What is one of your earliest childhood memories?  Is it a delightful, playful, fun one?  Is it serious and stern? Full of mixed emotion?

Meaningful Dialogue, Part 1

This question— “What is one of your earliest childhood memories?--can be a great springboard for meaningful dialogue whether between members of a couple, parent and child, mentor/coach and client, pastor and congregation member, or trusted team members.

If your goal is to increase your understanding of one another, perhaps to see what is significant to another, to convey genuine interest at a deeper level, then I think this one qualifies as a winner with which to proceed.

Conversations are remarkable ways to engage and get to know one another at a deeper level.  You may already have a strong relationship, and this will only take you further down that path.  For some, it may be a bigger stretch because this kind of dialogue is more foreign.  That’s okay.  We are in the business of stretching those relational muscles.

Meaningful Dialogue: Stuck and Unstuck, Part 2

This morning my mind settles on yet another dynamic to explore regarding the access that our memories provide to a still deeper level of insight into our own and others’ systems of habit and thought.

I have a longstanding client relationship with a business owner who shared this earliest memory with me.  Home sick from kindergarten, lying miserable on the sofa at his grandmother’s house suffering with the chicken pox, he and his grandmother were watching the launch of the Challenger space shuttle on TV.

He described the initial WOW of it followed by the CONFUSION and SCARE of it.  He went on to share that in the eyes of a five- year old boy, it looked so cool to him, it was like one big Fourth of July fireworks display. 

Then he heard his grandmother GASP.  Suddenly he experienced her alarm, became confused and frightened, and cried out “What’s WRONG?”  His whole body and mind went from Ecstasy to “Red Alert” in that one moment.  In a sense, he “caught” his grandmother’s alarm and her alarm became his. 

This is not unusual for a little person to “catch” the emotions of those around them.  In fact, given what we have learned from Neuroscience about the invisible effects our minds and brains have on one another, it happens at any age. A child, however, is particularly vulnerable to this kind of emotional “imprint” stamping them.

He went on to share that as his alarm exploded into panic, he began to cry that he wanted his mother and was inconsolable at first.  Being the wise grandmother, she went over and drew the terrified boy onto her lap, drew him close to her chest, rocked him, and assured him that though she was not his mother, she would be his mother until his mom could be there with him.  His sobs and fears subsided as he sank into the reassurance that his loving grandmother provided.

Fortunately, his grandmother made this second imprint on him this day.  She wired a pattern of safety and assurance into him in the face of the alarm imprint that she transferred.   

There are countless numbers of youth and adults that were similarly traumatized by that devastating event January 28, 1986.  Not everyone had the benefit of the second imprint this grandma provided.

Why am I writing this painful account in such vivid detail?

The more I work with people, the more I recognize that many of us have experienced trauma like this client. It may not have been as explosive and wide-ranging or visible as the impact of The Challenger.  Yet, in the world of a child or young adult, it is earth shattering.  Successful, gifted, exceptionally bright and accomplished adults, often have something that got “stuck” in their experience, and it still impacts them unaware.  It does not mean that the person is broken, or that therapy is necessarily in order, though this might be the case. 

Often, I observe that some “wires” got crossed and that this wiring still affects the person’s current everyday behavior, relationships, and results. It can be very perplexing to the person themselves, the coach, pastor, spouse, co-worker and so on.

Observing a Pattern

In this person’s case, over time, I began to see a pattern of “collapsed” emotions that get activated in his circuitry.  Whenever he got excited about something good going on in his life or work, something “really cool”, it seemed that not far behind it, something “blew up.”  He was in the relationship of his dreams, and the woman walked away.  He came up with an amazing invention, and then someone stole the patent.  He was sailing along financially in a good space and something unexpected “exploded.”  Please keep in mind that I am not seeking to play amateur psychologist in this.

James Allen wrote that “Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” My wish for you is that if things are not working out as you had hoped, and there is some consistency to this pattern, consider the possibility of imprints and wiring that might be invisibly at work in your system. 

Recommended Resources

Peter A. Levine, PhD. Dr. Levine is gifted in the work of Somatic Experiencing. His work is relevant to healing trauma of all levels.

Google his name for exceptional books and videos including this powerful YouTube Video.

For further reading:

The Power of the Other (Henry Cloud)

ChoicePoints (Sydney Rice)

You might find some of our offerings such as Life by Design and Listen to this Voice useful.