Our Experiences and Attitudes Shape Our Choices

The question I have posed might seem very basic to many, but the basic truth is that most of us live extremely ”predictable” lives, in many ways… no matter how much we might like to think we are self-aware and ”woke.

As a minister and counselor, I often have a front-row seat to how this works.

It manifests mostly when I observe how people from different experiential backgrounds have very different reactions to the same seemingly benign situations. Those who come to the situation from a background of trauma and abuse tend to actively scan the environment for reasons why what they are facing is — a ”good” thing, to most casual observers — is actually a negative and dangerous thing.

Let’s say someone wins a prize of some sort. A psychologically healthy person from a supportive background would likely be happy and celebrating. However, many a person from a traumatic background is likely to be looking for ways the prize is actually a tool designed to entrap or deceive them, and view it with suspicion.

In the end, the prize is simply… a prize.

Of course, that is a very obvious example — the human psyche is an extremely complex mechanism.

This all becomes relevant — and underscores the importance of therapy and developing self-awareness — when people start wondering why certain things in their lives ”always go wrong.”

Although it can be a very difficult realization to arrive at, when we ”unpack” the past, we often discover the ways in which ”things ALWAYS going wrong” are often our own doing.

Again, a somewhat simplified example:

Someone seeks counseling and asks ”Why do all my relationships end so quickly, OR I end up getting trapped with abusive people?”

In many cases, it turns out that the person asking came from a highly abusive background. It can be tricky, because maybe we have to go all the way back to their childhood, to discover that they had good reason to view every person with suspicion and a lack of trust.

When we move forward to maybe 20 years later, it turns out that all their relationships are shaped by them ”looking for abuse” in every single interaction they have with another person.

As a result, healthy people decide they are too neurotic and choose to break off the relationship, leaving behind the abusive and flaky individuals who actually feel "normal" to the person in counseling... and so, the cycle continues.

It takes time to teach yourself that the person you are talking to now is — in fact — NOT the same person as those who tormented you in your past! And it can be a slow process, with lots of stumbles.

Often simply being aware is the important first step towards healing.