Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 518 Exploring Childhood Experiences: How They Shape Our Adult Lives Episode 2 of 5

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EP 518 Exploring Childhood Experiences: How They Shape Our Adult Lives Episode 2 of 5 · Celeste The Therapist

0:02
Hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celesta Therapist
0:05
Podcast. My name is Celesta. I'm a therapist from Boston and
0:10
I come on to talk about different things that we go through
0:14
and help you think about ways to process it. Now this is
0:17
episode two out of five, right? So if
0:21
you are coming in on this episode and you haven't seen
0:24
episode one, which is healing the inner child, I
0:28
suggest you go there. So I'm doing a five part series where
0:32
I am talking about the inner child and I'm breaking it down and
0:36
I'm giving homework assignments. So head
0:39
on over to episode one of this series so
0:43
that you can hear that one first.
0:47
And I will make sure to put the link for this into the show notes. So
0:51
you did your homework assignment. If you didn't, it's okay, right? You had
0:55
the option to do a journaling prompt or a visualization of
0:58
what your childhood looked like. So that's gonna be
1:01
important, right? And again, This journey that we're going on
1:05
is a lifelong journey. And the
1:08
goal behind this journey is to help you understand
1:12
yourself better, right? There's a book called What Happened to
1:15
You. I read it. It was Oprah Winfrey and a psychiatrist. I
1:19
think his name is Bruce Perry. But they
1:22
go through different scenarios and they talk about different
1:27
things that go on in children's lives and how they affect them as an adult,
1:30
right? So a lot of times people just feel
1:34
like this is just how they are, not understanding how
1:37
their childhood has impacted who they are as an
1:40
adult. And today we're going to talk about exploring childhood experiences
1:45
and how they impact us as an adult. This
1:48
may feel heavy, right? A heavy topic. It's
1:51
okay, right? Remember, like I said in the first episode, it's
1:55
okay if you have to take a break. It's okay if it feels too much. You
1:59
know, this is a podcast. It's streaming on YouTube and
2:02
it's on all podcasts and platforms. The beauty of this
2:06
platform is that you can come to it at any point. It
2:10
doesn't have to happen or you're going to lose it, right? So
2:14
today we're going to discuss exploring childhood experiences and
2:17
their impact. So we're
2:21
learning about how our experiences shape our beliefs as adults,
2:25
right? And learning why this is crucial for healing
2:28
your inner child, right? Again, this
2:32
is a topic that is so important to me because Understanding
2:36
my childhood trauma and how it affects so much of
2:39
my life has allowed me to heal, has allowed me
2:43
to create peace in my life. It doesn't mean
2:46
that I'm never triggered, it doesn't mean that life doesn't happen, but
2:50
I feel like I have the tools to deal with the things that come up for me
2:53
in my life. So let's start with formative
2:57
experiences, right? And if you know me, I'm a very visual
3:00
learner. So if you want to head over to youtube.com, you can get the visuals
3:04
for this. But these are experiences and periods of life that have significant and
3:07
lasting influences on your character and your attitude.
3:11
So the impact, right? So there are some impactful things that shape
3:16
and can mold you. So major life events, so
3:19
like if a parent passes away as a child, or
3:22
a challenging journey can require you maturing faster and
3:26
having more independence. Or, you know, some people have
3:29
been parentified, right? The parent may have struggled
3:33
with mental health issues or substance use issues or wasn't there, and
3:36
they had to become the parent, right? They never really had a childhood, right? So
3:41
that experience of their parent or caregiver not
3:44
being able to provide for them cause them
3:48
to kind of become more of an adult quicker, right?
3:52
And so maybe as an adult, you're more independent, you struggle with
3:55
asking for help, because getting help in life as a
3:59
child was not something that you had access
4:02
to, right? Now, another
4:06
example, right? Growing up in a supportive family can
4:09
foster resilience and a positive outlook on
4:13
life, right? So it's important for me as I talk about the inner child
4:16
stuff, I do want to acknowledge that they have been some good experiences that
4:20
people have had, right? Some negative struggles, right?
