You have a story and that story matters. Your story in your family of origin significantly affects the way you think, feel, and act in the world today. This is why Dan Allender says, “It is time to listen to your story.” What if healing begins by listening to your story? By reflecting on the experiences in your growing up years, you can better understand why your brain has been shaped in the way that it has. If you want to experience more of the healing power of understanding your own story, join Dan, Cathy, and myself in Atlanta, GA, on Saturday February 22, 2025, for the StoryWork Conference. The conference will be live streamed if you can’t make it to Atlanta. You can register by going to adamyoungcounseling.com. CEU’s are available for therapists.

I dive into a detailed explanation of avoidant and ambivalent attachment. I explain why and how a child develops each of these insecure attachment styles. I then outline how you are supposed to know in adulthood if you have an avoidant or ambivalent attachment style. Your attachment style (secure, avoidant, or ambivalent) profoundly affects how you experience relationships and how you express yourself in relationship. And your attachment style develops based on your relationship with your primary caregivers.

The fundamental premise of story work is that your past story is affecting your present life. This is just as true for your collective story as it is for your individual story. Your present day to day life is deeply affected by the past story of the collective to which you belong. The story of America bears great glory and great sin, just like the story of Mexico, Poland, and Thailand. Every culture contains deep goodness and every culture contains deep sin. Part of the story of America includes destroying the original dwellers of this land, and then exploiting black laborers so that white people could build wealth. If you live in America, these aspects of our collective story have profound effects on present day to day life.

Memory is the way in which a past experience affects how the mind will function in the present. There are two layers of memory: explicit and implicit. There are two key attributes of implicit memory that are critical to understand. First, implicit memories are created whether you are paying attention or not. In other words, when you were a child, you recorded tons of information about your environment without trying to. It just happened. Because that’s how the brain works. Second, when you recall something that is stored in implicit memory, you do not have the sensation of recall. You don’t have that sense in your body of “I’m thinking back in time and remembering something.” When we leave home and set out into the world, we carry within us a storehouse of implicit memories. And those implicit memories tell us what to expect around every bend. 

Triangulation occurs when a parent requires a child to function as an emotional adult by meeting the parent’s adult needs and wants. Were you required to give, give, give to your parent, or was your parent continually giving, giving, giving emotionally to you? In a healthy parent-child relationship, there is plenty of connection—but the parent never imposes their emotional needs on the child. Triangulation results in two deadly dynamics. First, your goodness is consumed by one parent. Second, as a result of being consumed by one parent, you are setup to be envied by the other parent. When triangulation is present in a family, it is common (though not inevitable) for the triangulated relationship to become sexualized. By sexualized, I mean that there is erotic energy between Mom and the chosen son or Dad and the chosen daughter.

Sexuality is an emotionally charged topic. Period. But when you are talking about sexuality for people with a history of trauma, you are stepping into terrain where angels fear to tread. However, if God intends for you to experience overflowing sexual pleasure and lavish sexual freedom, then exploring your sexual story is more than worth it. Human beings are aroused by particular things in the present because of our experiences of being aroused in the past. Your past story can help you understand why you are turned on by the things that turn you on. Your sexual preferences and sexual fantasies are not random. There is a connection between your painful experiences growing up and your present sexual struggles. Sexual harm in the past becomes reenacted in the present. This is because you have neurons... and that's how neurons operate.

I am joined today by therapist and friend Reid Zeller who shares a story about egging cars when he was 16. Behind every story is a backstory. The backstory includes the nature of the environment we grew up in. When religious or spiritual expectations are placed on the shoulders of a child, pressure builds within that child. And when that pressure inevitably leads to a bursting, what results is always a mixture of dignity and depravity. Both. If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially. 

When you were a child, you were deeply dependent on your primary caretakers. This means that the development of your brain was contingent upon the level of care and kindness in your family environment. Today I identify the six things you needed from your parents, and give examples of each. The “Big Six” things you needed from your parents include (1) attunement, (2) responsiveness, (3) engagement, (4) ability to regulate your affect, (5) ability to handle your big emotions and (6) willingness to repair harm. To download a free document that explains the Big Six, click here.

If you have difficulty regulating your emotion, there is a reason for that! No one comes out of the womb with the ability to regulate their affect. The way you develop the neurobiological structures to regulate your own emotions is by having your affect interactively regulated by another. This is the main gift that a primary caregiver gives to a child. Another name for this gift is “secure attachment.” The essence of secure attachment in adulthood is that you have the ability to both self-regulate and reach for help (that is, receive regulation from another). If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially by clicking here.

This episode is for people who experience emotional pain but feel like “nothing that bad happened to me growing up. I had a pretty good childhood.” As it says in Jeremiah 6, it is very common to dress our wounds as though they are not serious. One way we tend to minimize our wounds is by comparing our story to someone else who “had it worse.” Another way we minimize our wounds is by spiritualizing away the harmful experiences we endured with sentences like, “God used that terrible experience to shape my character.” What is keeping you from having compassion for the harm you experienced as a boy or a girl? If the podcast has been helpful to you, please consider supporting it financially here.