Healing the Inner Child (part 4) : The Child Saw Only Half the Story

The patterns we inherit can shape who we become—even when we spend years trying to escape them.

Sometimes, the greatest danger after a wound does not come from the wound itself, but from the infection that follows. A simple cut, one that could have healed easily, can become far more serious—even life-threatening—because of an infection.

The same seems to be true of emotional wounds.

In children, the effects can be even more profound. A trauma born from a single event can shape a person’s development on many levels. It can influence our self-esteem, our sense of worth, our relationships with others, and even the way we treat people ourselves.

A childhood wound can make us so kind that we sacrifice ourselves to please others, or so hurt that we become cruel. It can deeply influence the kind of person we grow into.

However, when we take the time to look back and become aware of the things our childhood self could neither see nor understand, we give ourselves an opportunity to heal—to treat the infections that formed within our identity.

From there, we can begin to examine the legacy our parents left us.

Many people believe that a good legacy only comes from good parents. I don’t think that’s true. A good role model is not always an excellent parent. Even the worst person can become an important teacher. We can learn from every kind of person. It is simply a matter of perspective.

A good parent teaches us how to treat others. They pass down values and principles. A bad parent, at the very least, teaches us what we do not want to become. In both cases, we receive an invaluable inheritance.

I am not praising abusive or cruel behavior. As a reminder, this series is not about childhood trauma or assigning blame. It is about looking at those wounds through adult eyes so that we can make peace with the child within us.

There is one pattern I have noticed over and over again.

Sometimes we end up repeating the very behaviors we condemn in others.

In other words, we may find ourselves perpetuating the same patterns we once criticized in our parents.

I often criticized my mother’s impulsiveness and the way she would lose control of her emotions. Yet, at one point in my own life, I began behaving the same way.

The people around me noticed it. Even my father.

At first, it bothered me deeply. I was ashamed. I had seen how destructive that behavior could be, and the thought of becoming like that filled me with disgust.

Eventually, I found myself asking a question:

Why?

Why do we sometimes repeat the very mistakes we are trying so hard to avoid?

How do we become like the people we once criticized?

It seems natural that a child raised in a stable home with healthy parents will often develop healthy character traits. When they become kind or responsible adults, no one is surprised.

The same can be true for a child raised in an unstable environment where unhealthy behaviors are the norm.

As the saying goes, we are our parents’ children. That goes far beyond genetics. It reminds me of the idea that “a person is the product of their environment.”

Imagine a Spanish-born baby raised in England by an English family.

They will most likely behave like an English native. They will not automatically speak Spanish simply because their biological parents did. Nor will they instinctively know Spanish culture just because it belongs to their ancestors.

They will absorb the language and the culture of the environment in which they grow up.

Children learn by observing and absorbing what happens around them—the behaviors, the reactions, the way people interact with the world.

Sometimes we see a man who spent his childhood criticizing his father’s violence toward his mother, only to repeat the very same pattern years later. He adopts the same destructive behaviors he once hated. Somehow, despite all his efforts, he finds himself trapped in the very cycle he wanted to escape.

I believe many of these people may end up hating themselves. They know the cost of those behaviors. Yet they feel powerless to stop repeating them.

Which brings us back to the original question:

Why do we sometimes repeat the very patterns we condemn?

Why do we become like the people we once deeply resented?

Knowing what we do NOT want doesn’t necessarily mean we know what we DO want.

The child lived through those experiences. They witnessed both the beauty and the damage caused by their parents’ behaviors.

Those images became deeply rooted in their mind.

Even if our conscious memory eventually fades, our unconscious often retains the patterns it has observed.

A child who grows up watching their parents constantly help others may naturally become someone who enjoys helping people. When asked why, they may simply answer,

“I don’t know. That’s just who I am.”

The same process can be even stronger with harmful behaviors.

When an action deeply hurts us, we often remember it with remarkable clarity. The behavior becomes vividly imprinted in our mind, and our unconscious quietly records the pattern.

Early on, I came across the idea that the unconscious mind does not distinguish between positive and negative patterns. Whether we admire or reject a behavior, if it becomes deeply imprinted, it can still influence our identity.

I witnessed my mother’s emotional outbursts and how destructive they could become. Those moments filled me with shame, frustration, and anger. Without realizing it, I slowly began reacting the same way.

I knew I did not want to become like that. But at the time, it was the strongest model my mind had available.

My unconscious had learned the pattern, and I kept repeating it.

From my own experience, I believe this is one reason we sometimes reproduce the very behaviors we condemn.

They are familiar.

They are the patterns the child learned, even against their own wishes.

Revisiting our past through adult eyes can help us identify the source of those behaviors and create new possibilities for change.

We can acknowledge the child’s work and gently complete what they were unable to finish.

But how do we complete it?

If what we inherited is healthy, there may be little to change. We simply become more aware of our roots and the values that shaped us.

But if what we inherited is harmful, I have found something else to be incredibly helpful.

Instead of constantly thinking about who my parents were, I began imagining the person I wanted to become.

That simple shift made an enormous difference.

As long as my attention remained fixed on my parents, I often found myself unconsciously repeating the very traits I wanted to avoid.

But once I began focusing on the person I wanted to become, I was surprised to find myself naturally repeating those new behaviors instead.

The mind repeats the models it knows.

That is why I believe perhaps it is far wiser to keep before us the model we want to become than to keep dwelling on the one we are trying to escape.

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🪞 Mirror Question:

What patterns from your childhood do you still recognize in yourself today—and are they helping you become the person you want to be, or quietly keeping you close to the person you were trying not to become?

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