Corporate CoDriver - HD Clarity

Oh Grow up!

Feelings that hold you back

THE ADAPTED CHILD - The Adapted Child ego state develops simultaneously with the Parent. It, too, records and stores information, but the information it records consists largely of feelings. Specifically, it records all the feelings we felt at the time we recorded our early Parent messages. Often, these feelings are positive and helpful, but just as often, they're not. If we were punished severely for doing something we were told not to do, the message that we "shouldn't" do it was recorded in our Parent, and the pain associated with the spanking or other form of punishment we received was recorded simultaneously in our Adapted Child. Sometimes, also, the fear of being punished was recorded in our Adapted Child. On the other hand, if we did what we were told we should do, and we ended up feeling bored or depressed lots of the time, these feelings, also, were recorded in our Adapted Child.

Our Adapted Child develops its personality as it adapts to our environment, modifying its behavior in response to the influence of our real-life parent figures, and to life in general. It may become compliant, rebellious, devious, manipulative, precocious, or happy, and, when it does so, it records all the feelings associated with these kinds of behavior. Our Adapted Child tends to interpret things that people say in ways that reflect the "hidden meanings" in similar statements that people made to us when we were much younger. Thus, it might interpret "You're late," as meaning, "You're irresponsible." Or, it might interpret, "How are you feeling?" as, "You don't look very well."

Adapted Child feelings include those "acceptable" feelings that we were permitted to feel when we were young, often masking those feelings we would truly have liked to have felt (like when we felt disappointed, or "sorry for someone," rather than feeling anger we might normally have felt because of what that person said or did).

When we are in our Parent and Adapted Child, operating from messages and feelings that were recorded many years in our past, we are more or less reliving a "movie" from our past.

One of the goals of 4ESM has been to re-examine our Parent messages and our unproductive Adapted Child feelings, to rid ourselves of those that no longer serve us, and in a sense, to turn off the movie.

When we can understand how much of our lives are governed by the automatic responses of Parent and the Adapted Child ego states, we can see how they become filters through which we view our entire world. It is the rare occasion where we see ourselves as being in our "Critical Parent," for example ("Whoa. Why did I say that?"), or our Adapted Child ("Well I'll NEVER help that guy again.") when we are actually "present" and get a glimpse of the 52" Digital Hi-Def TV.

If you can determine what ego state you are talking to (your listener's ego state) and what ego state YOU are using (your transmitting ego state), you can improve the probability of conducting a 52" High Definition conversation.