Trapped in the Vicious Cycle: How Parental Patterns Shape Our Lives
Posted on July 13, 2025 by Anil Kanthi, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Breaking Free from the Unconscious Legacy of Our Upbringing
The Unconscious Inheritance-
I’ve understood that many parents decide to have children due to societal pressure or to fulfill their self-centered desires. In those critical first years, where a child should be enveloped in love and safety, they instead absorb the toxicity of their parents and surroundings, with no control over what they take in.
Though we can reflect on these years in hindsight, at the time, this exposure felt like the only reality to a child.
The Engraving of Patterns-
The behaviors and reactions of parents, along with the scenes a child witnesses — good, bad, or ugly — become deeply etched into their psyche during this formative period. This phase is pivotal for learning how to navigate the world beyond the womb, where they once felt genuinely safe, before being exposed to the unconscious patterns of their family.
Children cannot filter what they absorb; they’re like sponges, taking in everything around them.
Breaking the Cycle-
I’ve always found the analogy of the Sun illuminating for understanding early childhood. Just as the Sun shines relentlessly, without regard for what’s below, children are at the mercy of their parents’ influence, much like plants to sunlight.
They have no choice but to absorb all the ‘sunshine’ — nurturing or toxic — their parents emit. This reality, set in stone from birth, means that a child inherits not just DNA but a whole spectrum of their parents’ principles, beliefs, and behaviors.
However, there’s hope. As adults, we gain the power to choose what to keep and what to discard from our past.
If we embrace the awareness that continuing this symbiosis with our parents strips us of our individuality, we can begin distinguishing their limitations from our own.
This is the critical task of adulthood: understanding the psychological origins of our parents and disentangling our lives from theirs.
Will you recognize how much of your life has been subtly shaped by your parents’ ways and commit to breaking this cycle?