4:24
Experiencing abuse, neglect, or abandonment can lead to long-lasting
4:28
mental health issues, right? Again, in these formative years
4:32
on, you know, as we are growing up, even
4:35
culturally, right? Sometimes some cultural norms
4:39
can create some systems within us.
4:43
For example, let's say, like I know in
4:47
like Haitian culture, you know, women are
4:50
kind of expected to have a child, take care of their partner, take
4:54
care of the house, and maybe that's not something
4:57
that you want, right? But you're struggling because you're
5:00
in a situation that you don't really want to be in. So some
5:04
of those foundational things that have taken place growing
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up in a in a Haitian household where there's these
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cultural norms, one might not say like that, how
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could that have harmed me? It's not necessarily like specifically that
5:18
harming you, but kind of like it's creating a psyche about
5:22
you, an identity that may conflict with what you want, right?
5:27
So those are just some examples. So
5:31
how are formative experiences carried into
5:35
adulthood, right? Cause that's something we talked about what the formative experiences
5:39
are. And this is an important for me to kind of like talk about
5:42
because even on my first session with people and,
5:45
um, we'll go through kind of their history. So I'm always like checking
5:49
in about somebody's history about, um, what's going on
5:53
in the now. And, um, What happens is,
5:57
I'll help people make some connections on what's going on in the now and what's
6:00
happened in the past. And people will say things like, yeah, but
6:03
that was 20 years ago, right? And so there's this
6:07
disconnect where we don't understand that just because something
6:11
happened 20 years ago doesn't mean that 20 years later, we're
6:14
not affected by it, right? It's important to remember that your experiences
6:18
will always be a part of who you are, whether you choose to
6:21
acknowledge it or not. Because if you're not consciously acknowledging it,
6:24
some of your behaviors are acknowledging it, the way your body is
6:28
responding to the stress that's on your body, the choices that
6:31
you're making or not making for your life, right? There are ways that
6:36
the thing that You're not choosing to deal with how
6:39
it's going to show up in your life, right? And I'm hoping through these
6:42
five sessions that I'm doing on this podcast, you
6:47
allow yourself to really reflect and think about your life
6:50
and how this content plays a role in
6:54
your life. So some of the ways that formative
6:58
experiences are carried into adulthood. So there's this emotional residue,
7:01
right? These emotions are things we cannot see. So
7:05
the inner child carries unprocessed emotions such as feelings of abandonment, rejection
7:09
from childhood into adulthood. It
7:12
happens all the time, right? I personally struggle with
7:15
abandonment issues, right? So in my relationship, I
7:19
would have these moments of feeling abandoned. And
7:22
until I was able to work on myself, you wasn't telling me anything
7:26
other than what I was feeling. Those feelings felt true. I didn't even have language
7:29
to identify what I was feeling, but my responses, was
7:35
clear that there was this abandonment going on, right? So there's
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emotional residue that can track, right,
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up 20 years later where you could be a whole adult and
7:47
you have these like childlike responses because what's
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happening is your inner child is coming up in those moments where you
7:54
may feel fear, but you're trying to
7:57
figure out why am I responding so heavily, right?
