Like Anita, many of us find ourselves contouring ourselves to earn
another’s approval. In our bid for acceptance and validation, we
transform ourselves into someone we aren’t. Raised by parents who were
unable to allow us to enjoy our natural self, we learned that to gain our
parents’ blessing, we needed to alter our desires and inhabit a persona—
a false self of which our parents could approve. Tailored to suit them
more than it suited us, this persona masked our authentic way of being.
When we are raised by parents who, because of their own unconscious
upbringing, make us feel ashamed for expressing who we are, we
experience guilt for wanting to be the unique individual we are. If our
parents make us feel guilty whenever we stray from the beaten path, we
learn not to trust our instinctive response to life, instead experiencing a
deep ambivalence toward our life choices.
Guilt is a murky emotion that coagulates our true voice, leaving us
with the aftertaste of inadequacy and insecurity. Children who grow up
with this imprint don’t trust their inherent wisdom. Consequently, they
live either forever suffocated by the guilt imposed on them or seek to
displace their feelings onto others by judging and guilt-tripping those
around them.
With this emotional imprint, our reflexive tendency is to view the
world according to these orientations:
I am bad for expressing who I am
I don’t owe myself the emotion of happiness because if I am happy,
I abandon those who are unhappy
I am unworthy of emotional freedom I am the cause of my parents’