| Patterns Created by Early Life Experiences |
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Have you ever wondered why you respond to certain situations the way you do, even when you don’t understand why? Why certain relationships or circumstances seem to trigger strong reactions? Or why you sometimes find yourself repeating choices or behaviors that leave you feeling stuck, or disappointed in yourself?
In my last letter, I shared that we are born with a temperament, our innate patterns of emotional and behavioral responses. Over time, our personality develops through a variety of experiences, particularly those we encounter during childhood. By around age twelve, many foundational patterns of personality are already well established. Over time, these patterns can become increasingly fixed as we develop habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and responding. Without awareness and intentional effort to change, we can continue to live from these patterns without recognizing how deeply they shape the experiences and outcomes of our lives.
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| There are many influences worth exploring when we seek to understand ourselves more deeply. What did you experience within your family of origin, including generational patterns passed down through your family? What was the environment and culture like in your childhood, and what values and beliefs did they impart? Did you form healthy attachment bonds with your primary caregivers? These early relationships can have significant implications for how we learn to trust, connect, and form relationships later in life. And what role did faith play in your home? Was it a lived experience of relationship and grace, or primarily an experience of religious expectations and performance?
These early experiences, whether healthy or adverse, begin to shape the blueprint from which a child learns to navigate the world. We quickly adapt to get our basic needs met: to be seen, heard, soothed, accepted, and loved. Yet many of these adaptations no longer serve us as adults. This is why children raised in the same family can experience that family very differently. Each child has a unique story of what they remember, how they interpreted what happened, and how they learned to adapt.
This is why awareness is the gateway to transformation. If we desire to become the best version of ourselves, one that glorifies God and more fully reflects the person He created us to be, we have to step out of autopilot and become willing to examine how the adversity of our past has shaped us.
If you’re reading this, you’ve most likely experienced some adversity and have an interest in doing some inner work. Our personality is not fixed. What was formed in us can become deeply habitual, often without our awareness, creating blind spots that influence how we think, feel, and respond. Awareness opens the door to recognizing these patterns and intentionally addressing them so we can become more fully who we were created to be. |
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| Awareness & Presence – open the door to transformation
Many forms of spirituality focus primarily on attaining higher states, being spiritually evolved, and bypassing our deep issues. When we reconnect with Presence, we start to see who we are in His eyes. We need to embrace and be with the truth of our suffering, limitations, and woundedness. By discovering how we cope and how our personality was formed, the field opens, we become less rigid, our perspective widens, and we move towards wholeness. The nooks and crannies start to reveal their secrets.
“Close the door,” Jesus says. To enter a secret silence is to deliberately shut the door on emotions and anxieties and open the door to God. God sees us in the secret place. He does not see us as other people see us, nor as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place, it becomes impossible for us to doubt him. We become more certain of him than of anything else. Jesus says, “Your Father is unseen, and he sees what is done in secret.” You can enter the secret place no matter where you are. When you get into the habit of going to him about everything and start every day in his presence, you will discover who you are beyond your personality. ~ Wisdom from Oswald Chambers (edited) ~ Matthew 6:6 |
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What has been formed?
With greater clarity about how you got here and who you need to walk with you on this journey, the next question to sit with is:
What patterns, beliefs, or traits were formed in me through my early life experiences that no longer represent who I want to be as a healthy, flourishing adult? |
| You don’t need to answer this question all at once. Simply become curious. Notice what begins to surface, and invite Jesus, your faithful companion on this journey, to meet you there.
Search me, O God, and know my heart! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! ~ Psalm 139:23-24 |
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What’s to come?
Next, we’ll explore what those patterns quietly built – the beliefs, roles, and reflexes that shape how you move through the world. And while understanding how you came to be is helpful, it doesn’t determine who you’re able to become. |
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