Defeating [you]r very own enemy
Last week I met someone who brought up a philosophical question that is at the very core of psychological research - a question that, at first glance seems so elementary, so straightforward and lucid that surely there must be one definitive answer. Yet, this is a question that has baffled scientists for years.
“Is our essence a product of nature or nurture?”
Ah, yes. The nature vs. nurture debate. A truly wondrous enigma…and dinner table conversation.
And get this… the answer is even more unimaginative: It’s both.
But just like with the chicken and egg debate, everyone proclaims that one has to have came first. The simple fact is they interact with each other in a bi-directional manner. Your genetic predisposition to personality will influence your environment, and in turn your environment will shape your personality.
An anxious mother will give birth to anxiously-inclined babies. Anxiously-inclined babies will cry all the time. Crying all the time will make the anxious mother even more anxious. Becoming more anxious makes the anxious mother overbearing, overprotective and disagreeable. The helicopter parenting turns the anxiously-inclined baby into an insecurely attached adolescent. The insecurely attached adolescent will seek out experiences and relationships that reinforce her disposition.
Which is why, as a trauma-informed practitioner, I will never stop psycho-educating parents on the extreme negative effects that childhood trauma has on our adult circumstances.
Developmental trauma changes the structure and function of a child’s developing brain and nervous system.
I won’t delve deep into the biochemistry of trauma, but just know that your childhood experiences register in every part of your mind. The limbic brain (your nervous system), the hypothalamus and amygdala (your emotional memory storage), the pre-frontal cortex (your decision making, impulsivity-breaking, ego protective part of you). Yadayadayada….
Developmental Trauma disrupts the circuitry between these essential neural components - making it difficult to develop empathy, compassion, good decision-making skills and other positive behaviours.
In clinical psychology, we observe these array of symptoms under a cluster of personality disorders known as Cluster B. This includes antisocial personality disorder (or sociopathy), borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.
In our every day to day, though, we still observe these array of symptoms around us - in our loved ones, our family members, our bosses, teachers and authority figures alike. Albeit subclinical, people still act in self-destructive and self-sabotaging ways because it’s the only way they know how.
People still act in self-destructive and self-sabotaging ways because it’s the only way they know how.
So in that sense, the question at hand isn’t anymore “why are we the way we are?”, but rather “can we change the way we are?”
If it’s true that our very core is so deeply engrained, so deeply rooted in the abyss of our beginnings - can a little soul-searching really change that?
Maybe. Maybe not.
The probability of change follows a binary trajectory in that there are only two possible outcomes: either you put in the f*cking work to change, or you don’t and continue pointing the finger at everyone else while exclaiming “WHY ME” to anyone who will give you an inch.
So if the concept of change is a formula of conditional probability, then B can’t occur without A.
And change can’t occur without accountability.
Not to sound like a cliché, but you really are your very own enemy. You are the only thing holding you back from living a life of authenticity, connectedness and purity. Ruminating over whether you self-sabotage because you have lousy genes or a shitty childhood becomes redundant if you’re not going to do anything about it.
You are your very own enemy. You are the only thing holding you back from living a life of authenticity, connectedness and purity.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t show yourself some compassion. We aren’t robots. Humans are jarring, complex and ohhh so messy.
But if you constantly find yourself attracted to narcissistic a-holes, ask yourself what kind of boundaries (or lack thereof) you’re omitting which enforces their attraction to you.
If you are constantly losing friends, losing jobs, losing relationships…
If you can’t can’t stop binge-eating, people-pleasing, substance-abusing, micro-aggressing…
If you feel inauthentic, dishonest, unethical, immoral…
It might be time to wake up and smell the coffee.
You deserve more out of life than mediocre relationships and living on auto-pilot. Being in the driver seat of my own life, no matter the circumstances, instilled within me an unstoppable power that I couldn’t put into words even if I swallowed a dictionary.
When I started looking inwards, when I started taking responsibility for the things that happened to me (it sounds painstakingly obvious when I say it like that, huh?) - I have never felt more abundant…even when I had nothing.
Because I had my integrity. I had my authenticity. I had my love. I had my soul.
If you’re ready to go to war with yourself, I can promise you that you’ll come out of the other side unscathed and anew.
You’re stronger than you think.
Sending love & light,
Ayla