“Once you leave your childhood home as an adult, you take more with you than you may realize — like negative experiences,” says Sharon Shenker, therapeutic Family and Relationship Coach. “Negative experiences can range from getting mixed messages from your parents, a teacher implying that you’re not smart or a relative saying that your sister or brother got all the looks in the family.”

And while they may seem harmless — especially since they happened so long ago — it’s easy to carry them with you through adulthood and have them affect your adult relationships.

Rising above the past

The good news is that as an adult, you have power. Follow Sharon Shenker’s steps to stop getting a blast from the past.

1. Identify your patterns. The next time you’re unsure as to why you’re angry or sad, try to identify the trigger. Possible triggers could include an innocent comment about your appearance or if someone questions your knowledge and makes you feel dumb. Try to pinpoint what may have caused such strong emotion from you.
2. Make the connection. Once you’ve identified the trigger, think back and try to figure out when it first started. Were you embarrassed in front of your grade three classmates? Was it feeling ignored at the family dinner table? Did your parents use food as a reward?
3. Accept that your old behaviour pattern still exists. If you don’t accept that an old behaviour pattern exists today, you cannot change it. “And changing it requires a conscious effort that takes some work,” says Sharon.
4. Replace a negative response with a positive one — consciously. Be aware of what you’re thinking, feeling, doing and saying. When you do catch yourself in negative thinking or feeling mode, choose a different, positive response. While Sharon says that this can be difficult, she wants you to try the “stop, breathe and think” technique. Stop the negativity. Take a few deep breaths. Then think about what just happened, look at it from a different perspective and then choose another reaction. For example, if your inner critic says that you’re not smart enough, then list all of your accomplishments, like earning a diploma or degree, or learning a skill that allows you to earn your own livelihood and so on.
5. Always recognize your self-worth. Whenever you think of something that makes you proud or gives your self-esteem a boost, remember it and use it as ammunition to counter your inner critic.

“Whenever a negative feeling hits, remind yourself that you are in control of your adult life,” says Sharon Shenker. “But don’t live on auto-pilot. You do have the power to become the person that you want to be — by living consciously!”