8:01
Why am I doing this? Why am I in this cycle? Another
8:05
way it's carried is our belief system, right? So I
8:08
just talked about this, but core beliefs formed during your formative period, such
8:12
as feelings of unworthy due to neglect continue to influence adult
8:15
behavior and self-perception. Behavioral patterns. This
8:19
is important. Listen up, people. You may unconsciously repeat
8:22
patterns from your formative years. For example, avoiding conflict
8:26
to stay small. In your childhood, if
8:30
things came up or if you had a parent that may
8:33
have been not consistent, they had a bad
8:37
day, they come home and all hell breaks loose. You
8:40
learn, I'm not going to say nothing. I don't want the conflict. Maybe
8:45
I need to speak up and I need something, but I'm not going to ask for what I need because I
8:48
don't know what I'm going to get when I speak up. So, for example,
8:52
avoiding conflict to stay small and not upset others, a strategy used
8:55
in a conflict-ridden childhood can persist in adulthood. So
8:59
what happens is you go through that as a child,
9:03
you become an adult, and you're at work and
9:06
you're working with a coworker. You're working on a group project. You're
9:10
the only one doing the group project. You're not speaking up. And
9:13
so the coworker is thinking like, oh, yeah, Celeste got this. When
9:17
in fact, I'm pissed off that you're not helping me with this project, but I'm
9:20
also not speaking up because I don't want no conflict. The
9:24
person that my counterpart may not even have done anything
9:27
to make me believe that they would be upset or
9:31
come at me, right? But because of my own stuff, I'm
9:35
suffering in silence and I'm doing this group project
9:39
by myself and it's coming out really well.
9:43
And then me and my counterpart are both getting credit for something that
9:47
I've done. and I am very resentful towards that person,
9:50
right? So that's a prime example on how
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something where you've avoided conflict as a child can
9:59
translate into something that can happen as an adult, right? And
10:03
the last thing, which is so huge, something I personally
10:07
have struggled with, and I work with a lot of
10:10
people on this, and I like relationships are my thing. I love talking
10:14
about relationships. So, relationship dynamics. So,
10:17
wounds to the inner child can lead adults to form relationships that echo past
10:20
experiences, such as seeking a parental figure and
10:24
a partner, or entering a relationship that lacks emotional availability.
10:28
And what's crazy is, especially the last part, lacks
10:31
emotional availability, you are yearning for that emotional
10:36
connection, but then you engage with a
10:39
partner that does not provide that, may not have the capacity to
10:43
provide that, and you're attracted to
10:46
that, and you're trying to figure out, why am I so drawn to this person? when
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this is not what I want. I wish logic and emotion would match
10:54
up. I just wish it would make life so much easier for so many of us,
10:58
but it doesn't, right? Being with somebody that is emotionally available
11:01
to you may feel hard. It's crazy. I know,
11:05
right? It's so crazy, but because you're not used to
11:08
an emotional available person, right? So we're using an example of somebody
11:12
who may have had a caregiver who was not emotionally there for them. And
11:15
so they find themselves in these cycles of relationships with
11:19
partners that are not available because it's very familiar to
11:23
you, right? So just because it's familiar to
11:26
you doesn't mean that it's good, right? And
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if you're not mindful, you'll find yourself in this cycle all
11:34
the time. I'll give you an example. So my start in
11:37
my career was at a homeless shelter. And I remember this guy, he was in
11:40
there for like 10, 15 years. And housing
11:44
would come up, he would decline it. He just got used to being
11:47
at the shelter, leaving during the day, no matter
11:51
cold, never had a problem with this dude. Leave when it was time to
11:54
leave, came back, no issues. And so finally, somehow
11:58
they got him into the bed. They got him an apartment and
12:02
he decided to go. And he gave up the
12:05
apartment because it was so unfamiliar. somebody
12:09
like me, I think I would
12:13
prefer to be in an apartment versus being in a shelter
12:17
on bump beds, but this was very familiar
12:21
to this person and so that's the route that they chose, right?
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And so when it comes to something that
12:29
is very hard that we experienced in life,
12:33
You'll be surprised that some of your patterns are
12:36
reflecting the pain that you've been in, not
12:40
because you consciously want to be in it, but because you haven't processed
12:44
this stuff and it's going to show up in your behavior and
12:48
your choices that you're choosing to make, right? And this is
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an aha moment for a lot of people when I work with them and I share this.
