Anxiety is not your fault.
Although you may not be aware of it yet, our daily actions are derived from our earliest childhood experiences, from tying our shoes to managing our more challenging emotions. In most cases, we had an extremely limited choice in our early learning experiences, and this is called conditioning.
I write this article to share how the understanding of conditioning is a crucial piece in our healing journey. As someone who has suffered immensely with anxiety, intense self criticism and obsessive compulsive “disorder” — understanding exactly what conditioning is has relieved me from a back-breaking amount of pressure and introduced a whole lot of self compassion. The reason being.. I recognized that the pain and suffering was not my fault!
I’ll tell you why..
According to the Oxford Dictionary, “conditioning” is defined as
- the process of training or accustoming a person or animal to behave in a certain way.
When we arrive into this world, we are essentially a blank slate, a canvas ready to be painted on. Who are the painters? They are our parent figures, whether an aunt and uncle, our grandparents, close family friends, or our biological parents themselves. Those who raise you are the ones holding the paintbrushes. However, the only paints they can use are the ones they’ve acquired throughout their lives. So, if they’ve only ever had black and red on their palette, then chances are you’re not going to be raised a vibrant canvas.
In other words, we learn how to navigate our world through our parent figures. We learn how to handle stress through how our parent figures handle stress, how to respond to challenging emotions through how our parent figures respond to challenging emotions, and how to be in relationship with ourselves and others through what our parent figures modeled for us.
“If parent-figures have not healed or even recognized their unrealized traumas, they cannot consciously navigate their own path in life, let alone act as trustworthy guides for someone else. It’s very common for parent-figures to project their own unresolved traumas onto their children.”
― Dr. Nicole Lepera, How To Do The Work
For example, my mom has told me on multiple occasions that if she decided to go to therapy when she was a kid/teenager, her peers would’ve considered her psychotic and socially exiled her. Therefore, a lack of emotional education left her unable to adopt healthy, healing processing strategies. Schools and early education were also not dedicating part of their curriculum to positive mental health and emotional regulation back then. This left my mom to fend on her own, to use the tools that her parents passed down to her.. even if the tools being passed down weren’t quite what she needed.
Because my mom never healed her self-esteem challenges, she inevitably passed them on to her children, me. Researchers consistently display that a child’s core beliefs about themselves, their emotional regulation tools and how they hold themselves in relationships will bake in by the time they reach just five years old. Jose A. Ramos Jr., MSW and secretary of the National Association of Social Workers writes, “One of the most critical time periods in child development and learning is from birth to five years old. The first five years of child development is crucial to their health, wellbeing, and the overall trajectory of their lives in a variety of ways.”
At this age, we had no choice but to inherit that which our parents acquired themselves. We were entirely vulnerable. In my case, my mom passed on her unprocessed challenges with self-criticism. If she processed them before my birth, the likelihood of the transfer would be far less. Her actions and behaviors with herself were replicated by me, just as children often do. They mirror those around them.
These emotional wounds are often generational. In other words, my mom most likely adopted a self-esteem issue from her mother and her mother adopted it from her mother, and so on. It can span generations until, one day, someone decides to interrupt the domino effect ― healing through it.
“Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You
We were simply vulnerable. That which we have inherited has not been our fault. However, once we wake up to this understanding, we hold the awareness and power to unlearn the old, outdated belief systems and learn that which empowers us and our lives; to evolve.
We can learn healthy lifestyle habits such as how to productively respond to challenging emotions, increase our resilience to stress and anxiety, as well as set boundaries and have healthy relationships.
This understanding has granted me an incredible amount of self-compassion and SPACE between myself and my emotions. I no longer get so caught up in my thoughts and instead, I keep sight of myself. Now I recognize the patterns and conditioning in my family and I utilize the power to unlearn and relearn that which empowers me.
Psychology Today writes, “Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks.”
In other words, what we inherited from our parent figures is not a life sentence ― we can evolve.
The practices below have elevated my ability to move past debilitating anxiety:
- meditation
- therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy
- a strong support system ( emotionally capable friends & family )
- breathwork
- journaling
It’s not one thing but rather a group of practices that helps us get where we want to be.
This process of unlearning & evolving is a practice. Through repeatedly showing up for myself and putting in consistent, sustainable and sometimes very uncomfortable work, I arrived at a place I could barely have imagined 8 years ago. The work is incredibly rewarding even if the work is challenging at times.
For more on mental health, healing and overall wellbeing you can find me on my YouTube channel here.
Let’s learn, grow and evolve together.
References:
- First Five Years Are Most Important (Child Development) https://www.all4kids.org/news/blog/why-the-first-5-years-of-child-development-are-so-important/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20critical,in%20a%20variety%20of%20ways.
- Neuroplasticity https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/neuroplasticity
- Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
