Could childhood feelings be shaping my adult life?
When I feel deeply hurt, I tend to react with emotions and behaviors similar to those from when I’ve been hurt before. There seems to be a pattern in my behavior, but I don’t know where it comes from. Why do I do what I do?
Advice: We are told that most of us have a dominant childhood feeling, such as being conditionally loved, being accepted, or not; being ignored (no one ever listens to me), or feeling inadequate and insecure (maybe I’ll never be good enough.). Often these emotions go way back to original hurts, like when we were six, or even four. Our brain is neurologically organized so that pain today can trigger old pain and we can react with the emotions we felt when we were four or six. Haven’t you seen someone over-react to a situation and you’ve thought that they were acting like a six-year-old? It is an involuntary reaction.
The first thing to do when you have this feeling is to ask God what is going on. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord searching the deep heart.” God uses our understanding of what has happened in our life to reveal to us what we need to do about it. When I have an uncomfortable emotion, such as rejection, abandonment, irritation, embarrassment or humiliation, I ask God, “When else have I felt that way? How old was I? What was the event in which it happened? And is there someone in that picture I need to forgive?”
As I get more self-awareness, I may not want to forgive anyone at that moment, but I keep talking to God about it. Sometimes, He brings someone into my path who can help me understand. But until I forgive, I won’t be free. Forgiveness needs to connect understanding with the painful emotion before it can break the old patterns. Two helpful books on this subject are Bob Biehl’s book, Why You Do What You Do, and my book, Being a Woman of God, by Ginger Gabriel.
