Early childhood programming often gets in the way of what you want

Inside every one of us is that tiny seed of the "you" that you were meant to become. Unfortunately, you may have buried this seed in response to your parents, teachers, coaches, and other adult role models as you were growing up.

You started out as a baby knowing exactly what you wanted. You knew when you were hungry. You spit out the foods you did not like and avidly devoured the ones you did. You had no trouble expressing your needs and wants. You simply cried loudly - with no inhibitions or holding back - until you got what you wanted. You had everything inside you, that you needed to get fed, changed, held and rocked. As you got older, you crawled around and moved toward whatever held the most interest for you. You were clear about what you wanted, and you headed straight toward it with no fear.

So what happened? Somewhere along the way, someone said:

Don’t touch that.

Stay away from there.

Keep your hands off that. Eat everything on your plate whether you like it or not. You don’t really feel that way. You don’t really want that. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Stop crying.

Don’t be such a baby

As you got older, you heard:

You can’t have everything you want simply because you want it. Money does not grow on trees.

Can’t you think of anybody but yourself. Stop being so selfish.

Stop doing what you are doing and come do what I want you to do.

*Don’t Live Someone Else's Dreams* After many years of these kinds of sanctions, most of us eventually lost touch with the needs of our bodies and the desires of our hearts and somehow got stuck trying to figure out what other people wanted us to do. We learned how to act and how to be to get their approval. As a result, we now do a lot of things we don't want to do but that which pleases a lot of other people:

We go to medical school because that is what Dad wanted for us. We get married to please our mother.

We get a "real job" instead of pursuing our dream career in the arts.

We go straight into graduate school instead of taking a year off and backpacking through the World.

In the name of being sensible, we end up becoming numb to our own desires. It is no wonder that when we ask many teen-agers what they want to do or be, they honestly answer "I don’t know". There are too many layers of "should's" "ought to's", and "you would better's" piled on top of and suffocating what they really want.

So how do you reclaim yourself and your true desires?

How do you get back to what you really want with no fear, shame, or inhibition? How do you reconnect with your real passion?

You start on the smallest level by honoring your preferences in every situation - no matter how large or small. Don't think of them as petty. They might be inconsequential to someone else, but they are not to you.