Getting Rid of the Messages that Can Destroy Your Happiness
© 1998 Dick Wulf, MSW, LCSW
We each develop a view of the world from what happens in life. That view, whether correct or false, helps us interpret or misinterpret the events of our adult lives. The wrong lessons lead to wrong perceptions that go on to spoil our lives. These wrong assumptions about life need to be sought out and destroyed.
Early learning is the most potent. Every time we learn something, we interpret following events through the perspective of what we have already learned. Therefore, the lessons of early childhood are particularly powerful that need to be discovered and eliminated.
For example, if life was particularly harsh, we might have decided that the whole world is harsh. Alternatively, if our early life was particularly easy, we might have decided that all of life is easy. In the first case, we would be vigilant to note the harshness in life and end up often seeing impossibility where it is not. We would actually find ourselves avoiding safe things and safe people. In the second case, we would be intimidated when something is particularly hard or difficult and tend to give up easily or get depressed.
So, hopefully, you can see that how we interpreted life when we were younger might still be the way we perceive things. If we saw conflict as dangerous when we were little, we might still be seeing it as difficult, even though interpersonal conflict is rarely dangerous and we are no longer small and helpless.
Of course, we want to identify and eliminate any messages we tell ourselves that are not true and hold us back in life. This usually requires the services of a skilled psychotherapist.
Another way to think of it is that our brains are like the operating system in our computer (for personal computers, it is Windows Operating System). If that operating system has errors, some programs won't run correctly. That is why there came to be Windows 2.0 up to the present. However, our brains cannot be upgraded. We are stuck with the errors and must build "go arounds" to be successful.
Early learning is the most potent. Every time we learn something, we interpret following events through the perspective of what we have already learned. Therefore, the lessons of early childhood are particularly powerful that need to be discovered and eliminated.
For example, if life was particularly harsh, we might have decided that the whole world is harsh. Alternatively, if our early life was particularly easy, we might have decided that all of life is easy. In the first case, we would be vigilant to note the harshness in life and end up often seeing impossibility where it is not. We would actually find ourselves avoiding safe things and safe people. In the second case, we would be intimidated when something is particularly hard or difficult and tend to give up easily or get depressed.
So, hopefully, you can see that how we interpreted life when we were younger might still be the way we perceive things. If we saw conflict as dangerous when we were little, we might still be seeing it as difficult, even though interpersonal conflict is rarely dangerous and we are no longer small and helpless.
Of course, we want to identify and eliminate any messages we tell ourselves that are not true and hold us back in life. This usually requires the services of a skilled psychotherapist.
Another way to think of it is that our brains are like the operating system in our computer (for personal computers, it is Windows Operating System). If that operating system has errors, some programs won't run correctly. That is why there came to be Windows 2.0 up to the present. However, our brains cannot be upgraded. We are stuck with the errors and must build "go arounds" to be successful.