If we analyse a person part by part, separating the good and the bad aspects of that person, we will find some very strong links to childhood. I shall neglect the ‘good’ aspects, because they don’t need any changing.

I believe that a man is always is own worst enemy. Next, come parents.

By using the term enemy, I do not imply that one should stay away from his parents. Indeed, that wouldn’t make any difference at all. By ‘enemy’, I imply self-destructive attitudes, which is why a man is his worst enemy – most damage done to a person is by himself. Now when I say next come parents, it is because whatever damage the parents do to the child, he continues to do it to himself for the rest of his life.

Parents try to do the best job they can, but they are only humans. We all make mistakes and so do parents. They go wrong somewhere, and inflict some kind of pain on us, or some kind of complexes or fears, usually unintentionally. This suffering becomes part of our personality and we subconsciously want to keep suffering in that particular fashion because it makes us feel ‘at home’.

Take, for example, a girl whose parents always told her that she is useless. Although consciously she hates being told that, and is constantly looking for approval, you will find that her best friends and her partner will eventually tell her the same thing – that she is useless. She has grown up with the belief that she is useless, and she continues to live among people who reinforce that belief.

That girl isn’t just an example. That girl, or boy, is you. Whatever damage your parents did to you, you continue to do to yourself today. If you ever find yourself telling anyone ‘Don’t behave like my mom’, or ‘Don’t behave like my dad’, you’ll know what patterns you are following. If your loved ones hurt you in the same way that your parents did, you have some thinking to do. If you suffer the same kinds of problems that your parents suffered, you have some thinking to do. You need to grow out of your childhood.

To start growing out of our childhood, we must first let go of it. And also, learn to forgive our parents. No matter what they did, they were trying to do their best. And in the process, you got hurt a bit, but you can choose to treat yourself differently today. You can choose to love yourself more than your parents did. Remember the things that hurt you in childhood, and forgive yourself, and your parents for it. Let go. It always takes some time and effort, but it is worth it.

The next time you find yourself suffering, look back and see if it happened to you in childhood too, especially if it has happened to you more than once. And then remember the instances when it happened as a child and remember how it felt. And then forgive everyone involved and reverse the programming. If you were told that you will never succeed, then tell yourself that you will succeed even though you messed up then.

Our self-esteem issues, along with relationship problems, are all rooted in our childhood. Unravel it, study it, resolve it, and you will find that you’ve moved ahead greatly. If something, anything, is significantly lacking in your life, that will also take you back to your childhood. We often say that the past is history. It is, I think, high time we actually let it be nothing more than just that. Free yourself from the bonds of the past, be a new person today!