In the last blog, I talked about our parent’s expectations of us and how we had to decide whether to live our lives the way our parents wanted us to or the way we wanted to.

If we tried to do things our way, we learned the pain of our parent’s disapproval and disappointment, the pain of emotional and possibly, physical rejection and the fear of more pain.

Not that they beat us (although they might have), but the pain of disappointing or upsetting your parents is extremely stressful when you are little.  After all, at that age, you think of your parents as God.

Our self image suffered.  We questioned our own ability to make decisions and thought there was something wrong with us.

Which is a greater motivator: Pleasure or Pain?

If you question what I’m saying, let me ask you which is a greater motivator: pleasure or pain?  For the majority of people, avoidance of pain is a far greater motivator than gaining pleasure.

In order to prevent this pain, we learned to avoid, deny or resist experience.

We basically had two choices:

a) We could rebel – and constantly have the pain of our parent’s disapproval and disappointment – which we would then have to live with.

b) Or we could submerge ourselves and do what our parents wanted us to do.  We buried our own thoughts, feelings and desires and Conformed.