In the end we are the creation of what was before us and what is around us...
And so a debate begins - nature versus nurture.
Many a study have been conducted on the influences of nature or nurture on human development. In fact, there is a whole field of study dedicated to just this - Developmental Psychology, which was my last module in my Psychology course and I did indeed find it fascinating.
What I enjoyed learning about the most was in relation to the psychology of child development and just how much children download in terms of beliefs, behaviours, processes and systems in the first 7-8 years of life. And then apparently we're kinda stuck with them unless we do A LOT of work to make changes.
Now, before I met NLP and hypnotherapy I quite possibly would have agreed with this in its entirety, but even after I met and learned how to practice both modalities, I think I still believed that such deep rooted changed requires time. More recently I met PSYCH-K and became a facilitator and WOWSERS has my perspective changed.
I firstly learned even more deeply about limiting beliefs and how far back they can come from. I'm a spiritual person and believe in reincarnation and past lives (many of which I have been introduced to through my Reiki Master/Psychic) and as such am completely comfortable that beliefs from past lives have the potential to and do live on into the next physical form. I have an old soul, I have been told this by a number of healers and psychics and also feel this to be true in myself, as such it would seem I also have an abundance of past lives - so much learning, so many problems, so many good times...but lots of accumulated beliefs. I'm pleased to say that I've started changing these.
But let's bring it back to the hear and now...
If we take our environment, nature, as having an impact on our development - beliefs, behaviours, processes and systems - and let's say you're aged 30, how much of your nature has been detrimental to you being the best version of you. I'm getting at cultural, societal, gender, age expectations. We're supposed to do that, by this age, have this, be in that...marriage, children, education, job, house, money in the bank, clothes, shoes, car(s)...how much pressure is that to have when what we all really crave is happiness.
But whilst our environment is putting these pressures on us as individuals, we use all of this information and start creating our own stories, and let me tell you this for nothing - man alive are we creative!! We create so many 'should be' 'supposed have' scenarios for ourselves that it's a surprise any of us get out of bed in the morning. But alas, we do. Because we must continue on our never ending hard struggling paths to perhaps one day, only just, get a glimpse of something that might make us happy.
I know I'm being quite extreme and gloomy, but let's face it, I've been there and with the work I've done with my clients, and the conversations I have with people from all sorts of backgrounds that I meet - I know that I am not alone.
So how to turn this around. I've invested in myself to let go of a lot of expectations that have been put on me by nurture and nature, and I'm sure I've said it before, I'm not perfect, I am by no means in the realms of the Dalai Lama as far as insights go. But my expectations of myself are simply to be happy, to do what I love and to love those around me in the best way that I can.
Just think about that for a moment.
If the only expectations you had of yourself were to be happy and to love yourself.
How wonderfully freeing!
And again, reality check, yes you have to do things, take action to have happiness and get to a place where you love yourself. But what if it wasn't as hard and as time consuming as your environment has led you to believe?
