“The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” ~ Wendell Barry.

In the last blog we looked at how to match a trigger in the present with a memory from the past. This activity is about using your pre-frontal cortex and your Limbic system structures to match a trigger with a memory.

The goal is to provide clarity in terms of a response on your part and to reduce anxiety so you can make better decisions.

Let’s assume you have met the perfect woman. She is attractive, you find her to be kind, you like the way she cooks and you like the way she is compassionate toward others. She is able to take care of her own affairs and is fiscally responsible. She is in good overall health and she like her family of origin. She has issues with things from her past, but overall she feels she did relatively well with her childhood.

So, why don’t you just go for it and make this a permanent thing? You’ve been dating for about a year now.

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.” ~ Winston Churchill.

Archaeologists excavate sites in order to learn something about the past. The more we know about the past, the more we will be able to use that information in the present and in crafting what we want our future to look like.

Just how important is your past when it comes to finding, establishing, maintaining and cultivating significant interpersonal relationships?

“It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone. ” ~ Rose Kennedy.

So far we have covered the following psychosocial stages of development as it applies to human development and the developing couple: normal autism, hatching, practicing, separation individuation, and the oedipal stage.

Let’s continue.

The Latency Stage of development is characterized by quiet withdrawal. It lasts in human development from approximately eight to twelve years of age. It is the stage directly before adolescence. Parents often assume, due to the intellectual and reasoning abilities of a child this age, that they can take care of themselves. This is far from true.

“There are certain clues at a crime scene which by their very nature do not lend themselves to being collected or examined. How’d one collect love, rage, hatred, fear…? These are things that we’re trained to look for.” ~ James Reese.

We left off in the last blog discussing relationships and the development of a human being. It is my premise that relationships develop in a similar way to the way we developed from infancy through adulthood.

The developmental stages are important to know so that we can next discuss the way your new partner or an established partner may act as a trigger for old memories stored in the Limbic System structures of your brain.