The following articles and presentations discuss potential outcomes of adverse, painful or traumatic childhood experiences:

While a young child, the parents of a friend of mine, Kim, separated. Her father moved Kim and her brother to a new home in the stealth of darkness, unbeknown to their mother. It was a traumatic experience for all, but Kim suffered enormous guilt. Why guilt? She believed - really believed - that she had caused all of this turmoil. As a result, she grew up feeling responsible for her brother’s and father’s care, as well as for looking after their new home. She was only eight years old! She lost many of her favourite items in the move since she had no control over which of her belongings came with her. It will come as no surprise then, that hoarding became her security blanket. Kim hoarded not only physical items but emotional and spiritual anguish. “Victim” became her identity, and she used this as her reason for underperforming. She died of breast cancer while in her 50’s, unwilling and seemingly unable to let go of her pain, or of her belief that she was "bad".

Parental or caregiver issues
Many experiences we have as children are written off by our caregivers as being unimportant, or the Truth of our experiences can even become wrapped in their denial. Thus their issues can become our issues (see legacy family patterns). We can end up believing that we are wrong or crazy or even just plain bad, causing many of our inner conflicts. We can take on their behaviours, in effect becoming a mirror for them and, as we all know, no one likes to see how we ourselves act. This mirror effect can cause a lot of turmoil in families, along with inner turmoil and unresolved inner conflicts for us.

It is up to us to validate ourselves by learning our responses to our painful childhood experiences, and seeing how they form the very foundation of our lifetime. Meditation enables us to become strong and confident by ensuring our beliefs are based in Universal truth, rather than someone else’s potentially biased (in their favour) version of our pivotal life events.

Addictions
Since addictions begin as thoughts which in turn create behaviours, they can be modified, and even, in certain cases, released completely. To bring about such dramatic change requires great strength, determination and commitment, but change is possible. Until the root cause of the need for the addiction has been recognized (see the process of inner child work), resolved and released, the likelihood of recurrence exists. Very often, the root cause is the belief "God must hate me" (see unconditional love), and therefore I deserve to be punished. Excessive gambling can be caused by a chronic need to win, to prove "God loves me".

Breaking an addictive habit
Those who have tried to ‘break’ a substance addiction or a self-destructive habit may have noticed their habit is not just one habit. Let me explain. Thanks to joining a months long gradual cessation program provided by my provincial lung association, I can share my story as a Formerly Addicted Cigarette Smoker.

The association provided a wealth of helpful information which I read and took to heart, so I was prepared as well as I could be for the process about to unfold. Participants were to keep track of each cigarette they either had, or craved but didn’t have, noting the time, severity of the craving and possible reasons for wanting it. This was a new concept for me, as I was not exactly the most observant person when it came to paying attention to myself. Sure enough though, I began to see that I wanted to smoke at certain specific and even predictable times... with a cup of coffee, after meals, when starting and finishing a phone call, when starting the car’s engine, etc. This was not just one, but many habits. I saw too that smoking had become part of my reward system; even in the midst of physically demanding tasks I would stop for a smoke because after all, I deserved a ‘reward’, when what I actually needed was to just rest for a few moments. This observation practice enabled me to start thinking of myself as a non-smoker, which is a vital component of the process of change - seeing ourselves in the new and improved way.

Last smoke
About two months after starting the program, I was tiring of recording every cigarette. On Halloween of 1986, I had a huge argument with my mother. The moment we ended the call, I badly wanted a cigarette. As I sat smoking and pondering what information to record, it occurred to me that the argument was important. While I didn’t have the knowledge or foresight to examine this further than to say well, there’s no way I’ll give my mother that much power in my life, I decided, firmly, ‘this’ was the last cigarette for me. Over the next few days and weeks, I noticed my cravings would come after increasingly longer periods and last for fewer seconds. Like waves on the ocean, the first few days saw one every three hours or so. Luckily the program had prepared me for this, so I was able to ‘just say no, not now’ and the craving would pass. This gradually stretched to three days, then weeks, then months. I was amazed to have a craving - seemingly from out of the blue - three years after my last smoke. It lasted not even a full second, and since then, I haven’t had a single desire to smoke.

Spiritual withdrawal symptoms
Now here’s the tricky part. I mentioned cravings above, and certainly, cravings play an oversized role in changing thought patterns and behaviours. Whether we’re trying to give up certain substances or change negative behaviours though, cravings are very likely to happen. Another, possibly even larger challenge than giving up the substance or the behaviour, is dealing with the increase in obsessive thoughts about the issue(s) we are unable or unwilling to confront and resolve.

When changing behaviours, our brain kicks into high gear and reminds us of all the reasons we want and need that thing, but that is not all. Our thoughts obsessively return to the underlying issues creating our need, our trigger events, and everything will remind us of our pain, the pain of the hurts we can’t bear to face (or worse, we have been trained to ignore or deny). The temptation to use that thing can feel overwhelming, and that’s if we’re paying attention to our thoughts. If we are not, we’re likely to experience even stronger and longer-lasting effects and cravings.

For example, someone with abandonment issues (see abandonment, fear of abandonment, reverse abandonment) is apt to recreate the very issues their addiction enables them to manage. Abandonment issues might cause us to pick a fight with a loved one so they (a) blow up at us, giving us an excuse to leave the relationship, (b) leave the relationship thereby proving we are in fact unlovable, or (c) and this seldom happens, they will lovingly soothe and comfort us. In this case, the addiction is the need to receive regular, ongoing proof and confirmation we are loved and appreciated. Any information to the contrary causes our knee-jerk reaction of lashing out. We might suffer brain freeze, rendering us incapable of calm or coherent thought, making the situation worse. But we don’t have to give in or give up. We have tools... We have re-trainable brains. We have information. We have free will.

Next step
The next step on the path to spiritual awareness is learning to meditate in a new way.