What We Learned In Childhood
Henry here. Someone told me years ago that the way to train an elephant to respect a chain starts in their childhood. The trainer chains a small elephant to a post and lets it struggle with this new reality. After a while it stops trying to get away or to break the chain. When the elephant is a six-ton monster, the same small chain will hold the elephant in place. They learned in childhood that they could not fight the chain. This may seem cruel and unusual, but the same is true for us as well. The only difference is that instead of having a keeper, we are our own keepers; we chain ourselves.
Very early in our childhood we learn how our family wants us to be and how we are supposed to behave. Long after they are gone out of our lives we still carry on the rules we learned as children.
We often do this whether the things we learned are based on truth, or whether they are mainly a pack of lies. The dozen wars around the globe at any one time are too often based on old hatreds and on twisted history. Children take in these “truths” in their mother’s milk and go on to live out of the family, or tribe culture.
Even though we may be successful professionally, many of us are going about our lives still hearing mothers or fathers voice whispering into our ears. Because we carry the old parental tape in our heads, we still live as if they are in charge and we must obey. Like the elephant, we are a victim of early training. The question is what are we going to do about it?