By: Dawn Johnson, "The Self-Esteem Queen"™
Have you ever stopped to consider the affects of childhood?
How many things did you experience as children that have stayed with you throughout your lifetime?
How many sounds—loud sounds, for better or for worse—rang out when you were a child that continue to ring even to this day?
Oftentimes, the things that we experience as children stay with us when we become adults. I am willing to bet that the first sixteen years of one’s life easily define and shape the next sixty. It has been said that we determine the type of people we will be with based upon our observations of our parents, and if we had no parents, we are forced to formulate our own composite sketches.
We take our childhood memories with us far beyond our twenties. I have witnessed septuagenarians weeping at the memory of a father who died when they were ten years old. Whether it was child molestation, physical or mental abuse, abandonment, failure, receiving too little (or even too much) attention, or family scandals—all of these things can be devastating to a person who has yet to learn the wisdom that it he or she will need to deal with those issues.
As children and teens, we struggle to deal with these things. We blame ourselves, we lash out, and we hurt.
- We become frigid or nymphomaniacs.
- We become extremely extroverted or we withdraw.
- We become slackers or workaholics.
- We become obese or bulimic.
As youths, we find ourselves dealing with the issues in the best way we can with
what little wisdom we have. Once we are adults, however, we must convert what we know into what we feel.
While youth do not have the wisdom of application, adults must use their wisdom and knowledge to, gently, silence the echoes of childhood; at least the negative ones.
I’ll take this closer to home to prove my point. I know in my head that the family member who touched me when I was younger cannot hurt me anymore. I know in my head that my parents will not beat me anymore. I know in my head that I have made it through the darkest periods of my life and survived to tell the tale.
You too have the head knowledge of the same sort of things that pertain to your life yet, your heads have not communicated that fact to your hearts.
We need to apply our heart knowledge. We have to allow our head to tell our heart that it is o.k. to love, it’s o.k. to be loved, and it’s o.k. to be open to new things and new experiences.
And guess what? That also means that it’s o.k. to get hurt. Much of what we do when we get older stems from a fear of pain! We would often rather live boring and painless lives than exciting lives that may hurt us. We allow the echoes of childhood to ring in our ears to the point of apathy.
For example:
- We saw bad marriages between our parents, and we determine that we’re not getting married.
- We had a bad “romantic” relationship or experience in middle school or in high school, so we don’t love or have sex.
- We had to help out around the house with younger brothers or sisters, so we don’t want to have kids.
Dearest friends, with all the kindness and compassion I SCREAM OUT TO YOU - these attitudes are wrong! Compare love, religion, and friends—things that people often refrain from having because of the poor actions of others—with seeing a millionaire who wastes his money. Does that mean that you should not be a millionaire? Should you avoid having money because of the abuses of others? Absolutely not! You should take the money given to you and do what is right, right?
In that same manner, we must take the things done to us when we were younger and apply them to doing the right things. The answer to bad actions is not to refrain from taking any actions at all, but to put forth good actions! The answer to poor marriages, poor sexual upbringings, poor religious experiences, poor parents, and poor relationships are good marriages, good sexual actions, good religion, being good parents, and developing good relationships.
You may get hurt in the process. You’re not a kid anymore!
Be an adult, and take that chance. Adults take chances, ignoring the echo of their childhood and instead decide to make a new noise. Bet on yourself. If you don’t bet, you can’t lose. That is true. But you can’t win, either, and that leads to empty, gray lives.
We must also take those things that we learned, and we must keep ourselves from becoming that which we feared and hated. In other words, we must do our diligence to keep from becoming abusers if we were abused. Do not let the alcoholism of your parents make you an alcoholic. If you were molested, then do not allow the molestation to affect someone else by you doing the same. Find outlets to deal with the pain that are different from the ones that your parents obviously had. Take up a journal and write the experiences. Share with a spouse, pastor, or friend. And always understand that the things that happened to you affected you, but you have a conscious choice over whether or not they will make you or break you. We are not what happened to us. Did it shape us? Of course it did. But it did not make us what we are. We are what we are. Now, let those things that you went through make you better, not worse. Hear the echoes of the past, and do not let them become a cacophony. Hear them for the melody of personality that they are to you, and use them to sing your heart out.
Therefore, let go of the molestation, and help the molested. Let go of the abuse, and help the abusers. Let go of the bad parents, and become the best parent ever. Let go of the rape, and enjoy sex with your partner. Let go of the greedy and evil clergy, and worship God anew. Let the echoes of your childhood become the song of your adult life, and then share that song with everyone else around you until they cannot stop singing.
Happiness in contagious and it spreads faster when everyone practices it. Take some time out to really think about that. What would happen if you spent just one week NOT ALLOWING yourself to get angry at work. 1 week. Could you do it? I bet you could. I bet you could get used to being happy. I have, and I love it!
© 2007 Dawn R. Johnson – “The Self-Esteem Queen”™
ABOUT THE AUTHOR - A celebrated servant-leader, internationally recognized motivational speaker, author, business coach & small business consultant, serial entrepreneur and spoken word artist, Dawn Johnson, the acclaimed “Self Esteem Queen”™, is one of today’s leading experts on transformational leadership, entrepreneur personal development, and self-esteem enhancement. To learn more about Dawn’s products and sign up to receive FREE tips on business, personal enhancement, visit her site at http://www.selfesteemqueen.com.
NOTE: You’re certainly welcome to “reprint” this article online as long as its contents remain unaltered (including the “about the author” info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to dawn@selfesteemqueen.com.
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