Healing from our past to live freely in the present

Our past can have an impact on our present and future. What is important is that we heal from it so we can develop into the ideal person we want to become.

We all have a different life story. Where we came from, our childhood, our past and the people we meet all have an impact on who we are today. However, our past can feel like our present and our future. We must stop this from affecting our choices in life negatively, and only take the past as life lessons along with how it made us into who we are today. 

“When a baby is born it only knows one thing, which is to ask for help, it knows how to cry, because in its brain they have a number of codes. These codes are instincts, and they say this; don’t die, ask for things such as let the world love you, let people know you, let people respect you, let all good things be yours, let the world give you whatever you want and if it doesn’t, hit, break, kill, let it answer all your sexual desires. We have such selfish codes when we are born into this earth,” said Dr. Gülseren Buday?c?o?lu on TEDx titled “Geçmi?imizin Kaderimize Etkisi” that translates to “The effect our past has on our destiny.” Dr. Gülseren  Buday?c?o?lu is an author, Psychiatric Specialist, and Head of Madalyon Psychiatric Center in Ankara, Turkey. 

Dr. Buday?c?o?lu then goes more in depth in her TEDx talk. She explains that we have codes in our brains; as babies, we have two important emotions. One is fear, the other is peace. If the baby senses they are in an environment where they are in danger, they cry, asking for help in this way. If there is no danger, the baby will be at peace. The person who supplies this will be the mother or person in the role of the mother. 

If life treats this child well and does not put them in danger, this child will rarely experience fear, and will frequently be at peace. If the child is raised in an opposite environment of this, they will live in a constant state of fear. 

“You go to the place the wounds you got as a child takes you … Instead of falling in love with someone else, we identify and fall for the people who will make us relive the pain we experienced as a child,” said Dr. Buday?c?o?lu. 

This is because our system makes choices based on what we went through. It is used to the pain we experienced in the past, so it often transfers to someone or things that it is familiar with, who are capable of making us relive this pain. 

“It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on,” said Burrhus Frederic Skinner, an American psychologist, behaviorist and author. 

To become a better us, we need to face our fears, get help from specialists, acknowledge that we are alive and have survived thus far. Our life has already started, there is no button to start over again. In order to change our destiny and make our dreams into a reality, we need to heal. We may have not been able to control some things that happened to us but we can change how it affects us in the present and future. We can choose to free ourselves from intrusive thoughts of the past and choices we make out of fear. We can learn how to say no when we want, and not say yes because it is convenient for others. We can start living our own lives. 

We don’t have to wait to be completely healthy to find love and have children or chase after our dreams. What we can control is the fate of our future relationships and our children’s, so that we can all live a happy and healthy life. 

There are billions of people in the world who have many different life stories. One of the reasons why Dr. Gülseren Buday?c?o?lu shares the stories of her patients in her books is to show that when people spend time in a close relationship with different people, then they will be able to see the many faces of life, and they will be able to see themselves in the other person’s story. Meaning that if people are able to see the many stories, childhood traumas and battles that others have faced, then they can connect to the other person and not feel alone. 

We have the ability to help change our fate and become better for our children and the youth around us. We cannot allow our traumas to pass down to another person and we have to firmly put a stop to it within ourselves in order to prevent that. Being at peace and finding forgiveness for ourselves is for our sake, as it will allow us to grow and mature into the ideal person we envision ourselves to be.