part0010

For centuries, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have debated the question: From where does character and behavior spring? One’s own biology or the environment? Is it internal or external? Nature or nurture? In fact, the alliterative phrase “nature versus nurture” goes all the way back to Elizabethan times. An even older variation can be found in medieval French. Its modern meaning was popularized by the 19th century scientist Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, whose belief in the power of biological pre-programming led to him found the fields of eugenics (the selective breeding of humans) and behavioral genetics (how inheritance influences personality and behavior.)

Over the past 100 years, increasingly sophisticated studies have shed light on the role heredity and upbringing play in our lives. The discovery of DNA in the early 20th century, the identification of its double-helix structure by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, and the mapping of the human genome, completed in 2003, have led to amazing discoveries as to the role heredity plays in our in daily lives and our destinies. The general consensus holds that both nature and nurture are influential; each tends to affect the other over time .

It turns out aspects of our personalities are far more influenced by genetics than we might realize. For instance, your religion, or lack of one, is mostly dependent on your upbringing. No one is born a Christian or a Hindu or even an atheist. (Because of Judaism’s unique nature, one can say that one is “born” Jewish in terms of bloodline, but certainly not in terms of specific religious beliefs.)

However, the likelihood you will actually embrace the religion you are taught, or any religion at all, appears to be largely influenced by certain genetic factors. You can be dragged to church every Sunday, be bar-mitzvah’ed, or kneel on a prayer rug facing Mecca five times daily, but if you don’t have the “God” gene, it’s just not going to stick. Religion is learned, but religiosity appears to be biologically innate.

So far, we have talked a lot about empathy; this is another quality impacted by genetics. Ask any parent and they will tell you that kids have a tendency to be self-centered. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a fact of life that part of raising a child involves helping them see things from another’s point of view—offering perspective and helping them to take another’s feelings into consideration. Most of us acquire these abilities over time. We learn empathy is instrumental in creating long-standing, rewarding relationships and other societal bonds.

But did you know empathy is now believed to have a strong genetic basis as well? Some children will forever remain locked out of common emotional experiences. Such people are known as sociopaths . Many high-functioning sociopaths learn how to mimic empathetic states, and some actually find their lack of empathy empowering. Some go on to become accomplished scientists, surgeons, entrepreneurs, and military commanders, professions where lack of empathy can actually be of great benefit. (Being insensitive to another individual’s pain and suffering can be useful when forced to make difficult decisions concerning the fate of armies or nations.) Of course, some sociopaths take a much darker path, their empathic deficit leading them to practice anti-social behaviors, including criminal activity.

In all, about a third of all personality traits, particularly openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, appear to be rooted in our DNA. The remaining two-thirds is strongly influenced by our environment and upbringing. So while such factors such as sexual preference, intelligence, and extroversion appear to be hereditary and immutable, more than half of our personality can be traced back to our experiences during childhood and adolescence. How our parents treated us, our relationships with our siblings, whether we were raised in wealth and privilege or poverty and neglect, how race, income, and economic opportunities affected our choices, all played a significant role in creating the people we are today.

And we certainly can’t discount the impact childhood trauma can play on our developing minds. Children and teenagers who have been the victims of sexual abuse, who survived violent accidents, suffered from near-fatal illnesses, or who endured the loss of a parent or sibling due to death, abandonment, or divorce, carry with them psychological scars that impact their thoughts and behaviors for the rest of their lives. Even frequent family moves can significantly and permanently alter a child’s personality.

For insights into the person you are, it can be helpful to examine the person you once were and the factors that impacted the course of your development. It may then become necessary to mindbreak to free yourself from negative attitudes and behaviors grounded in your upbringing, and mindshift to new, more productive, and healthier ways of thinking.

Like you, I am a product of both my genetics and my upbringing. Genetically, I am full-blooded South Asian, the product of hundreds of generations who have lived on the Indian subcontinent since the first Indo-Europeans arrived around 4,000 B.C. This heritage gave me my brown complexion, dark hair, and brown eyes. From my particular family line, I also inherited a comfortably high level of both general intelligence and empathy. As for my upbringing, I can only describe it as both empowering and pernicious.

I was born in Belvidere, Illinois, a small city situated in far north-central part of the state, near the Illinois/Wisconsin border, approximately 75 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. The city’s most notable feature was—and remains—its Chrysler assembly plant, which opened in the mid-1960s. During its first 10 years, it manufactured the Chrysler Newport (sedan) and Plymouth Fury (coupe), midsized cars designed and priced for the great American middle-class. Today, it produces the Jeep Cherokee. (In 2006, the plant became the first Chrysler factory with a body shop run completely via robots.) The plant was—and continues to be—so central to the Belvidere economy it’s considered the city’s unofficial town hall.

