FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE LASTING

There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking — William James

If you were raised by parents who continually told you what a good person you were, who loved you, encouraged you, supported you, and believed in you, no matter what you did or didn't do, you would grow up with the belief that you were a good and valuable person. By the age of three, this belief would lock in and become a fundamental part of the way you view yourself in relation to your world.

Thereafter, no matter what happens to you, you would hold this belief. It would become your reality.

If you were born by parents who did not know how powerful their words and behaviours could be in shaping your personality, they could very easily have used destructive criticism, disapproval, and physical or emotional punishment to discipline or control you.

When a child is continually criticized at an early age, he soon concludes that there is something wrong with him. He doesn't understand why it is that he is being criticized or punished, but he assumes that his parents know the truth about him, and that he deserves it. He begins to feel that he is not valuable or lovable. He is not worth very much. He must therefore be worthless.

Almost all personality problems in adolescence and adulthood are rooted in what psychologists refer to as love withheld.

The child needs love like roses need rain. When children feel unloved, they feel unsafe and insecure. They think, "I'm not good enough." They begin to engage in compensatory behaviours to make up for their inner anxiety. This sense of love deprivation is manifested in misbehaviour, personality problems, bursts of anger, depression, hopelessness, lack of ambition, and problems with people and relationships.