Overcoming the Emotional Marks of Childhood

From the moment we are born, we are internalizing and learning about everything that happens around us.

And while nobody knows exactly what newborn children feel, we must assume they experience a range of feelings and emotions. Long before humans develop verbal language, we develop  emotional language. This is what enables us to know what is pleasing or not to a baby, even when it’s only a few hours old.

From the moment we are born, we begin constructing our internal world from what we experience in our external world. From a very young age, our experiences create emotions in us that can remain ingrained in our subconscious forever.

How do emotions influence us?

Emotions affect us according to their impact, i.e. the type and degree of emotion that we experience. In turn, memories throughout life always depend on the emotions that they evoked, and because of this, they remain as memories in time.

Positive emotional impact are those events or situations that create strong, pleasant emotions in us. Negative emotional impact are those events which create equally strong, but unpleasant emotions. These evoke powerful feelings and inevitably leave a mark on our brains.

By leaving this mark, the emotion that affected us will generate feelings through our lives in situations that remind our brains of that unpleasant experience.

Where are these emotional marks stored?

Emotional marks are stored in the subconscious . This is why, in most cases, we don’t know how to explain why we feel uncomfortable in a certain situation, or why we feel afraid or confused in the face of a person or circumstance.

The explanation can be found well hidden from our conscious mind; however, there are stored unpleasant emotional experiences that put us on guard to avoid reliving them.

Automatic activation creates fear, confusion, insecurity, and discomfort, but our subconscious mind knows the hidden explanation for all of our reactions.

How can we erase these emotional marks?

In many cases, therapy which works with a person’s conscious thoughts can be enough, as it strengthens and reconstructs aspects of the personality that have been weakened since childhood.

In other cases, however, it is necessary to use a therapeutic technique that accesses the person’s subconscious and reconstructs the damage caused by those situations experienced in childhood or years ago, even if they are not conscious of it.

In these cases, hypnosis can be very effective, as it permits the pain caused and stored in our emotional brain to be treated, reconstructed, and healed in a trance.

The most common approaches we might take when working with the subconscious are:

• Recovering one’s inner child, to strengthen it and give it the love and affection that may have been missing.
• Reconstructing the situation in which the pain was experienced.
• Imagining oneself with the strategies and ability to confront the avoided situations.
• Learning attitudes and skills for self-improvement and growth.