“The earliest of our wounds are often inflicted during childhood. At the time, our age prevents us from accurately processing exactly what we feel; all we know is that it’s bad and we don’t ever want to feel that way again. Ever. If the hurt is repeated, we begin to develop coping mechanisms. We have to. The natural response to pain is to stop it and, once we’ve stopped it, to prevent it from ever happening again. This is true of physical as well as emotional pain. And in some cases we’ll go to extremes to stop our pain. Extreme pain calls for extreme measures.”
Enemies of the Heart, by Andy Stanley, p. 36.
When do we know that we’re still acting on something that happened in our childhood? When our actions don’t make sense on relating to our present. There is a self-honesty required in order to heal from our childhood wounds. On some level, you have to be willing to go back to that time (in your mind) and sort through it. Often, it’s best to talk it out with someone because it helps you to process what happened to you.
It’s not only addicts that have to deal with the trauma of their past. That’s most of us. If we did an honest assessment of our childhood experiences, many of us would discover that we’re still “acting out” our childhood coping mechanisms as adults. Those are the behaviors that need to change. Those are the things that prevent us from becoming the best version of ourselves.
How do we root out our childhood issues and create new coping mechanisms? It always begins with recognizing you have a problem. If you can’t be honest with yourself, there’s no changing anything. After you’ve recognized and acknowledged your problem, then you have to ask yourself what is a better way to cope right now?
As a teenager and young adult, when I got frustrated and could no longer handle my emotions I would break things. I’d take my frustrations out on inanimate things like punching walls or putting dents in my car. Sadly, I was even abusive in my relationships. Physical violence was a way I coped with my emotional frustrations. When I started training in martial arts my frustrations were “vented” during my training. Not that I was angry or hurtful, but the energy was dispersed through a tough, sweat-inducing training session. I found a better, more positive way to cope with my emotions.
We all have our coping mechanisms in life. Some are good and some are not. The ones that aren’t good are the ones we want to change. We want to move beyond our self-imposed limitations and move into something new, something more meaningful than childhood coping mechanism. We want to cope from an adult perspective, where we choose how to bring out the best of ourselves.
Check out this video where the speaker offers some steps on how you can overcome childhood trauma:
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