Our earliest experiences with our parents shaped our core beliefs about ourselves and taught us the essential skills for navigating relationships, including the one we have with ourselves. As infants, we expressed our needs and emotions by crying, cooing, smiling, gazing, protesting, or clinging to our parents or caregivers for comfort, protection, and connection. In these moments, our mother or father might have been emotionally available, attuned, and curious about our feelings, capable of soothing our distress and finding joy in our presence.
However, because they are human, our parents also had their own emotional limitations, internal struggles, and traumas that may have caused them to respond inconsistently, sometimes leaving us frustrated or even frightened. These repeated early experiences—seeking connection, being responded to, or recovering from disconnection—shape our most basic beliefs about what it takes to maintain a close relationship. Unconsciously, we carry these relationship patterns into our adult intimate relationships with our current partners.
For example:
Whether we need to exaggerate or downplay our emotions to maintain connection
Whether our feelings (and by extension, we) are seen as overwhelming, burdensome, or impossible to console
Whether we can expect our loved one to take us and our reality seriously
Whether it’s safe to express anger towards the person we love
Whether it’s possible to be independent and still be part of a “we” with a sense of belonging
How responsible versus carefree or uninhibited we can be
How self-sufficient versus dependent we must be to keep our loved one close
Whether it’s safe to occasionally "look away" from our partner and lose ourselves for a while
Whether it’s safe to experience pleasure in the presence of our loved one
Whether we can expect to be ignored, intruded upon, or both
Whether touch is soothing, thrilling, or potentially dangerous
And so on.
If you feel inclined to reflect on your own early experiences of connection and disconnection with your parents, consider journaling, meditating, or tuning into these memories in your body. Which memories resonate the most? What do you think you learned as a child about sustaining closeness with someone you love? How might these beliefs be influencing your adult intimate relationships today?
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