Do you think you are a victim of childhood circumstances? Well, in some ways you are. However, you, without realizing it participated in your original programming by how you interpreted your experiences and how you chose to deal with what happened to you. You have you own temperament and personality…from the beginning. So consider this series of articles on your original programming and learn more about how you became you.
You can learn a whole lot more by going to www.wendyhill.com. Wendy Hill, MA, PhD (2013) hypnosis, counseling, therapy.
Self Programming
You are the one who programmed you. When you were a child you made decisions about yourself, others, and the nature of reality. These decisions became your core beliefs. How does this happen? How can a mere thought become a core belief? How can a moment in time affect you for the rest of your life?
Your self-programming began while you were in the womb and continued throughout your childhood. Clinical research tells us that you were conscious as a fetus. You were dreaming, thinking, and responding to your environment. You were affected by what your mother ate, how she felt, what she did, and the people with whom she related. You felt your mother’s emotions, responded to conversations she had with others, and experienced her moods. You experienced the affects of any drugs or medications she ingested. By the time you were born you already had a wealth of experiences to which you were responding. You had already made decisions about yourself, others, and the nature of reality.
Your birth experience itself had an important influence in determining your core beliefs. Some people may find this difficult to believe, but it is true. If you experienced your birth as harmonious, you responded with harmonious beliefs. If you experienced your birth as unpleasant or conflicting, you responded with conflicting beliefs. The beliefs you formed at birth have likely influenced you for your entire life.
Your early childhood years were also very important in establishing your core beliefs. During childhood your mind was in a state of receptivity and openness that you will never experience again. You learned at an escalated rate. You were highly influenced by all you experienced. You took things personally and literally. You did not know how to rationalize or analyze what you experienced, you simply accepted it. If your experience was positive you responded with positive, self-supporting beliefs. If it was negative you responded with negative, self-defeating beliefs. This condition of such openness continued in diminishing degrees until about the age of ten. The younger you were the more influenced you were. As you matured you became more objective. You developed skills and were more capable of making distinctions and seeing things from a broader perspective. Most of your core beliefs were formed between your experience as a fetus and age four. A core belief, however, can be established at any time in your childhood. The younger you are and the more impacting the experience, the more likely it is that a core belief will result.