Are You the One for Me?. Barbara Angelis De
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five and eight years of age—you receive 30 percent of your emotional programming.
That means, by the age of eight, you are 80 percent programmed, psychologically.
In other words, 80 percent of your decisions about yourself and others have already been made.
So by the time you are eighteen years old, you’re 95 percent done! That leaves 5 percent left for the rest of your life. This may not seem like much, but it’s that 5 percent that I work with when I help people make changes in their lives. And the good news is that you can use that 5 percent to understand and change the other 95 percent.
Perhaps now you can better understand why, even though the 5 percent of your mind that is conscious says, ‘I want a wonderful partner who loves me and treats me well,’ the 95 percent of your mind that is unconscious is responsible for making your poor love choices.
Once you understand why you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing, you will be free to change your behavior permanently.
YOUR UNCONSCIOUS EMOTIONAL PROGRAMMING IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH OF THE PAIN YOU EXPERIENCE IN YOUR LOVE LIFE.
DISCOVERING YOUR DECISIONS ABOUT LOVE
Your next step is to understand your own emotional programming, as if you were reading a computer manual for your brain. Here’s an exercise that will help you:
EXERCISE: MAKING YOUR EMOTIONAL PROGRAMMING MAP
STEP 1 Make a list of the most painful realities or experiences you can recall from childhood, up until you left home. Include things such as ongoing situations (a parent’s alcoholism, for instance), or particular events (being punished or ridiculed by a parent).
SAMPLE SITUATIONS
My parents were divorced.
Mom and Dad always fought.
I was always compared to my ‘perfect’ sister.
I was overweight and always teased.
Dad was never home and cheated on Mom.
We had eight kids in the family and not enough time or money to go around.
Mom was a rageaholic and very moody.
Dad never showed affection or praised me.
Mom died of cancer when I was ten.
I had a stepfather who hated me.
We had a strict religious upbringing and lived in constant fear of sin.
Dad molested me.
SAMPLE EVENTS
Younger brother was born and I was ignored.
My parents put my dog to sleep without telling me.
Dad promised to come to my birthday party and never showed up.
I saw Dad beat up my brother.
I found Mom drunk and unconscious.
I thought Mom left me behind in a store.
My parents didn’t believe me when I told them my brother had molested me.
My father let go of me in the ocean and I almost drowned.
My best friend dropped me and told everyone she hated me when I was eleven.
STEP 2 Think carefully about each item on your list, and ask yourself, ‘What decisions did I make about myself, others, or life because of this experience?’ Then write down your decisions next to the appropriate memory. Take your time doing this, and if you get stuck on one, go on to another and come back to the first one later.
Don’t be surprised if many of the decisions you made when you were young are similar.
EXAMPLES:
STEP 3 After thinking about the decisions you made due to a particular experience or circumstance, write down how this emotional programming has affected your love choices and the kinds of partners you choose. This is the hardest portion of this exercise, but the most important. You may want to think about this over a period of days, and talk with close friends or your partner to help clarify your ideas. Keep adding to your list as new revelations surface.
We’ve been talking about Ann throughout this chapter, and earlier we saw her summary list and her Emotional Want Ad. ‘WANTED: Angry, unemployed control freak for demeaning relationship.’ Now look at her emotional programming table.
ANN’S EMOTIONAL PROGRAMMING TABLE
Ann’s comments: ‘I never realized how much these childhood events affected me. All along I’ve known I was choosing the wrong men, but I couldn’t figure out why. Reading down that column of decisions I made as a little girl was frightening, but I could feel in my heart that part of me really still believes those things. I attracted men who made me feel the same way I felt with my father—angry, discounted, betrayed. The worst part is, I didn’t even recognize the pattern because I was so used to having those feelings in childhood.’
Now that Ann understands more about why she has attracted the wrong partners, she can begin making changes to attract the right partner.
ONCE YOU BECOME AWARE OF YOUR UNCONSCIOUS DECISIONS ABOUT LOVE, YOU CAN MAKE NEW, HEALTHY DECISIONS.
Later we’ll talk more about how to ‘reprogram’ your mind so you can break free from the unhealthy habits of the past.
Here are some more samples of the kinds of love choices you might have made based on childhood events and the decisions about love that followed:
WHY YOU CHOOSE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE
There are many ways in which your emotional programming can have an effect on whom you choose to love. Here are some of the reasons you might end up with a particular partner.
THE ‘GOING HOME’ SYNDROME
As human beings, we gravitate toward the familiar. We like to sleep on the same side of the bed each night, to park in the same space at work, to go back to our favorite vacation spot. Returning to the familiar is a basic instinct that gives our lives a sense of continuity and safety in a chaotic and changing universe. Unfortunately, this instinct can work against us.
WE OFTEN SEEK OUT EMOTIONAL SITUATIONS THAT ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE WE EXPERIENCED IN CHILDHOOD, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THOSE EXPERIENCES WERE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE.
I call this pattern ‘going home.’ Here’s how it works.
When you were a young child, your home was the main source of love and safety in your life. Even if there was violence or chaos in your household, it was still ‘home’—it was where you were fed and had