Adoption of, and Rebellion Against, Negative Love Patterns
The adoption of our mother’s and father’s patterns of feeling and behaving begins in Mother’s womb and accelerates after birth. The negative programming continues until puberty, by which time we’ve adopted – or rebelled against – virtually all of our parents’ and surrogate parents’ behaviors, moods, and attitudes. We then carry them into adulthood as our own.
There are two basic ways we take on negative patterns, behaviors, moods, and admonitions:
Adoption
We unconsciously adopt our parents’ negative traits and mirror them back to be like them so they will love us. For example, when adopting the negative trait of being critical, we become self-critical, critical of others, and or set it up for others to be critical of us.
Rebellion
We unconsciously adopt our parents’ negative traits, but we dislike the traits and their consequences. So, we suppress overtly those traits we dislike and our feelings about them, and in an attempt to be more like our parents, we learn to act out compensatory behaviors.
This provides the illusion of freedom and self-development. To continue our example, imagine you adopted the trait of being critical, but at some point attempt to be non-judgmental and accepting. Then at some point you meet a critical person. Your irst reaction, from a self-righteous moral standpoint, may be to criticize that person for their actions and behavior. Thus we ind ourselves back in the original pattern.
Acting out the alternative does not quiet the negative voice within us. Instead we are pulled in two opposing directions; we get two patterns instead of one. On some occasions we act out the adopted behavior, and at other times the alternative behavior. This see-sawing creates even greater anxiety and con lict.
To be loyal to each parent, we must play both roles, adopting each of their traits. This produces conflict, especially if your parents are very different from each other. For example, suppose your mother was quiet and placating. She never expressed anger. Father, on the other hand, was hostile and aggressive. Outwardly, you may behave like your mother, but the suppression of Dad’s hostility is like a latent volcano rumbling inside, waiting for the appropriate moment to erupt. Moreover, you might recreate Mo’s situation of being incompetent at dealing with anger by having angry people around you.
Any adoption of negative traits inevitably brings internal con lict. This is clearly demonstrated in extreme examples. People with abusive parents can often ind themselves in abusive relationships. It has the pull of something familiar, but then there is also the unconscious hope that “this time it will be different, this time I will change the situation and get the love I didn’t receive as a child.” It is a way of trying to heal an old wound. However, while these old emotions are looking for love, the reality created is actually a misery of living through more abuse in the present. This is an inner con lict – a drive toward peace and lovability, not felt in childhood that actually creates the opposite.
This con lict can turn into a vicious cycle. In an attempt to resolve a situation and the underlying belief of unlovability, we act out an adopted parental pattern. When this fails, it leads to us acting out another set of behaviors or beliefs to compensate or correct for the previous ones. This continues with more negative patterns, and each trip around this cycle of patterns takes us even further from our goals and reaf irms our unlovability. We can become very trapped as we move through the circle of ever more negative beliefs and actions.