Child stories.
When you find yourself ready to bolt from a relationship, or hanging on to one that is going nowhere, or frightened about the future, or feeling insecure in a group; when you are driving people crazy with your efforts to get things under control, or are unable to take steps that would obviously be beneficial, or are avoiding criticism of any kind, think this: you are living in a story made up by a child. I ask you to imagine that stories made up by the children in us, or handed down to us by the children in others, have quite different qualities and are based on fundamentally different assumptions from stories created by our integrated adult selves.
Child stories, like early theories of the universe, feature the juvenile author at the center of the drama—and dramatic these stories are. Whether describing the good or the bad, it’s that “forever and ever” quality of child stories that gives them that extra theatrical flair.
~ Rosamund Stone Zander, Pathways to Possibility
As we grow up, we start accumulating child stories in our psyche. These stories are the child's way to make sense of what's going on around her and to keep her safe, both physically and psychologically.
The challenge with these stories is that they stick and stay in our nervous system as child parts ready to take over as soon as they sense a trigger. And once they take over, they don't allow our adult, more mature, selves to have any agency.
They tell a story about insecurity and injustice and how we have been wronged. These stories don't allow us to have agency and gratitude. These are stories made by a child and as such they are childish.
They are so subtle that once the story is playing, we are unable to detach ourselves from the story and, in the process, end up hurting ourselves as well as others.
The more we can become aware of the child stories that cause havoc in our lives and the more we can replace them with adult versions with compassion and care, the more we will be able to build healthy relationships with ourselves and those around us.