Birth to 7 years old

Up until about the age of 7 we soak up all the events that we see, hear, feel, smell or taste as we build our model of what the world (universe, life, whatever…) is like. This is our own personal representation of reality.

Our most vivid memoirs will have been created by the most emotionally intense experiences. Often these memories will be caused by bad experiences; where we suddenly have to redefine our view of the world and make a decision about life. A decision that will remain with us for the rest of our days (or at least until we get a number of other experiences that make us challenge that decision).

Imagine how surprising it would be when a child first experiences the anger of a usually loving adult; one who may have been a little stressed at the time. It would be quite a shocking surprise for a small child, who had not been shouted at before, it would trigger the “Fight or Flight” response. Humans are genetically programmed for a fear of loud noises and a fear of falling

Being left alone, for even a few minutes in these circumstances would leave a lasting imprint of the emotionally charged moment. The memory may fade, or be suppressed, but the event will shape the way they interpret future events.

As these traumatic situations occur we imprint the experiences into our memory. They are what we learn most from but we try not to remember the actual event because they were so traumatic (too traumatic to replay in our minds). We feel that we have failed in some way. The decisions we make in theses circumstance, based on an assumption of failure, help us develop our model of reality.

A major difficulty we all experience is caused by the fact that we develop a, often unrecognized, fear of other people! If we didn’t have this fear why would we be frightened to speak in public? We had no problems being the centre of attention when we were small children. What made us change our minds? Was it other people’s reactions to our communication that surprised us? Communicate less to get fewer bad surprises? Children should be seen and not heard (??!).

This is the period where we are most likely to create any phobias we may have.

It is also true that we will imprint pleasant memories, that will affect us in the future, but we do not find these upsetting so we do not get upset when something reminds us about them.