The city is also known for the massive F4 tornado that tore through the city on April 21, 1967, killing 24 people, many high school students who were just leaving class at the time. The disaster left a psychic scar on the city that remains to this day. At the time I was born, the city had a population of only about 15,000 (it’s more than 25,000 today). Then as now, the city’s residents were predominantly white, with Asians and South Asians accounting for less than one-half of 1 percent of the population. My family was, to the say the least, part of a very small and very conspicuous minority.

The eldest of three daughters, I was born to first-generation Indian-Americans. My father, Kanti, was from Anklav, a small city in Gujarat, India’s western-most state. Gujarat is noted for containing several sites settled by the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, a Bronze Age people who dominated the area more than 4,000 years ago. One of these sites, the coastal city of Lothal, is believed to be one of the world’s first seaports. Although Gujarat has a population of more than 60 million, Anklav itself is—and was—relatively small. Today its population is just under 20,000.

My father earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, India. That August, he moved to the United States to study at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering. He used that degree to get work as an industrial engineer at RCA’s assembly plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, earning the then-princely salary of $525 per month. He was subsequently offered a job at the Sundstrand Corp. in Belvidere, where I was born. Because Sundstrand was a defense contractor working on aerospace applications, my father was not recruited to the military draft during the Vietnam War.

In 1971, my father got a job as an industrial engineer at the First National Bank building in downtown Chicago. Because he was a bank employee, he was able to get a low-interest mortgage, with which he purchased a $37,000 house in Naperville, Illinois, a town about 33 miles west of downtown Chicago. At the time we moved to Naperville, the community had a population of only about 25,000. Today it’s 150,000. This is where my two sisters were born.

In 1978, my father got a job working for Rockwell Collins, an aerospace company in Santa Ana, California, and moved us from suburban Chicago to Orange County. This is where most of my story takes place.

Looking back, I remember my father as being a man of great wisdom, sweetness, and kindness. Open and honest and an excellent communicator, he was a great father as well as a magnificent friend-guide-mentor-teacher guru. My mother, Vasu, was also born in Gujarat, in the village of Vasad, only a few miles east of Anklav. My mother did not receive much in terms of a formal education. She is, however, a highly intelligent woman whose wisdom comes from life experience.

She and my father had a traditional arranged marriage, one worked out by their parents. They were betrothed before he left for the United States. After earning his master’s degree at Oklahoma State, he returned to Gujarat to marry her. He took her back with him to America, where they have remained ever since.

My memories of childhood are mostly positive. We were a close-knit family that assimilated quickly and eagerly into the middle-American mainstream. In fact, I have often described us as an “Indian Brady Bunch.” We shared the same values, attitudes, and goals as our native-born neighbors. We believed in hard work, in obeying the rules, in the value of education, and in being responsible members of our community.

Due to the fact my parents were first-generation Indian-Americans, Indian ethics and philosophies shaped my early mind. I was raised to believe in dharma —that there is a “right way of living”—in karma— the spiritual notion of cause and effect—in samsara —the idea that all elements of the universe, including life itself, are cyclical—in meditation —the need to clear the mind of extraneous thoughts (i.e. mindbreak )—in renunciation —the need to reject harmful values and ideas (i.e., mindshift )—and reincarnation —the belief we live multiple lives until the soul is perfected.

Indian traditions also factored much into my formative years, connecting me with something bigger than myself. Holidays we enjoyed together included Diwali , the Festival of Lights, a five-day celebration of the victory of good over evil; Holi, the Festival of Colors, honoring the coming of spring; Ganesha Chaturthi , centered around the birth of Ganesha, son of Shiva; Krishna Janmashtami, a two-day-long festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna; and Maha Shivratri , a solemn holiday paying homage to Lord Shiva, and Paryushan, a Jainist holiday involving eight days of penance.

Although my family and I maintained strong ties to our Jainist religion, culture and traditions, we also adapted to many American customs, holidays, and festivals, including Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Growing up, I gleefully consumed American pop culture, including music, television, and movies. As a kid, my favorite TV shows included Wonder Woman , The Electric Company , and reruns of Lost in Space . I was, for all intents and purposes, an all-American girl.

This is not to say my life was as perfect as the characters I admired on TV. Not at all …

Even when I was young, my father had very high hopes for me. “You’re great. You can do anything,” he would often tell me. Such praise was decidedly a double-edged sword. On one hand, I always felt loved, wanted, and appreciated. I have heard people complain how their parents regularly belittled them, criticized them, and made them feel inadequate, feelings that haunted them well into adulthood. This was not my case. In fact, I was praised so highly it set a performance standard I feared I could never meet.

