Between the ages of 0-7 children’s beliefs are imprinted and formed. At that age they are living in a brain wave called Theta. Theta is a very suggestable state and as adults we are only in theta when we are waking up or falling asleep. This is why children at a young age take everything as gospel. They are digesting everything around them, believing what they see and hear. Digesting it as fact. Most importantly forming beliefs about themselves. Beliefs they then live for the rest of their life.
What have I done to my child!
I know you are already probably thinking…”has what I said to my child affected them negatively” “What have I said or done that they may have interpreted incorrectly” This is the first question I had for myself when I started to train in RTT™ and started learning more about the mind. I went straight to questioning if what I said affected them negatively.
Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up. I still don’t always get it right. Especially on days when the kids overdose on questions, “But why Mammy?….” or compete for my attention. My son is so very inquisitive, he loves general knowledge and asks a lot of questions. He has his own mind and has no problem saying NO and pushing boundaries and expressing his needs.
The tricky balance…..
With the work I do now I am more consciously aware of how I communicate and behave around my kids. I am more aware of what I say or how I behave and how this might impact beliefs they have about themselves and the world around them. I started to pay more attention to my own words, while also encouraging them to express their needs and ensuring they were listened to. Obviously this can be tricky, especially on busy days or when trying to balance it with not being a walkover.
When I was a child, things were different. First of all there were 5 of us competing for attention. As devoted teachers they were also surrounded by children all day asking questions. I’m exhausted thinking about it!
I have complete admiration for my parents, I don’t know how they did it! I only have 2 and it’s tricky.
So it’s understandable that when I questioned something at home or tried to push the boundaries, I was issued a response of “because I said so!” and if I didn’t oblige it felt I was not behaving. Or if I asked where something was, or where we are going, my Dad would say “up in nanny’s room, hiding behind the clock” I still don’t know what this means. Can you imagine how confused and frustrated I was as a child? I laughed with my Dad about this recently. I can only imagine with 5 children questioning you many times throughout a day how that materialised!
Our voice is a gift….
Children are born with a voice. It has been gifted to us. And in our infancy that voice is used to express our needs and wants to our parents, to test the boundaries. And so it’s quite natural to ask a lot of questions and to test our parents. We are all deserving and worthy of a voice, but not all of us get the privilege to express it the way we would like.
Giving a child permission to express their voice is an important part of nurturing and building confidence. Nearly 90% of the clients I see will not have had an opportunity to express their voice in the way they wanted or have their voice understood or valued when they were growing up.
At the age of one, a client of mine was not allowed to cry or make a noise, she needed to be quiet and good always. Other clients have other extremes. One client had their mouth sellotaped by a teacher. You can only imagine the beliefs that the child held thereafter. But it doesn’t always have to be extreme, sometimes it is subtle but repeated and enough for a child to misinterpret.
In my case it was subtle. Naturally with so many children to answer to, sometimes my questions went unanswered. My own children experience this. It’s life and not everything is perfect always.
A story of fear….
I know now this was not about me. But as a child I made it about me. Believing that my questions were not important or intelligent enough, believing that I was not listened to, what I had to say didn’t matter. Creating my own confusion and frustration in my own mind. This was me creating my own story about myself in my own head.
This was a story about fear. A fear of speaking up and saying what I wanted to say. A fear I might be wrong. A fear that what I say might not be listened to. A fear that I might not be smart enough. A fear of having an opinion that was laughed at. Fear, fear, fear and more fear. A story I owned and lived and where I said very little.
And what is interesting, is consistently across many of my own clients. A fear that holds them back from achieving so much and believing “I CAN”. There is a real sense in clients that I must not be good enough. And in doing so they lose self-belief in themselves and an intuition to trust what they do have to say. They fear being judged and of being rejected.
Telling ourselves a better lie.
I think we all have a little bit of fear when it comes to expressing our voice, unless it feels safe to do so. But for me I lived this story until I was 40. Until of course RTT™️ changed all that. I realised what I believed was not true. What I now know, is that I can change that story, as Marisa Peer says “we can tell ourselves a better lie”
And so that’s what I did and I do for my own clients. In RTT™ sessions I give clients freedom to express their voice. Interrupting the story they have been telling themselves since they were little. This is so powerful and freeing.
Clients walk away with new understandings. They reclaim the voice they always had, so they can move forward to speaking their passion with pride. To expressing their needs, trusting their intuition, that what they have to say does matters. They can do this without fear of judgement, fear of failure or being rejected. They truly believe in themselves and can flourish without fear.