-
Give illustrations of ways in which specific styles of foolishness were learned in your early years.
-
I didn’t like getting fussed at so I tried to do everything right and not talk too much. I tried to hide the wrong things I did so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I didn’t trust a lot of adults to really take care of me.
-
I learned early on that I could get praise for performance. If I did well in school, I would be praised. Competence and approval went together. I learned that I could work on my competence and on my competence being seen – those did more for me than the gospel. At least that’s the foolishness I believed.
-
Growing up I often felt like the progess I tried to make in life was not good enough, and that any time I made mistakes I was invalidating any attempts to move forward (to try and create false meaning for myself in accomplishments and abilities). In turn, I was always very hard on myself and down on myself for not being “good enough”, and I became very self-hating as a result.
-
-lack of conflict resolution: the way we do it in my family is to argue, stop for a few minutes, then resume conversation as if it never happened.
-lack of abundance: I learned from a young age to try not to take anything in case someone else needed it more. I’m not really sure where I learned that.
-self-esteem: I learned I was “stupid” so I always thought everyone was better than me (false humility, slouching, being self-deprecating). I have difficulty relating to “accomplished” people of the opposite gender from the same race because I start having these toxic thoughts in my head (“they’ll never notice me because I’m too stupid/they may think I’m amusing for a while, but then they’ll become bored with me because I’m so dumb/I’m not interesting/I can’t keep up”). Can’t date those guys! -
My wife likes to bring this up when she’s trying to figure me out. However, I simply don’t remember much of my first 10 years. So early years will mean 10 and above. What I learned early on was that if something was too big, too hairy then I should avoid it to protect myself. At my current age that could be avoiding a conversation, a bill, a complex work situation, anything that re-inforces a message from my family of origin that “I can’t handle it.” And when that happens I immediately go into hiding, anxiety, shaming myself, etc thereby making the situation that was in hindsight simple – impossible to successfully navigate. I do it over and over and over.