How does our childhood impact our life as adults?

[Intro] Hello and welcome to Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host Corinne Powell. I'm so glad you're here. No matter what type of day you're having, you're always welcome. I like having you around. 

This space is especially designed for the person who goes about life focused on everyone else while neglecting their own needs.

The person who says yes when inwardly they want to say no. The person who is frustrated at all they do because they don't receive much in return. If that's you, I'm going to put out some great ideas on how you can change those patterns and get unstuck.

Life isn't meant to be tolerated. It should be enjoyed. So let's get to it.

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Corinne Powell: Hello, how are you doing today? Let's just take a moment, pause, allow ourselves to inhale and exhale.

And in this moment, I don't know what's going on around you, what's going on in your inner world, but I can imagine there's something that is negatively affecting you. And I want to invite you in these next few minutes we have together to put that to the side and to be present. How challenging it can be to be present, but you deserve that.

You deserve to allow whatever is on your mind, whatever's going on deep within your soul to be put on the back burner so that you can focus on this topic. What we're talking about today is something that is very important, certainly very relevant to those of you on the healing journey doing the inner child work.

And I find sometimes it's easiest to talk from my own story. So that's what I'm going to do today. And we're specifically going to be focusing on how our childhood experiences are still impacting us in the present.

It can be hard to recognize that initially. The more we witness ourselves, the more we give attention to our inner child, the easier it becomes to recognize how often our past, specifically our childhood experiences, are impacting how we feel in the present moment, how we respond or react to something, the reason we have the intrusive thoughts that we do.

And this is not about blaming or shaming the people we grew up around. But certainly we have be willing to take an honest look at how those people were and what our experiences were with them. I hear talk that makes me realize people minimize and belittle the impact of emotional neglect. And I'm here to emphasize its deep and lasting impact. How detrimental and how traumatic emotional neglect is. 

Consider the child who's having a really sad moment, who is very excited, who had a bully at school or a bully at home because sometimes siblings can bully other siblings and they just need someone to talk about it with. But their emotions are downplayed. you're making a big deal out of nothing or they don't feel safe enough to even bring up the situation with their parental figures. In these moments, a child can start to experience emotional neglect. Emotional neglect will impact on a cellular level and it won't stop until we address it.

To make it easier to explain what I mean, I'm going to share a little bit about my own experiences and how they're affecting me presently.  I noticed over the summer how easy it was for me to once again start to meet everyone else's needs and to neglect my own because that was a very familiar pattern from childhood. Sometimes our parents or caregivers don't know how to regulate their own emotions. They don't know how to meet their own needs. And they depend on their children for those things.

I recall my parents wore contacts and one of my parents would drop the contact sometimes when they were going to put them in. Now these weren't the disposable type. These were the type that you paid a lot for and they were supposed to be able to last a long time. And we would be called to scour the bathroom floor and look for that contact. And I got really good. I pride myself in how good I am at finding things. Maybe you could say, Corinne, you would have just always been good at that. Perhaps that skill was honed in on because of how many times I had a parent start to get very agitated, angry, and in turn look to us children so that they could settle down.

I am actually not specifically saying which parent this was to respect them, to give them some privacy. I share a lot about my stories, the stories of growing up, the stories of the church environment that I was in, the stories of the family I married into. And my heart is never to bring shame or blame to these individuals. When I can, even when I speak of my children, I try not to be direct about which child it might be. Out of respect for them, to honor them, to give them some privacy. So you'll hear that even as I share things today, I don't mean to be confusing. It's very deliberate that I'm doing that. 

And there were many instances in childhood where somebody's needs became what everyone needed to meet because that somebody was a grown-up and they were able to impact the entire environment in a big way. You know how sometimes the two-year-old who has a meltdown starts to impact the entire room and everybody starts to focus on that child. But then a grownup says snap out of it or distracts the child or punishes the child, whatever the case to move that child through the tantrum to this other place so that everybody isn't having to focus in on this little kid who's having a difficult moment. Sometimes grownups are exactly the same. They get upset about something. They get scared about something. Everything in the room shifts. Everybody's attention goes on to them.

And certain people want to diffuse that situation so that the attention doesn't need to stay on that person, so that everybody can go back to whatever they were doing to their happy place. Certain personality types, myself being one of those will gravitate towards figuring out how can we help to control the situation to start bring peace back to this chaos. So if I had a parental figure get very upset because an item was lost, because they were overwhelmed, because they were tired, because whatever, whatever, whatever, my goal was to help them get back to this calm place, which meant I didn't consider how I was feeling, I didn't consider what I needed in that moment. My hyper focus was on that grown up.

Translate that into present day, sometimes one of my children maybe have an explosive behavior, may have an intense meltdown. And my goal becomes how can I get them back to a settled, calm, happy place? Instead of allowing them to process through what they're allowing them to have their reaction and breathing within myself and regulating myself so that I can be a steady person for them to co-regulate with.

So that I can model for them, here's what you can do when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Because deep breathing, practicing mindfulness, actually tuning in with ourselves and grounding ourselves are all wonderful tools that we can use when we're feeling dysregulated. If I just try to put out the fire, I'm not serving them and I'm not serving myself.

But if their state of internal chaos triggers me and I start to feel internally chaotic, then I can't be there to help them. So I noticed this happened more often. It happens more often if I'm tired… over the summer, long days, long nights. I found myself doing this. And it was just an indicator to me of, here's what's going on, Corinne. Do you want it to stay this way? Do you wanna pivot? Do you wanna do something differently? It's a gentle reminder. 