12:55
They are very shocked and it's like, okay, it makes sense. So when people talk about
12:58
their patterns, people be like, how do you work with adults? And it's
13:01
so easy for me because I realized nobody grows up and says, hey,
13:04
I want to be in an abusive relationship. Hey, I want to struggle with my
13:08
finances. Hey, I want to struggle with my kids. Nobody grows
13:11
up that way, but there are so many things that go on
13:14
in our lives and it goes unchecked, right? The
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next thing I wanna share is the impact of trauma neglect. So
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trauma is an overwhelming event or experience
13:27
that an individual cannot process, leading to a disruption in
13:31
their ability to cope, which can negatively impact
13:35
your emotional regulation, relationships, and self-worth. You
13:38
and I can be in a car accident and I can come
13:41
out and I'll be like, ooh, that was crazy, right? And kept it moving. No intrusive
13:45
thoughts, nothing, right? You, on the other hand, same
13:49
car accident, right? But you, on the other
13:52
hand, may find yourself
13:55
struggling with sleep, struggling with a
13:59
lot of trauma behind what happened because the
14:02
way you processed it was different than the way I
14:05
processed it, right? And
14:09
sometimes, and most times, trauma
14:13
that we've experienced in childhood a lot of times has
14:16
gone unprocessed. So what's happening is
14:20
just calculating in our mind It's
14:25
calculating in our mind, and it's becoming a part of
14:28
our psyche and a part of our identity, and we don't recognize it.
14:32
Another example I'll give you, if
14:36
you are at a movie theater, there's a scary scene that comes on. Bam,
14:40
the scary scene's over, you're going back to life, right? Now
14:43
let's use that scary scene as an event that happened to you. The
14:48
event happens, Life goes on, but
14:53
what's happening with your mind is that event feels like it's happening over
14:56
and over again when it goes unprocessed, right? So scary
15:00
how it happens. I've said this before on the podcast, but
15:04
humans are the only people that can create stress hormones,
15:11
a cortisol level spike. We create all of this activity
15:15
with just how we think about things. So you don't even have
15:18
to be in the middle of a traumatic situation and your system
15:22
can feel that way, right? It's so scary to
15:25
think about. And I recognize that a lot of times we struggle because
15:29
of this. So what constitutes trauma?
15:35
So trauma is not just a stressful event, but one that's too overwhelming for
15:38
you to process. So there's abuse and violence, right? Sexual, emotional,
15:42
domestic and neglect. There
15:45
are sudden catastrophic events, right? A violent assault, serious
15:49
accident, death of a loved one, long-term adversity. So
15:53
childhood neglect, ongoing abuse, unstable living environments, right?
15:56
I think about people who I've met that have like, grew
16:00
up in another island came here at like 12 or 13 and Whole
16:05
new environment whole new language just everything and I was like that's
16:08
traumatic like right people don't even recognize like their first time
16:12
in the u.s Was a traumatic thing especially because a
16:15
lot of times They nobody talked to them about what was gonna
16:18
happen when they came here or that they were coming here They just knew they was on their
16:22
island next thing. You know, they was here in America and it's cold, right?
16:26
So, you know a lot of times Things have
16:30
happened and it doesn't make your caregiver a bad person
16:34
Right when I talk about this stuff. I have this book called adult children
16:38
of emotional I'm gonna put it in
16:41
the I'll put it in the chat. I mean, I'll put
16:44
it in the show notes, but adult children of
16:48
emotionally immature parents and a lot of times when
16:51
I talk about this stuff and And people be like, no, my
16:54
parent, blah, blah, blah, it was good. And it's not talking bad
16:58
about your parent, but let's face it, some of our parents lived
17:01
in survival mode, so they didn't have the capacity or the wherewithal to
17:05
know how to be there for us emotionally or how to recognize
17:09
signs that was happening in our lives, right? I
17:12
feel so grateful that I have the capacity and the knowledge to be
17:16
able to understand what's going on and articulate that and work with
17:19
my children. I always tell people being a mom
17:23
is one of the hardest jobs for me because there's
17:26
a lot of ways that I break in cycles in my family.
