How do we get to be where we are right now?

I mean how do we get from being born with no preconceptions about life and no fear, except that of falling, to being where any of us are right now, full of beliefs about all sorts, different values about what’s important and more specifically, how do we get accepted in this society and fit in to what others deem as normal.

If we all start life with a blank sheet of paper what it is that starts filling in the details on that paper that creates the masterpiece of who we are at any age and stage of life?

My thoughts are that we learn most of it from others. Our parents and carers begin the process of filling in the blanks as we observe their behaviour, begin to learn what we can and can’t do, and take from them our first beliefs about the world we live in.

As a child one of the very many things I learnt was that it wasn’t good to make mistakes or do something that others didn’t approve of as it resulted in a bad feeling. This negative feeling was also a learnt response from the behaviour of others towards me when I did anything that was wrong or disapproved of.

This thing about not making mistakes was a key one for me – At around the age of 5 I clearly remember leaving the classroom at school one lunch-time and as I walked down the steps I started to walk towards to school gates and home as I would do at the end of the day. I then realised it wasn’t the end of the day, but instead of turning around to head back to the school dining area for lunch, I continued walking as the fear of being seen to have made a mistake was too great. Of course I had to face that at some point as it wasn’t the end of school and so I did have to go back, however at the moment I realised I was walking the wrong way, turning back was too obvious of a mistake and I couldn’t even do that for fear of disapproval.

Now where did that behaviour come from? What was it that installed that belief in me that making mistakes was so bad that they had to be covered up as best you could regardless of the consequences?

This particular fear in me continued as I grew up and another clear memory of this was while waiting at Cardiff Central train station with a ticket in my hand awaiting the train. Something happened that resulted in me dropping the ticket on the floor a little way in front of me. Now others would have just stepped toward and picked it up and thought nothing more – but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be seen to pick it up for fear of others seeing my mistake of dropping it in the first place. I stood there looking at it on the floor ahead of me and knowing I needed it, yet still couldn’t pick it up, not even when the train came. Instead I got on the train and told a complete lie to the conductor about the ticket checker at the station taking it off me. I didn’t seem to mind others hearing this as I think I thought it was convincing at the time, and I even had to pay again. But that was obviously better than the embarrassment of being seen to have made a mistake of dropping my ticket in the first place.

I am so pleased to say I am no longer fearful of making public mistakes, and that has needed a lot of re-training to get me here now. But the point is how did I learn that fear in the first place and learn it so well that it had such consequences in my life through my childhood, teenage years and early adulthood. How did it get to be such a barrier for me, more so than one would expect from a fear of looking silly?

I cannot recall at all where that particular belief came from or who gave it to me either, however I do believe that there must have been a significant anchor moment in which this was taken on board in my subconscious as something to fear. These key anchor moments happen at a very young age, typically from age 3 to 7, and end up creating the pattern for the rest of our lives.

That is how we all end up where we are right now. A lifetime of ‘anchor’ moments that we cannot even be consciously aware of, learning what gives us pain and what gives us pleasure. Until we can consciously change these beliefs they will continue to dictate to us as a set or rules that we instinctively obey whether we want to or not.

In recent years I have trained and become a Master Practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). An amazing set of tools and techniques to help myself and others become aware of these installed beliefs (our programming) and be able to re-programme those behaviours that no longer help or serve us. That is how we can set ourselves free.

Do you recall any of your anchor moments?

With love and gratitude

Nadine.