Understanding how earlier experiences shape the way we feel, think and relate to others
Have you ever wondered why something that happened years ago can still affect how you feel, think or respond today?
Perhaps you understand that something happened in your past, but you don't always understand why it still seems to have such a hold on you.
Maybe you find yourself reacting strongly to situations that other people appear to manage quite easily. You might struggle to trust, feel anxious when someone becomes distant, find it difficult to express your needs or feel uncomfortable when someone offers you care.
Perhaps you recognise patterns in your relationships that you had hoped would be different. Or you find yourself responding in ways that don't quite reflect the person you feel you are today.
You might even find yourself thinking, 'Why am I still like this?'
The difficulty is that understanding what happened to us and understanding how it continues to affect us are not always the same thing.
Our earlier experiences can influence much more than the memories we consciously carry. They can shape what we expect from other people, how we see ourselves, what feels safe and the ways we have learned to manage difficult emotions.
To understand why this happens, it helps to look at how our experiences shape us throughout life.
Our earliest experiences help shape how we see the world
From the moment we are born, we are learning about the world around us.
As babies and young children, we depend on other people for care, comfort, protection and connection. We cannot yet understand or explain what is happening around us, but we experience the responses of those looking after us.
Through repeated interactions, we begin developing expectations about ourselves and other people.
Do people respond when I need them? Is it safe to show how I feel? Can I ask for comfort? Will someone help me when things become difficult?
These experiences contribute to what psychologists describe as attachment: the ways we develop expectations of closeness, safety and connection within our important relationships.
When care is generally consistent and responsive, we have opportunities to develop a sense that other people can be relied upon and that our needs matter.
When care is unpredictable, emotionally unavailable or frightening, we may develop different ways of managing relationships.
For example, a child who experiences inconsistent attention might become particularly sensitive to signs that someone is withdrawing. Another child may learn to avoid showing distress because their feelings are rarely acknowledged or welcomed.
These responses are not conscious decisions. They are ways of adapting to the relationships and circumstances in which we find ourselves.
As we grow older, some of these expectations can become familiar ways of relating to other people, even when the original circumstances have changed.
The ways we learned to cope may follow us into adulthood
Children are remarkably resourceful. They find ways to manage the environments they grow up in, often adapting their behaviour to maintain connection, reduce conflict or feel more secure.
Perhaps you became the responsible one in your family.
You learned to anticipate what other people needed, keep things running smoothly and avoid adding to anyone else's difficulties.
Perhaps you became independent very early because asking for help didn't feel comfortable or worthwhile.
You might have learned to keep your feelings private, become particularly good at reading other people's moods or find ways to make yourself less noticeable.
At the time, these responses may have served an important purpose.
They helped you navigate your circumstances and maintain relationships that mattered to you.
But sometimes the ways we learned to cope become so familiar that we continue using them long after the circumstances that shaped them have changed.
As adults, we might find ourselves:
- Taking responsibility for other people's feelings.
- Finding it difficult to say no, even when we are exhausted.
- Feeling guilty when we put our own needs first.
- Becoming anxious when someone is disappointed with us.
- Struggling to trust that relationships will remain secure.
- Avoiding conflict because disagreement feels threatening.
- Finding it difficult to accept help or allow ourselves to be cared for.
- Feeling that we always have to be capable, strong or in control.
We might recognise these patterns without understanding where they came from.
Sometimes what we experience as a personal failing is actually a response that developed for understandable reasons.
Why can our reactions feel stronger than the situation seems to warrant?
Have you ever found yourself reacting to something in a way that surprises you?
Perhaps someone makes a passing comment and you feel unexpectedly hurt. Someone doesn't respond to a message and you become anxious. A disagreement leaves you feeling rejected, frightened or overwhelmed.
You might understand intellectually that the situation isn't particularly serious, yet your emotional response feels much bigger.
One reason this can happen is that our present experiences can connect with earlier emotional learning.
A situation today may resemble something we experienced previously, even if the circumstances are quite different.
For example, someone who grew up feeling criticised may find feedback particularly difficult to receive as an adult. A partner's request for some time alone might bring up feelings of rejection for someone whose earlier experiences involved emotional distance or abandonment.
This doesn't mean that the present situation is identical to the past. It means that something about it may be touching an earlier experience or expectation.
Our brains are continually making sense of information, drawing on previous experiences to help us anticipate what might happen next.
Sometimes this happens so quickly that we become aware of the emotional or physical reaction before we understand what has triggered it.
This is why simply telling ourselves that we shouldn't feel a certain way doesn't always help.
Our responses have developed through experience, and understanding them often requires more than rational explanation.
Our bodies remember experiences too
We often think of our past in terms of memories: things we can recall, describe and talk about.
But our experiences are also reflected in the ways our bodies respond.
Our nervous system continually monitors information from within our bodies and from the environment around us. It helps coordinate our responses to safety, connection, stress and potential threat.
When something feels threatening or overwhelming, we may notice changes in our breathing, heart rate, muscle tension or attention.
We might feel restless, become unusually alert, want to withdraw or find ourselves unable to settle.