17:30
And so I'm the first to do it. So
17:34
it's a lot harder. So sometimes I'll second guess
17:37
myself. I'm grateful that I have a partner that I can
17:40
talk to about this when it comes up. Because
17:44
being a parent, you're dealing with healing your inner
17:48
child while trying to parent your children, right? And
17:51
it's hard. I have a lot of empathy for parents. So me
17:55
and you kind of talking about this with yourself and understanding
17:59
some of the ways that things have happened is not
18:03
to like shame or talk bad about that person, your parent
18:07
or caregiver, but it's just to have a better understanding on what's
18:10
going on. And so neglect, right? So childhood neglect
18:14
is the persistent failure of a caregiver to meet a child's basic physical
18:18
or emotional needs. While often less visible
18:22
than physical abuse, neglect is the most common form of
18:25
child maltreatment. It can have equally, if not severe developmental consequences.
18:30
So we know about kind of like the physical abuse and
18:34
emotional and sexual, but neglect is something that we're not,
18:37
you know, it's like, okay, so physical neglect, so failure
18:40
to provide adequate food, clothing, or shelter, or supervision. Let's
18:44
say your parent had to work all the time. Let's say, your
18:48
parent struggled with putting food on the table doesn't
18:51
make your parent a bad person but there was some neglect there and it
18:55
wasn't like your parents fault a lot of times so sometimes
18:59
people grew up in situations where their parent may have been a single parent their other
19:03
parent left right and things changed in the household that literally
19:07
happened with me and It's important
19:10
to understand like yes, there was neglect neglect and abuse are two
19:14
different things But it's important to understand
19:17
that for yourself so you can understand oh I'm
19:21
struggling with this because there was a lot of neglect because my parent
19:24
didn't have the capacity to do that or they didn't have the means to do that
19:27
and Look at everything that's happening in the world now, where they're trying
19:31
to change food stamps, where they're trying to just change Section 8. There's
19:34
going to be kids that are going to be neglected, not because their
19:38
parent doesn't love them, but because of the way that
19:41
the society is being shaken up. Emotional
19:45
neglect is huge. A lot of adults I work with
19:48
talk about this, right? And again, a
19:52
lot of our parents grew up in survival mode. They don't
19:55
even know how they're feeling. They're just trying to get through the day. So they damn
19:59
sure wasn't asking you how you're feeling or how your
20:02
day went. I know some people who may have gotten bullied in school and the parents
20:06
like, oh, just ignore it, right? And not recognizing the ramifications
20:10
it has on their child's psyche, right?
20:14
We're talking about things we can't see, so it's really hard to
20:18
conceptualize it for people that haven't even done it for themselves.
20:22
So it's important to understand like, oh, those moments that
20:25
maybe I had those hard experiences, not having somebody to
20:29
talk to or validate my experience has created this
20:33
system or psyche inside of me that's created these
20:36
abandonment issues that I have now as an adult, right? And
20:39
then there's medical neglect and educational neglect. So failure to
20:42
provide proper medical, dental and mental care or educational, failure
20:47
to provide school age children with education. And
20:51
again, these things could happen because of numerous reasons. So
20:55
understanding what's happening is different than blame. There's no,
20:59
it's not saying, oh my God, we're not pointing fingers, we're just understanding
21:04
ourselves, okay? So as you're listening to this, it's not about blame,
21:07
it's about understanding. Um, okay,
21:12
so... We talked
21:15
about trauma. Okay. Now we get
21:18
to the self-reflection, right? Because we're at the end
21:22
of this episode and we have talked
21:25
about a lot of heavy things, right? And so again, there's two weeks in
21:29
between. And again, even though the next episode is going to drop two
21:32
weeks later, it doesn't mean you have to listen to it right away.
21:36
But I do want you to reflect and then I'm going to give you some homework.
