# Unpacking Childhood Conditioning: How It Shapes Our Lives
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Chapter 1: The Quest for Love
Reflect on your childhood. Whose affection did you seek most as a child? This longing often centers around a parent, but it could also be directed towards a grandparent, sibling, or coach. Consider the persona you adopted to secure that love. Did you feel pressured to perform, please, prove yourself, or aim for perfection? Were you expected to act mature, suppress your needs, or take care of others, perhaps even your parents?
The need for love and belonging is fundamental to human existence. Children may quickly compromise their true selves and other vital needs for a chance at the attention they yearn for.
Take a moment to think back on your childhood desire for connection and the significant struggles you faced to attain it, often with an absent parent or another influential figure.
Now, examine your past relationships. Consider your career choices. Reflect on your habits, patterns, and compulsions. Do you notice a link back to your early experiences?
Isn’t that intriguing?
Crime Scene Investigation
If you haven't delved into your childhood experiences, I assure you it's a captivating journey. I engage in this exploration almost daily with my clients, and it’s rarely a puzzle to solve.
It often leads to realizations like: "Ah, that’s why you chose a career in medicine," or "Now I understand your attraction to alcoholics," or "So that’s why you opted for a long-distance relationship."
Everything clicks into place when you analyze it closely.
Unfortunately, many individuals never take the time to reflect. They navigate through life, questioning why various events occur, unaware that the universe is simply reflecting back their unexamined self.
Socrates famously stated, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I would argue that, in many situations, an unexamined life isn't truly "lived" at all; it's more akin to sleepwalking—merely surviving.
Having only a heartbeat and a collection of unexamined coping strategies doesn't convince me that you're truly living.
Adam Murauskas, a relationship coach and a top writer on Medium, along with his wife Rebecca, left their careers in 2019 to pursue their passion for helping individuals heal. You can take a free relationship quiz at FixYourPicker.com or follow their daily insights on Instagram @fixyourpicker.
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