Have you ever noticed that when your life is on an upward swing, positive things are happening, like a job promotion, a new client, or your child aced their exam and got a "98" for the first time ever? Are you expecting the bottom to fall out and everything to be lost? Do you remember your parents or grandparents thinking similarly? What if life actually was working for us instead of against us, and you could live your life positively?
New studies are coming out on epigenetics and the impact of trauma on future generations. World Psychology defined epigenetics as "a set of potentially heritable changes in the genome that can be induced by environmental events." So just as families can pass on heirlooms like jewelry and summer cottages, they can also pass on physical characteristics and trauma. When we are babies, we observe and learn from our parents, i.e., language, how we walk, inflictions on how we pronounce words, and how we show emotions like happiness or sadness. If you were raised in a happy environment, where your parents laughed, showed loved, played with you, and showed little stress or anxiety, that is the world you know and how you would act in kind. If the opposite were true where there was constant stress, where you were provided the basics as a child but were raised in a home with little laughter and never encouraged but threatened to do better, where very few positive things happened, what would your world as an adult be like? Unless you were shown positivity and low stress through friends or influencers, unhappiness, and negativity would be what you know.
You may not even realize that your mother's negativity or your father's anger still impact the person you are today. In some cases, the trauma from childhood can be so significant that the only way our brains can deal with it is to block those memories until we are strong enough to work through them. Our brains can be pretty brilliant at protecting us.
So how do you make the change? First, I recommend professional therapy. If you have blocked childhood memories, there is a reason, and there are different therapies available to help you through this, like hypnosis, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or a combination of holistic therapies. Second, remember, you are not your parents, nor are you their opinion or anyone else's opinion. If you want to live your life with lower stress, positively, and always expecting great things to happen, then change your thoughts.
In the book by Gary John Bishop called UNFU*K YOURSELF, he notes, "I am not my thoughts. I am what I do". My interpretation of this is not to allow negative or conditioned thinking to dictate your world. Change your thoughts, figure out your purpose, chart your path, and remind yourself that you are wired to win. So if you are tired of expecting your world to drop out from under you, stop thinking it will and just do. Expecting the worst of life, as your parents and grandparents did, does not have to be who you are. If you got a job promotion, enjoy it and express gratitude. Show up every day and do the work. If your child got a "98", remind them how awesome they are that they did the work and show them gratitude. If you want to start that business, stop the thoughts that may be from your parent's fear, which you inherited, that you can't do it, and just start.
You can be the change. You can stop the generational negativity and live your life happily. You can start now. Make this "Day One" and not "One Day."
Written by @thewendcole an Executive Coach
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