Our earliest experiences in social settings, including family systems, may include dynamics that lead to internal working models that negatively impact our potential.
If the people around us don’t believe in us, or give us cues that we are too much, not enough, a burden or defective in some way, this creates brain-body algorithms as to how the present and future operate.
The brain, more than anything, is a predictive system. It conserves energy by attempting to predict - rather than truly understand - what is in front of it.
When information is missing, it fills in the blanks based on its past. It seeks out cues that confirm its predictions and distorts or ignores anything that could contradict what it already predicted to be true.
This means that if our life has been filled with people who indicate how little value we add to them, it may be hard for us to believe we can add value to the world or others.
We may distort the cues we receive from others into a self-fulfilling prophecy that they are better off without us. That we will forever be too much, or not enough, defective or a burden for someone else.
Unfortunately, this kind of predictive algorithm not only makes us put up our self-protection mechanisms, it also prevents us from seeing the powerful and positive role someone may currently be playing in our life. It prevents us from seeing them as a gift and someone who could help us continuously update and upgrade our past-based patterns.
It’s like a shield of armor we use to protect our heart. But that same shield means we may not allow in something new and empowering.
The key then is to allow cracks in that shield. This means trying to disrupt what the algorithms seek out to confirm.
This means using as much will and desire as we can muster to update our patterns. In doing so, we may stand a chance of seeing positive people who come into our lives as the gifts that they are.
We owe that to them, to our younger self and to who that younger self always wanted to be.
#selfdirectedneuroplasticity #dontgiveup #familyofchoice #warriorsheart #healing #invisiblewounds #resilience
