A major corner stone to unhappiness is the tendency to avoid facing our life’s challenges. This may be especially true when it comes to facing our childhood. As there is no such thing as a perfect childhood, each of us has something in our past that has hurt us. By facing those memories we have the opportunity to free ourselves from self defeating core beliefs that keep us from being our true happy selves.
Secret Number Three: Face your past, feel it, express it, and let it go.
The first step is to realize that there is a connection between your childhood and your present well being. Your childhood programs your core beliefs about yourself. Your childhood experiences determine your sense of worthiness, lovability, safety, and sense of empowerment. Adverse conditions and events can undermine a child’s self confidence. Your beliefs about yourself and the feelings you experienced as a result of those past conflicting experiences remain in your subconscious mind. They determine how you think, feel and react. They determine your happiness.
To face your childhood conflicts is difficult. You must first admit to your denial. Denial of what happened, denial of how it made your feel, and denial of the influence it has had on your current life. This denial is the cause of much addiction. Addictive behavior is a desperate attempt at avoiding uncomfortable emotions and memories. The result of this avoidance is low self esteem and a life full of irresponsible attitudes and actions. Once you admit to yourself the pain of your past and allow yourself to feel and express it, you are in the process of healing yourself and building your self esteem. Then you can finally let go of the pain for real. It no longer needs to linger in your subconscious mind constantly wanting to be recognized.
Often self esteem comes from doing something of virtue that is difficult like facing your past pain and expressing it. Most of us cannot do this alone. We need help in getting past our denial. A therapist specializing in inner child healing and regression (recovering childhood memory) can help. Many have gone before you. This can be done and the freedom and self confidence you will experience is well worth the journey.