#11 - When Young We Are The Reflection Of Others

As infants and very young children we are sponges soaking up perceptions gleaned from everything around us. Even before we can understand words we become adept at sensing whether situations are supportive and nurturing or are unsatisfying and devoid of nurturing. We learn to read from the people around us happiness, love, sadness, anger, indifference, and danger based on what repeatedly happens and how fulfilling the experiences are for us. With nothing else to compare these experiences with we begin to adopt some of these characteristics. This is the beginning of our micro-voice and personality development.

Throughout our pre-teen years we primarily learn from others how the world works through their eyes based on their own perceptions. Our deepest fears and prejudices are formed and we adopt our world perspective based on the views people have instilled in us. Our micro-voices are formed in response to them, our self-image reflects how others treated us, our own ideas are often corrected to reflect theirs, and we are at the mercy of school teachings that give us a very narrow view of the teacher’s world perspective. And our wider community presents us with consequences when the proscribed order is not followed. It’s all very neat and very artificial.

As we mature into teenhood and become an adult it is our time to take back our uniqueness and begin redefining our own values by replacing those imposed upon us. It’s not that those values are good or bad, but it is for us to find our own selves. We need to design who we are based on what we believe, not what someone else believes. Blindly following others is like building a house on loose sand, its not stable nor is it trustworthy. To feel secure we have to be certain about who we are, what we believe, and trust our ability to negotiate the world of experiences we face on our own terms.

Without finding our own foundation we will follow other belief systems, scammers, romantic interests, gurus, and friends who need us to support them, to help them drain away our vital energies to serve their own purposes. It is more than just taking a defensive position of not trusting anyone else, it is necessary for us to be able to trust ourselves. We need a solid foundation to make sense of the world, to filter out the chaff from the nuggets of truth, to allow ourselves to remain open to loving others and to be loved. To do this requires filling ourselves with our own thoughts and values, to become our own unique beings able to withstand the nonsense this complex world throws at us.

We have to help our little child grow up, to not feel fear and to know that our adult self is still looking out for its well-being. Knowing that it is safe to be in the adult world and no longer needing protections by its micro-selves, our Inner Child needs to be helped to release its fears. It is completing the circle: we started our life with pure micro-voice skills and once the protective fearful emotional layers are removed we can use our pure original skills as adults to explore our worlds on our own terms. -kc