Carrying an old role or behaviour from your family dynamic into your adulthood may be blocking you from living in your authentic self and in joyfulness. This can stunt growth and overall ease of living. The behaviour may have been useful to you in order to survive your childhood but today it prevents you from living a full life.

We all have our family dynamics that we grew up in, and many of us engaged in compensating behaviours to survive. For example, being the comedian, or the pleaser, or the chameleon. These are roles we adapt as coping mechanisms that are discovered during childhood. We create the pattern of turning oneself into whatever environment we are in.  These types of behaviours are usually ways that we discovered so as not to be abandoned or rejected by the family power brokers.

As a holistic psychotherapist and life coach, I notice that many people, who are unhappy, are not experiencing true authenticity, because they’re still entrenched in childhood behaviours and roles that they have unconsciously maintained. These parts are constantly compensating, by being the comedian, the chameleon, the victim, the defender, the peacemaker, the deceiver, the judge, the isolator and the list goes on (there are many compensating behaviours).  A way to tackle this issue is to ask yourself, “What compensating behaviour is still active, that I have taken on as a personality style and that I have inherited or brought forth from my childhood? Is it still working for me? Or is it interfering with my ability to connect with people on an authentic and open level?”

A lot of these compensating behaviours you brought forth from your childhood into adult life are parts of you that you need to grown up. They need to be integrated and transformed into a higher expression of themselves. That is; don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! If you’re a comedian as a result of this compensating patterning, keep your comedic timing and sense. But drop your sarcasm, embitterment and avoidance of everything by masking it with comedy. If you are the peacemaker, hone your ability to negotiate peace in relationships without giving up your voice and your empowerment. If  are the pleaser, bring that to your life in a healthier way in which you maintain personal boundaries and selfhood oriented choices The disease to please can cripple a person in a bid to not be rejected or abandoned.  The chameleons have to be very careful as this trait can be very seductive and come about due to deeper family trauma.  If you completely change your personality in a chameleon-like way, based on the group you’re in, people in your adult life may become leery of you as they find out this is what you do. They may start asking, “Who’s the real person here?”  You need to ask yourself: “Who am I really? What is my authentic being?”

I heard an interesting story about Japanese soldiers in World War II, who had been fighting in the jungle and got separated from their troops, and ended up in different islands and caves for years after the war had ended. Many years later, some of these men unfortunately continued to act like the war was still on; they were shooting at the world defending Japan.  Years later, the Japanese government apparently was very careful as they dealt with these men. They brought generals in uniforms from the Japanese army to approach them very carefully, saying, “Thank-you very much for your service to our country. Thank-you for everything you’ve done.” It took days and days, and finally they revealed to the men that the war was actually over and that they didn’t have to behave in this way anymore.  Great emotion came forth as the men began to realize what had transpired and that they could begin to finally put the war behind them.

One of the methodologies to heal and to grow this compensating, traumatized part up is to take a moment to commune with said part and talk to it gently, just like that soldier was talked to.  You need to say to the part “Thank-you so much for helping me to survive my family and my life as a child, when I had no power and no say. Thank-you but you now need to realize that that environment is not happening anymore. And you now have more power to draw boundaries and to be your authentic self.”

Do not try to cut that part out of you.  You need to integrate it and to invite it to become a more healthy expression of itself. Capitalize on the lessons you learned by going through what you went through.  Instead of being forced to live in those compensating patterns, you can now choose when to pull out the comedian at times or the chameleon at times etc… But now it is conscious and it is your choice.