The fact was, as a child, I was less than perfect. Far less. For one, I was overweight. Being Indian in a basically all-white community was difficult enough, but being “chubby” undermined my self-confidence further. As a young student, I also developed a stuttering problem. Whether this had a physiological root or was a manifestation of my own insecurities, I don’t know. Either way, it made my situation even worse. Finally, I was not the best student. Like the East Asians—the Chinese and Japanese—Indian-Americans have been stereotyped in America as a “model minority,” people who are well-behaved, law-abiding, and superior academically, especially in math. (Today, the Indian or Pakistani computer geek is an almost universal stock character in TV shows and movies.)

But this was not the case for me. Even as young as age 6, I knew I had an academic deficit. When I was in first grade, my father gave me a puzzle designed to teach me how to tie my shoes using a simple mathematical formula. As you can imagine, being designed for a first-grader, it was pretty easy. Or at least it was supposed to be. I tried it, and quickly became confused and intimidated. The more I failed, the more nervous I became. I desperately wanted to please my father, to show him I could master such a simple task, but this desperation only made my failure that much more painful. Finally, I developed my own eclectic system of shoe-tying, a method I still use to this day.

My natural aversion to traditional academic achievement continued to haunt me throughout grammar school. I found every class to be a chore. A painful chore . I had to apply all the energy, concentration, and discipline I could muster just to maintain B’s and C’s. It quickly became apparent I was never going to be a valedictorian. My greatest ambition became to just get through each course and graduate.

Realizing I was never going to be the smartest girl in class, I decided I would try to be the nicest. To me, success was measured as a function of how many people liked me. The larger my circle of friends, the stronger my self-confidence and feelings of self-worth. To paraphrase the famous Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, to me, being liked wasn’t everything, it was the only thing.

Looking into the future, one of my ambitions was to be a wife and mother. Having a loving family was the definition of true happiness. I practiced this maternal role with my younger sister, Arti, who is nearly 10 years my junior. As the big sister, I was also her surrogate mother, a role I eagerly embraced. I wanted to make things better for her. To watch and care for her.

My relationship with my other sister, Amy, was different. Closer in age, we saw each other as equals. In fact, I needed her as much as she needed me. It was a symbiotic relationship that continues to this day. This powerful desire to be a caretaker, to bear responsibility for other people’s happiness, was a compulsion that would continue to help—and haunt—me well into adulthood .

Earlier, I spoke of how a childhood trauma—be it major or minor—can have a long-lasting impact on someone’s personality. This was, unfortunately, the case with me. When I was 10 years old, I was sexually assaulted. As it is with so many childhood victims, the perpetrator happened to be someone well known to me. A family friend. To preserve his privacy, let’s call him Jed.

At the time, Jed was 25-years old. Like my parents, he was a first-generation Indian-American. Born in India, he had lived in the United States for several years. As in suburban Chicago, the Indian-American community in Orange County was, at the time, quite small, so we were a close-knit group. Virtually everyone knew everybody else, and it was not uncommon for us to spend time at each other’s homes. Jed was one of the adults I met at occasional get-togethers, and he seemed friendly. I did not know at the time that he was, perhaps, a little too friendly.

On the evening of the incident, he and several other friends were over at our house for dinner and watching TV. Although it was a Saturday night, I went to bed at 8:30 p.m., which was my usual bedtime. A few minutes later, I heard my door open. I turned and opened my eyes, surprised to see a tall, slender male figure standing in the doorway, his silhouette backlit by the hallway light behind him. For a moment, he hesitated, then quietly slipped into my darkened bedroom, closing the door behind him.

I had no idea what was going on. I was startled, but not yet afraid. Like I said, I knew Jed. He never seemed like anything more than a “nice guy.” I thought maybe he just came in to wish me goodnight. Curiously, I watched as he sat down beside me. Again, he hesitated, then ran his hand over the top of my head. I began to speak—I wanted to know what he was doing in my bedroom—but he pursed his lips and made an insistent “Shhh”-ing sound. I immediately clammed up. I didn't know what he might do next, but I was afraid if I protested or called out he might hurt me.

My body tensed as he shifted his position, raised the blankets on his side of the bed, then slowly laid himself down to face me. He stared into my eyes—which were now wide open with fright—before placing his right hand on my right arm, so I would not move. This time, his hands kept moving. Down to my chest. My stomach. My breasts.

Now I wanted to scream, but knew I dared not make a sound.

After what seemed like an eternity, he removed his hand and again traced his fingers up my body and back to my face. Right after that, he kissed me hard on the lips to my shock and abhorrence. He then laid his index finger on my lower lip, then quietly slipped out of bed. My jaw remained clenched as he returned to the door. He opened it slightly, a sliver of light lancing into my bedroom. Seeing the coast was clear, he left, closing the door behind him.

