You have been in these situations. One minute someone is a composed, thoughtful professional. Five minutes later, a minor disagreement turns them into a snarling attack dog, a sulking mute, or the quintessential, whining victim. What happened to the smart, competent leader in them, or maybe it was you having the meltdown?
Office drama, family tension, and team friction are often not caused by the present issue, but by old childhood survival strategies that hijacked our adult responses.
Guilt, shame, and feeling stuck often overwhelm us unexpectedly:
Which of these are familiar to you?
- The absolute certainty that you are right and that you must convince the other person that they are wrong. There is an urgency and frustration within you to find the right words to persuade them to see your point of view. The relief in you if you can produce data to prove your argument and win, or the dejected shame of loss if they produce the goods to prove their point first. Notice that there is no elation when facts show up to resolve the conflict only gloating or shame, it was never about the truth.
Have you ever wondered why we do this? Why we are compelled to rigidly defend our point of view without pausing to consider the other person’s perspective? How come we are driven to prove that black is black or white is white without contemplating the greys of common ground?
- The uneasiness of guilt, gripping your chest and stopping your breath, when a person is angry with you or you detect disappointment in their pursed lips. The confusion of “I must have done something wrong”, though nothing comes to mind.
- The helpless feeling of being stuck in place, powerless to leave and unable to speak in the face of conflict. Your mind is blank and your body paralysed. You feel like you should be able to take action, or speak your truth, or get the hell away from the situation. So why haven’t you?
These are stuck emotional patterns, that your body remembers from childhood. This is how your nervous system was programmed to run automatically to keep you safe in a volatile world. These reactions would have made perfect sense in your childhood situations but as an adult they undermine your ability to show up powerfully.
If you want to understand why this happens to us, the good news is that these aren’t character flaws or moral failings. They are sticky remnants of childhood development that with a deeper level of awareness are easily resolved. And I say this because judgement is the very weapon that keeps us stuck in this thinking, whereas compassion and curiosity are the tools we can use to free us.
“I have just behaved like an idiot, I wonder where that came from?”
Three Childhood Patterns That Love to Crash our Poised Adult Composure.
1. The “I Must Be Right” Trap A child’s brain is not capable of abstract thought, parents need to use a clear-cut black and white strategy to differentiate between right and wrong for the child. However, some of us were repeatedly punished or shamed for being “wrong”. Fast-forward to adulthood, and we’re still treating every disagreement like a life-or-death debate we must win because if we lose, we feel the same humiliation of being punished that we would have felt as a child. Insisting on being right is protecting us from this feeling.
2. The “It Must Be My Fault” Reflex Many of us grew up believing we were responsible for other people’s emotions (“Mom’s upset, means I did something wrong”). This egocentric thinking is perfectly normal in young children, but it can linger and create chronic guilt, people-pleasing, and conflict aversion in adulthood, even when the other person’s emotional reaction has nothing to do with us, we still feel like we are to blame for their distress.
3. The “I’m Stuck” Feeling Children have very little agency, they are stuck in the situations they find themselves in and can’t leave. They can’t exchange their family for a more loving or fun family. They can’t walk away when an adult is talking to them. As adults, we often still feel stuck even when we’re not. We stay in toxic dynamics, bite our tongue, or tolerate situations we could actually change, because our nervous system still believes we are powerless.
The Winning Move
Freeing yourself from these sticky remnants of childhood isn’t about pretending they don’t exist. When you are unaware of a pattern, it controls you; once you can see the old pattern clearly, and can laugh at yourself a little, then you control it and are free to choose empowered responses.
Once you can name the invisible “elastic rope” pulling you back, it loses its power. What felt like a big scary monster usually turns out to be a small, understandable habit that’s ready to retire.
This is exactly why many high-achieving professionals invest in coaching, not because something is “wrong” with them, but because they want to show up as the calm, confident, effective leaders they know they can be.