How You Became Who You Are

April 22, 2011

Interview with Dr. Keith Ablow, author of the book Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty

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Mike Carruthers:
Have you ever looked back at your life to see how your earlier experiences have shaped who you are today? Perhaps it's worth a look, because…

Dr. Keith Ablow:
We are stories. And those earlier chapters of love, and loss and struggle become alive today as well.
 

Dr. Keith Ablow, author of the book Living the Truth...

And they determine, to the extent that if you don't look at them, you are at the mercy of the themes that were born much earlier in your life.

For example, says Dr. Ablow, when you were young…

Maybe you moved around a lot. Maybe you felt a lack of control. But I've had people in my office who can't take a promotion because of that. They can't move to a new city because they've never looked at their feelings and maybe are angry about having been moved around a lot as a kid. If you can go back and say that was when I was a kid but now I'm going to take those emotions and put them back in my earlier life experience and assume that I don't have to be the same person going forward.

Something very important can happen when you take a look back at your life.

When you connect the dots between your past life experiences and this moment you become more powerful because you realize what things you've survived rather than seeing them as stresses you have to run away from.