Did you know that your mind is essentially formed by the time you reach seven years old? Neurobiology has discovered that the platform of the personality – who we are, how we do life, how we see ourselves and how we treat people – has all been formed by the age of 7.
When a child is conceived, they are predisposed to have the same psycho-emotional patterns as their parents. A child is also pre-loaded with their parents’ perceptions of life – what they believe about money, what they believe about communication, etc. As the child grows up inside the home, their parents are the central influencers as to who that child becomes. The parents can virtually press a button that causes information to fire into the brain of the child. The child will start to act, feel, and be just like their parents. If a little boy’s father has aggression issues it doesn’t take much for that little child to become quite aggressive with other kids in the school playground because he sees daddy doing it.
A child’s mission is to figure out who they are and how life works. As they develop, they’re constantly observing. Based on their environment, they will soon come to conclusions about human behavioural interactions such as: how a woman should act and how a man should act, how to communicate, what a relationship is like, how to resolve conflict, what to do with emotions and whether or not emotion is okay.
By the age of 7 a child may have made the decision about whether they are lovable, likeable, acceptable, capable, important and valuable. The child will have formed beliefs about whether or not they will be loved going forward and whether or not they can trust life.
Therefore, if an adult is consistently facing issues throughout their lifetime, they came to a conclusion at the age of 7 that they were not worth loving, not accepted, not worth supporting, or alone in life. This core belief that is formed between the ages of 0 and 7 begins to take root and the rest of their life could emulate this unless outside influences begin to build a different understanding.
One statistic has said that 50% of the brain is pre-loaded according to the parents’ dispositions, and 50% of the brain is preloaded with the child’s potential. This is what the child can become if they break out of or go beyond the genetic predispositions loaded into the DNA.
So what does this mean? Although it’s true we are hard-wired by the age of 7, it is possible to change our learned perceptions and beliefs. The first step is recognizing which beliefs and perceptions are holding you back in your life. What do you want to re-wire and what do you actually believe to be constructive? You CAN choose to rebuild your own psycho-emotional nature. In Mindful Change, we make it possible by breaking down these preconceived, ingrained thoughts that cause you to get stuck time after time.
So, what beliefs have you absorbed from your parents that you would like to change?