I’m a huge fan of the Internal Family Systems therapy method. This method involves (among other things) digging into your past to find emotions you never finished processing and sorting them out. I’ve seen this method work very well to shift repetitive thoughts and behaviors relatively effortlessly. Doing the work is often fun and rewarding. While fake memories can come into play (it’s happened to me), my experience tells me that most of the memories people access when doing IFS relate to actual incidents.
Once those incidents are revisited and consciously processed, it’s easy to change the related story and then your behavior.
Everything I said above may seem to suggest that it would be accurate to say that your past is why you do or feel something. In some sense, I think it is accurate, but I don’t recommend talking that way.
Saying that you do something because of your childhood, or anything along those lines, isn’t useful. It’s disempowering, and it leads your mind in the wrong directions. Since the past is gone, speaking as though it controls you will make your brain think that you can’t act differently.
Don’t say, to yourself or others, that “I’m scared of spending money because we didn’t have very much when I was growing up.” Don’t say that “I’m scared that women will hurt me because of what happened with my last girlfriend.” Don’t say it even if it’s kind of true.
Even though it’s verbose, I recommend explicitly mentioning the intermediate causal step, which is the thoughts you’re having or the story you’re currently telling yourself.
“I notice I’m thinking that I’m scared of spending money because we didn’t have very much when I was growing up.”
“I have a story about how my last girlfriend hurt me and now all women will.”
If it sounds a bit silly to say that, all the better. Because it’s a bit silly to live as though the past controls us, even if it’s the normal human thing to do.
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