It can take years if ever, to gain what you never had but always needed: Self-esteem.

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.”