Change And Childhood
Psychologist Eric Erickson helped us to understand that change can be difficult for us at any stage of life. He proposed 8 stages of psychosocial development that, quite frankly, can go either positive or negative depending upon our environment and circumstances. I suppose in a perfect world we would all move smoothly from womb to tomb. Alas we live in a fallen world and we tend to get stuck along the way. We can end up with some uncomfortable tendencies like mistrust, doubt, guilt, inferiority, role confusion, isolation, self-absorption and ultimately despair. Yet hope for change remains if we come face to face with who we are and our responsibility for healthy change.
It is seldom that we perceive childhood hardships accurately. This tends to result in imagined limitations and the constant harassment of a critical inner voice. Firestone, Firestone, and Gatlett point out in their book, “Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice”, that a contributing fact to this problem is children tend to have a stronger ability for memory trace (enduring memory) for negative events than for positive. For example, if in the day of a child’s life a child experiences 10 good things and one bad thing at a family outing the child will remember the negative event. These perceptions often contribute to an inaccurate perception of who we are. This makes it difficult to change because we tend to give in to the inner voices that are negative and critical and this, in turn, leads to self-defeating and self-limiting behaviors. Regardless of who you are and what your past circumstances are don’t give up on attempts at healthy change. A critical self-talk may bombard us with “I can’t” messages, yet in most cases some change is possible. Begin today to make healthy emotional, behavioral and spiritual change. You might be surprised at what you can do! “Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with.” Peter Marshall