Most of us are being driven by a seven-year-old.

01

Long before you could fully understand the world around you, you were experiencing it.

The people around you.
The relationships you depended on.
The environments you grew up in.
What happened when you spoke up, needed something, made a mistake or wanted something.

You absorbed those experiences and began making meaning from them.

About yourself.
About other people.
About the world.

You were one tiny human with a huge dataset.

02

Some of those meanings became stories.

Stay small.
Keep the peace.
Be good.
Don’t need too much.
Work harder.
Don’t get too close.
Expect rejection.
Don’t ask for dessert.

Over time, these stories can become beliefs.

That’s just how I am.

Except sometimes, what feels like personality is just a set of internal rules written in crayon that are still being enforced.

03

Then you grow up.

But those younger parts of you don’t necessarily disappear. When you’re hurt, afraid, overwhelmed or emotionally activated, an old part can sometimes respond before the adult you are today has had a chance to understand what’s happening.

Not because that part is broken. Not because it needs to be removed. Because it learned something once, and it is still trying to help.

The past can be loyal, persuasive and diabolically wrong about the current situation!

04

The adult you are today has more resources. More context. More information. More choice.

The work is learning to recognise which part is responding, understand what it needs, and meet it with care and with the truth of the present.

The pattern can be understood without being allowed to run the show.

05

Your younger self did the best they could with what they knew.

They don’t need to disappear.

They just don’t have to be responsible for navigating your adult life anymore.

What might change if your younger self no longer had to drive, and could simply become a passenger, sitting in the back with snacks, singing loudly and asking, “Are we there yet?” until the end of time?