We Can Choose not to Inherit our Childhood Trauma

It’s the time to let bygone be bygones

By the 10th section with our therapist, it would seem like our lives are hopelessly screwed up by some traumatic experience in our childhood.

Things that we forgot seems to have surfaced, and things we already know seems to have a much deeper impact than we wish they do.

But is it? This is a critical challenge I want to post to all people seeking self-discovery and healing.

Ultimately, what we want to do is to heal. These explanations and reasoning are only the first steps, so when can we move on from it, and how?

Spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle has commented on our obsession with therapy before:

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.” — A New Earth

Why our traumatic past doesn’t define us?

Psychology is quite heavily affected by the school of Sigmund Freud, which attributes almost everything to childhood experience.

That’s all well and good, but remember, knowing about what happened in our childhood is only the first step.

First, you know yourself, then you heal.

At one point, we have to decide to take the next step — which is to heal.

Especially if our parents haven’t healed or they no longer exist in our lives, dwelling on psychoanalysis will seem that we are stuck for the rest of our lives. Because we might never get the apology we deserve from them, and there might never be real closure.

But does that mean we are screwed? I refuse to believe that, I believe we can transcend from suffering, even we might continue to be hurt by these people and experiences.

The key is to rise above our psychoanalysis and here’s how.

3 steps to transcend from suffering

1. Understand what memory really is

Depending on if we are born optimist or pessimist, our memory is always biased. We might have rose-tinted memories of some happier times, and highlight only the bad bits on the more stressful times.

One proof of this is how we feel after exams. I tend to walk out of exams thinking I fail it because I didn’t know how to do a fraction of the questions; whilst some people will walk out feeling good about the exams, only remembering the few questions they know how to do. The outcome of our exams is usually quite different from what we perceive it went.

Memory is not for defining our past but a cognitive function for survival. One typical example is that we learn from our mistake, remembering what to avoid, in order to successfully complete a task, or avoid danger, going forward.

Knowing this is the actual function of memory, we should remember with a pinch of salt, and not overly attribute our emotions to what we remember.

I always thought I had a neglective father because all I remember was him working too hard during my childhood. But in reality, as my mum told me, he has tried to spend as much time he could whenever he was off work. He also has no idea how to be a father — this leads me to point two.

2. Recognise their intention and unconsciousness

“You forgive yourself by realizing that nobody can act beyond their level of consciousness.” — Echkart Tolle

Another powerful quote from my favourite spiritual guru.

When someone did something to hurt us, ranging from the stupid driver on the road to our parents, we tended to think they did it intentionally. In reality, that’s rarely the case.

Some people may be selfish, some people might have bad execution skills, but they all act at their level of consciousness at that time.

Through psychology, we learn concepts like co-dependence, gaslighting, shaming, etc. They are all great concepts to help us analyse and understand our situations better, but we must ask the question “so what”.

Our parents who suffer from their own traumatic childhood experience and cultural pressures, act the way their level of awareness allows them to do it.

One way to transcend from our suffering and trauma is to remember that our parents are no superman or buddha. They are just ordinary people. In fact, it’d seem like the younger generations are always more conscious than the previous generations.

It’s only logical that they don’t know how to do parenting and heal themselves. Just think about how mental health issues were so frowned upon among our parents and grandparents, and how they are considered among our peers today.

Knowing their lack of consciousness can help us to forgive them. I wrote more about this here:

3. You really need to believe this is possible

Some people I know with expert Psychology knowledge is suffering more than anyone else in terms of forgiving their parents and transcending from suffering.

This is sad but interesting because it shows that knowledge itself doesn’t relieve us. What we do with the knowledge does.

I have written about experiential knowledge before:

If we believe we are screwed for life because of these reasons and traumas, then we will continue to react the same way with future triggers. The point of psychology and therapist is so that we become aware of the big picture so we don’t do the same thing as an unconscious person with future triggers.

It’s a choice to not react the way we used to.

Applying to my own experience

Because of my neglective father and some other childhood experience, I developed a fear of abandonment. I don’t like to be left alone, it’s a big trigger.

When my boyfriend is super busy with his job, his startup, his friends and building our van, I can feel this triggers the fear within me. This is the time I transcend from suffering, the golden opportunity! Do I react like I used to, or do I self-soothe with empirical evidence that my boyfriend loves me to bits? It’s a choice.

I kept failing to make the right choice in the beginning, I was crying and acting like a child because I thought he was going to leave me. He had to come and soothe me.

But I practise, again and again, each time I choose self-soothing overreacting. I choose to remember that memory is flawed and so are my parents, and I tell myself no one is abandoning me and I’m an independent kickass woman.

Like meditation, which is about how we remain in the present moment, one breathe at a time, healing from triggers is the same. We transcend from suffering one trigger at a time, and sometimes when situations are bad and stressful, we might fall back to that trigger or fear, but then next time, we learn to rise above it.

The concept of mental health issue is like taking medicine to cure our illness is not the right one. Instead, we are the medicine, and we choose ourselves over our childhood trauma every single time.

Here are more articles on healing: