Summary

The emotions and beliefs we form in childhood don’t stay tied to just the people or situations that caused them. They spread to other parts of life. A child who felt ignored or unimportant at home will carry that same feeling into friendships, relationships, jobs, and even how they see the world. If a parent often seemed angry or didn’t seem to care, the child may later expect other people to treat them the same way. Someone who felt judged by a parent may feel judged in social situations, even when no one is judging them. A person who felt afraid of their parents may feel that same fear around bosses, police, or other authority figures. These early emotional reactions shape how we see people and situations, and they keep doing that all through life.

The problem is that these patterns often don’t match what’s really happening in our adult lives. We respond to people and situations as if they were like the ones we knew in childhood, even though that’s rarely the case. And because these reactions feel natural and automatic, we trust them. Even if someone tells us that our reactions come from childhood, and even if we try to think about it, we still believe we’re seeing things clearly. But we rarely are. These old patterns go so deep that no amount of thinking or self-reflection can fully uncover them. They shape our view of the world, and we keep acting as if those impressions are the truth.

This doesn’t only happen to people who had a hard or painful childhood. Even if you had loving parents, a steady home, and a good relationship with your family, these patterns still form and still shape the way you think and feel. Everyone goes through moments of fear, sadness, loneliness, or confusion while growing up, even in the best families. Those moments leave lasting marks. People who remember their childhood as mostly good may think they don’t have this problem. But that’s not how it works. These patterns form in all of us, not just in people who went through trauma. It’s part of how the brain develops, and it happens whether we notice it or not.

Here are some details:

1. Baseline emotions and beliefs acquired during childhood do not change throughout adulthood.

2. Logic, experience, and intelligence cannot change beliefs that are acquired during childhood.

3. Baseline emotions feel normal. In other words, adults have very little awareness of their baseline emotions, regardless of their intensity.

4. Baseline emotions acquired during childhood are always active in adults.

5. The brain compares a person's current situation to similar childhood experiences and responds according to stored beliefs and baseline emotions.

6. The intensity of an adult emotional reaction is determined by the sensitivity of their baseline emotions.

7. Strong emotions never calm down quickly.

8. Category 1 emotion, pride, excitement, and category 2 emotions can be equally intense. The very loud, outgoing, excitable, intrusive, and obnoxious person and the very shy, withdrawn, reclusive person are likely experiencing similarly strong emotions.

9. Beliefs acquired during childhood may be contradictory. That's because children are typically treated in emotionally different/contradictory ways at different times by imprinted parents.

10. Adult beliefs are always consistent with beliefs acquired during childhood. If an adult belief changes, the new belief is also consistent with beliefs acquired during childhood.