Dear Littlered:

Welcome back.

When we are children, we are always learning and our parents (whether aware of it not) are always teaching us. These childhood years are our most significant learning years, also called Formative Years because our core beliefs are formed then. Our core beliefs are the most significant things we learn and we learn them as children

These core beliefs become part of our brains: they are connections made between neurons; neuropathways. These connections involve thoughts and strong emotions. The strong emotions are the glue that hold the thoughts in place. For example, you learned that you are a bad person if you ask for something that cost money, this is a thought, but it is held strongly in place by shame and guilt.

When we grow up, those pathways do not disintegrate, neither are they meant to. What we learn in childhood is supposed to serve us well as adults (similar to a parent coyote teaching its young to hunt- that learning is supposed to serve the growing coyote well so it can feed itself. The coyote is not supposed to forget what it is taught).

And so, we don’t forget.

Of course we want to forget when what we were taught does disservice to us, brings us misery.

How do we unlearn? By learning something new. In your case, it would be learning that it is okay to ask for what you need. That new learning means new neuropathways that will grow and over time replace the old neuropathways.

Learning the new takes time and effort. It takes lots of patience because the old learning is still there and will not go away, disintegrate. It can only be replaced gradually, over a long, long time.

Exercises done in the context of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be helpful in verbalizing/ writing the thoughts in those old neuropathways and replacing them with thoughts of the new neuropathways that are in the process of being formed.

anita