21:40
So I want you to take a moment to think about your own experiences, even
21:44
as you're listening to this, right? What are some significant memories that
21:47
stick out for you? How do these memories
21:51
influence your current beliefs and behaviors? And
21:57
then are there patterns in your relationship that stem from
22:00
your childhood experiences? So now that you've kind of learned
22:03
a little bit about some of the ways that our formative years
22:07
has affected us, some of the ways that neglect or
22:11
trauma may have sit in our system, are
22:14
there things that you can point to that
22:18
you can say kind of has affected
22:22
you in some kind of way and how it
22:25
may Look like in your relationship, right? So
22:29
those are some things I want you to reflect on your homework assignment again
22:33
You can make this part of your homework assignment. I
22:36
Want you to write about a childhood memory
22:40
and how it makes you feel today, right? There's like four
22:43
different things you can do. If you want to do all of them, that's fine. But
22:48
write about a positive childhood memory and how it makes you feel today,
22:53
right? That's good. Because yes, there has been pain in life, but there has
22:56
been some good experiences. And if you know me, you
22:59
know I'm going to, I want to like, let's gravitate towards that. Let's talk about
23:02
that too, right? Let's create some balance in some of the ways that
23:06
we're thinking. Reflect on a challenging experience and how
23:09
it shaped your beliefs on yourself. And
23:13
again, we're on YouTube. So if you want to read this out, like look at it,
23:16
you can identify any recurring patterns in your
23:19
adult life that you believe stem from your childhood. Another
23:24
great thing to do is creating a timeline of significant
23:28
childhood events and noting their impact in current beliefs and
23:31
behavior. So this is something that I do with my clients. You
23:37
know, get a timeline and I actually like the first session I'm like
23:40
emailing them the content on what they
23:44
said so they can see what they said and have
23:47
a better understanding and look at it and be like, oh, snap. Right.
23:51
So that's a powerful thing you can do is this timeline piece.
23:55
I just want to remind you that this process can be an emotional process,
24:00
but an important step towards healing. The reason why it's
24:03
important is because if you lean into
24:06
the hard things, the things that you don't want to talk about, it's no longer
24:10
going to control you. Does there have to be a timeline in
24:13
how you do these things? No, there's not. But
24:17
I do want you to think about how this can help you, but
24:20
I also want you to be aware of your capacity. If you're
24:24
working with a therapist, this is great to bring to your therapy session. If
24:27
you're not working with anybody and it's too much, put it down. It's okay.
24:30
You can always come back to it, right? So
24:34
what's next, right? We still got three more episodes in this
24:37
series. So in two weeks, we're gonna
24:40
be talking about recognizing and nurturing your inner child. And
24:45
then after that, we'll be talking about healing techniques and strategies. And
24:49
then our last session in the series will be about moving
24:53
forward and integrating the inner child. Again,
24:58
I want to give this thing a lifeline
25:03
if you find yourself struggling, 988-LIFELINE. You
25:06
can call, text, or chat. It's confidential, judgment-free.
25:12
Then there's also texting home to 741-741. You
25:17
can connect with the crisis counselor. Obviously, if you have a
25:20
therapist, great way to do it. If it's an emergency, obviously, 911. Go
25:25
to the emergency room. But a lot of times people
25:29
are struggling, not where they feel like they need to go to the emergency
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room, not that they're going to harm themselves, but they just need somebody to
25:36
talk to. And so these are really good lines for you to
25:40
utilize. And if you want to find me, find me by
25:44
searching Celeste, the therapist. You can find me on all social media platforms. You
25:48
can also find my wellness center. I have a wellness center called Shifting the Way
25:51
You Think, because, you know, if we work on shifting our thought process,
25:55
we can actually find ourselves feeling different, feeling better.
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And then my website is stwyt.com. That's
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stwyt.com. You can visit me
26:08
online and check out some of my classes. And you can also
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follow me on all social media platforms at
26:14
stwyt.com. Alright beautiful people. Um,
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thank you so much for rocking with me and on this series I'm
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excited about bringing this content to you because it's an important.
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It's been an important part of my healing process and so
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Let me know what you think. You can always email me at Celeste V at
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stwy t.com Until next time