I also noticed that if my children ask me for something, if I'm not mindful, I will quickly stop what I'm doing to tend to their needs. Now this happens all day long with children and with four children, and with a puppy. I might be cooking in the kitchen and somebody says, “Mom I need you to come here”. And they're in the bathroom. I don't know why they need me to come there. Could be a number of reasons. I'm in the middle of trying to get some work done on my computer. And somebody says, “I'm hungry, mom,” or I hear fighting break out between a couple of my kids.

You name it, it's probably happening. Things are happening all the time when I'm with my children and when they're home. I have to pause and deliberately say, what am I doing in this moment? Is this a good time for me to stop and to go meet their needs? Is the situation urgent where I need to stop and meet their needs immediately or can it wait? When I'm not deliberate to pause and check in with myself. My go-to is that I will just divert from what I'm doing and take care of what they need. Now I end up internally frustrated, which sometimes shows up externally in the ways that I react to them. I may be disappointed later on because the task at hand never got done. The kitchen never got cleaned. Or it's taking me hours to get a task done that shouldn't be taking hours because I'm allowing myself to continue to be interrupted. Notice: I'm allowing myself to be interrupted.

I choose whether I will respond to my children. I am the one in control of my response. Sometimes we turn that script and we say it's someone else's fault we didn't get the kitchen cleaned. It's someone else's fault we're feeling disappointed at the end of the day. But is it really? Or did we make a deliberate choice in that? I understand we might feel powerless, but are we powerless?

You see, as a child, when my parents called, my goal was to respond immediately. First off, I was taught that was right. That was the thing to do. I also did not want the big explosive reaction from the parental figure if I didn't respond right away. So in order to avoid the reprimand, the correction, even their disappointment, because I was a sensitive child and extremely empathetic, so I could feel their disappointment or I could read their disappointment from their facial expression.

I wanted to avoid all of that. I didn't want to feel ucky inside because I saw their disappointment. It made me feel shame. I was the problem. I caused them to feel disappointment. But remember what I said a minute ago. We as individuals are in charge of our emotional states. We're in charge of our responses.

So is it that the child caused the disappointment in the parent? Or is it that the parent felt disappointed for their own reasons? The parent may be feeling disappointed because their child didn't respond right away. The parent is also feeling disappointed because of whatever that means that they believe is their child not a good listener. And that means that their child needs to improve. Are they not doing good at parenting? And they think, I've tried to teach my child something and they're not learning it. 

The stories could be endless. The point in that is the parent's disappointment is not the child's responsibility. So when I respond without thinking to my children, I actually feel an intense energy and agitation in me, an urgency that I must respond right now. When I pause and set back and consider. What am I doing in this moment? What is my child potentially needing? Is this now a good time for me to respond? And so sometimes I say, just, I'll be there in a minute. I'm in the middle of something. Sometimes I'll finish what I'm doing. Sometimes I will deliberately choose to pause what I'm doing to go attend to my child, which is different than not doing it mindfully. 

If I just rush off from what I'm doing, I could feel frustrated later. If I choose to pause what I'm doing to respond to my child, I may not feel frustrated later. Because I chose that. I made a conscious choice. I was willing to put my needs aside in that moment, which is okay. We will put our own needs aside at times for very valid reasons. That is a wonderful thing to do. The issue becomes when that is the normal without thought. You always put your needs aside. You never respond without thought. You think that their request is your command.

Folks, these are my children. Their request is my command? And even if we take it away from the scope of children, I used to function that way in every relationship. I'm a servant to everyone's request? That sounds toxic to me. Evaluate for yourself the reasons why you're doing what you're doing. Do you wanna continue in those patterns? Where have those patterns originated? And would you like some help to change them?

You are in control of your decisions, your choices, even if it doesn't feel like you are. In childhood, you may have been forced to do something. No longer do you have to allow yourself to be forced to do something. You get to decide. Act like the grown-up that you are. I do not say that to be harsh. I say that lovingly to empower you. It has taken me years to come to that place where I can lovingly empower myself. Corinne, you recognize your child self is feeling triggered right now, is wounded and hurt. Now, what can you as the grown adult do to yes, give attention to your child self and to empower your grown adult self.

This conversation could go in many other directions. But I like to keep my episode short for those of you that are busy, those of you that are parents, that you can listen to it all if you want in one sitting. If you're resonating with what we're talking about today, and you would either like to hear more content along these lines, please send me a message, reach out to me via email corinne@changeradically.com or set up a discovery call so that you and I can connect because what I'm talking about is what I work with individuals primarily in. 

We consider what happened in childhood, how it's impacting us in the present day and what can we do to change those patterns? How can we empower ourselves to no longer be responding and reacting as if we were the little kid we used to be, but instead respond, react, live as the grown adult we presently are?

Where yes, we notice our inner child, we pay attention to them, we give them the care that they need, but we also...know how to support and empower the grown person.

I'm proud of you for being on the healing journey, for doing the intentional hard work, and I'm doing it right alongside you. I won't stop until my day on earth ends. I won't stop. I'm passionate about this and I love having you in it with me. So until next week, I hope that you remember to pause to breathe. and to consider what is going on subconsciously and how can you support yourself presently.

[Outro] We've come to the end of another episode. I'm so glad you stuck around. As you consider what you've heard, what's the one thing that especially resonated with you? What's one way you can start to implement change into your life? Too much too soon isn't sustainable.

Start small and go slow. Consistency is key. If you appreciate what you're hearing on Empower to Thrive, would you kindly leave me a review and rate my podcast? It helps a lot.

I hope you'll share the episode with a friend and come back next week. And don't forget, I'm so glad you're alive.