Sometimes these responses are relatively subtle. We may simply feel uncomfortable in a particular situation without knowing why.
Trauma specialist Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, has drawn attention to the relationship between overwhelming experiences and the body's responses.
His work encourages greater awareness of bodily sensations and the importance of approaching difficult experiences gradually, rather than assuming that talking about an event is always sufficient.
Deb Dana's work, drawing on Polyvagal Theory, also explores how our nervous-system responses influence our experiences of safety, connection and protection.
Together, these perspectives help us appreciate that our experiences are not held only in the stories we consciously remember. They can also influence the ways we respond physically and emotionally.
Why understanding something doesn't always mean it changes
One of the frustrations people sometimes experience is knowing exactly what has happened to them, yet continuing to struggle with its effects.
Perhaps you understand that your childhood was difficult. You recognise that a previous relationship damaged your confidence. You know that certain experiences affected the way you see yourself.
You may even understand why you respond in particular ways.
Yet when something similar happens again, you still find yourself feeling anxious, withdrawing, becoming defensive or returning to familiar patterns.
Why?
Because intellectual understanding and emotional change are not always the same thing.
We can recognise a pattern without yet feeling able to respond differently.
Our expectations, emotional responses and ways of relating have often developed through repeated experiences over many years. They may take time, new experiences and supportive relationships to change.
For example, knowing that you are allowed to ask for help doesn't necessarily mean it feels comfortable to do so.
Understanding that you are worthy of care doesn't automatically make it easy to receive it.
Recognising that you no longer need to keep everyone happy doesn't mean you will immediately stop feeling guilty when you disappoint someone.
Change is often a gradual process of developing greater awareness, experiencing different ways of relating and discovering that it can be safe to respond differently.
Our past influences us, but it doesn't define us
It is important to recognise that our earlier experiences are only part of our story.
We are also shaped by the relationships we have today, the environments in which we live, the opportunities available to us and the experiences we continue to encounter.
Our brains and nervous systems remain capable of change throughout adulthood. New experiences, supportive relationships and opportunities to develop different ways of responding can all contribute to this process.
This is sometimes described as neuroplasticity: the brain's capacity to change and reorganise through experience.
It means that we are not permanently fixed by what happened to us.
We may have learned to be constantly alert, but we can gradually develop a greater sense of safety.
We may have learned to keep our feelings to ourselves, but we can discover relationships in which expressing them feels possible.
We may have become accustomed to putting everyone else first, but we can begin to recognise our own needs and consider what it means to make space for them.
This isn't about rejecting the person we became or judging the ways we learned to cope.
It is about understanding ourselves more fully and recognising that we may now have choices that weren't available to us earlier in life.
What might you begin to understand about yourself?
Sometimes a helpful starting point is to become curious about the situations in which you find yourself responding in familiar ways.
You might like to spend a little time considering these questions:
- Are there particular situations in which I find myself reacting more strongly than I expect?
- What feelings tend to arise when I feel criticised, rejected, overlooked or disappointed?
- Do I find it easy to ask for help, express my needs or allow other people to care for me?
- What roles did I occupy within my family, and do I recognise any of them in my adult relationships?
- Are there ways of coping that once helped me but may no longer serve me in the same way?
- What might I need in order to feel safer, more understood or more comfortable being myself?
You don't need to find an explanation for everything.
These questions are simply invitations to notice what happens, become more curious about your responses and consider what might be important for you now.
Understanding yourself with greater compassion
In my work, I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between our earlier experiences, our relationships, the losses we encounter and the ways we learn to navigate life.
Over more than 25 years of working therapeutically with people, I have come to appreciate how important it is to understand the person within the context of their life.
Rather than looking only at what someone is struggling with today, I am interested in what may have shaped their experiences, the ways they have learned to cope and what those responses might mean for them.
This is not about finding something wrong with you or searching for an explanation for every difficulty.
It is about approaching yourself with curiosity rather than judgement.
Perhaps instead of asking, 'Why am I like this?', we can begin asking, 'What might have shaped the way I respond?'
That small shift in perspective can open up a different way of understanding ourselves.
Your past is part of your story, not the whole of it
We cannot change the experiences that have shaped us, and we may never fully understand every influence on our lives.
But we can begin to recognise the connections between what we have experienced and how we feel, think and relate to others today.
We can acknowledge the ways we have learned to protect ourselves, the relationships that have influenced us and the strengths we have developed along the way.
And perhaps, with greater understanding, we can begin to make different choices about how we want to live and relate to others.
You are not broken because you have developed ways of coping. You are a person whose experiences have helped shape who you are. And there is always room for greater understanding, connection and change.
If you would like space to explore how your earlier experiences may be influencing your life today, online counselling for women offers an opportunity to do this within a supportive, understanding relationship.
This article draws on ideas and research relating to attachment, trauma, neuroscience, nervous-system responses and neuroplasticity, including the work of Peter Levine, Deb Dana and other contributors to these fields. These perspectives offer ways of understanding human experience, rather than explanations that can be applied identically to everyone.