We feel anxious about our performance, and we look for opportunities to avoid or remove ourselves from anxiety-producing situations as soon as possible. We feel less and less competent, we behave accordingly, and down and down we go. The roots of downward spiral can usually be traced to early life. When we're young, we have little, if anything, to say about the experiences to which we're subjected or the messages we receive from the world. The authority figures in our lives often exercise the power to shape our earliest thoughts and feelings for us, whether or not they do so consciously.
Years pass and the pattern repeats many times.
It becomes part of who we are, imprinted in our brains, and our internal voice, our self-talk, takes on the sound of our harshest critics. We play out the negative conditioning we received, and we no longer think about it. When we become adults, however, the game changes. We can acknowledge these painful early experiences for what they were, let go of them, and move past the self-defeating thoughts and behavior they cause. We must learn to see the world anew.