Alone again, I could breathe. Tears began to well up in my eyes and my body began to shake uncontrollably like it had when I’d gone swimming in our community pool and emerged from the water into a cool breeze. Thankfully, there had been no sexual penetration. But still I felt violated.

In the years following this incident, questions circled my mind, like why had Jed done this? Why was this my first kiss? I suspect part of his aberrant behavior can be linked to India’s traditionally repressive culture. Although it produced the Kamasutra, the celebrated third century manual on love and sex, it also produced the caste system, a model of strict social stratification in which everyone “knew their place.” This includes women, regardless of social standing. For centuries, India had been a predominantly agrarian country, and it was not uncommon for girls to be betrothed to future husbands even in infancy. Girls could be married off even before they achieved physical puberty. Though we have combatted old forms of thinking with awareness and education, for most of its history, India did not grant women property rights and most other civil rights. We were chattel. This is the culture Jed came from.

It took me years to realize Jed was also likely unsure of his own manhood. New to America, he was just now encountering women who were becoming “liberated”—not only empowered financially and politically, but also sexually. To a person like Jed, contemporary women represented an existential threat to his sense of masculinity. A child, on the other hand, was still weak, subservient, and compliant, the way he likely thought all women were supposed to be.

As for myself, I was very confused by the incident for a long time. At that age, I greatly admired the classic all-American cheerleader: the tall, thin, blue-eyed blonde with perfect breasts, a tiny waist, and long, well-toned legs. On TV, my role model was Wonder Woman, a woman of unrivaled intellect, physicality, and strength. In other words, I admired females who were everything I was not. Nor did I ever believe I could be. That Jed found me attractive left me very confused. Just 10 years old, I had already begun to develop breasts, and this had made me feel extremely self-conscious. Perhaps this development was why Jed felt himself attracted to me.

At the same time, I was repelled by Jed’s behavior. I had a faint idea of what sexual assault was, and I had a pretty good idea this fit the description. So what was I supposed to do about it? Tell my parents? To be honest, I was terrified of not being believed. Of being humiliated. Or, worst of all, of being blamed. In the years that followed, I learned these were exactly the reasons most women never report sexual assault. It’s just too painful an experience to be grilled about.

This single encounter plagued me for years even though I kept it to myself. As I grew into adolescence, I wished I had someone I could talk to about it without judgment. A friend. A therapist. Anybody. But, for a long time, this was a secret I felt I could trust with no one. Not even the man who became my husband. (By the way, I underwent Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing – also known as EMDR – with a psychologist to ensure I did not have any underlying issues associated with this trauma. EMDR is a relatively new form of psychotherapy often used to treat people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD], whose symptoms often mirror those of sexual assault.)

As evidenced by my story, we all have baggage we carry from childhood. It may not be as traumatizing as sexual assault. It may just be a series of minor humiliations or failures. Regardless of their objective importance, such traumas can shape our personalities and behaviors well into adulthood. But we need not be prisoners of our pasts. Through mindbreaking and mindshifting , we can learn to face life BRAVELY with confidence, courage, and optimism—as the following story reveals.

Axel was a 20-year-old Indian-American male living at home while attending college. Born in the United States, he was sent to India as a toddler to live with his grandparents because his single mother could no longer take care of him. Although raised with love by his grandparents, this early separation left him with long-lasting emotional scars.

It wasn’t until years later that he managed to return to the U.S. and reunite with his mother, her new husband, and his new stepsister. He found his stepfather to be strict and controlling, a situation that led to frequent fights and recriminations. His mother remained fairly neutral during these encounters, failing to provide the support he felt he needed. Numerous traumas experienced over many years in multiple locations left Axel feeling depressed, with little hope for the future.

When I first met him, Axel was living with his blended family under strict house rules. He attended a local college, pursuing a degree in business and working part-time in the service industry. His No. 1 goal was to better manage his emotions and develop a positive relationship with his stepfather.

As a child, Axel was confident and optimistic. Unfortunately, years of trauma left him fearful and wary. When we began working together, he expressed interest in a career involving the protection of wild animals. However, he felt isolated, weak, and not prepared to accomplish this goal. Life in general overwhelmed him. He wanted to mindshift to the persona of a lion, capable of standing up for himself and being strong in the face of adversity .

To mindbreak free of his confining attitudes, Axel needed to develop better communication techniques and response mechanisms to confront the challenges he regularly faced. I suggested the Boxing Ring Technique as a possible solution. When faced with blame, anger, or accusations triggering a defensive emotional response, he was to:

Maintain eye contact with his accuser, take three deep breaths, and remain silent, hearing the person out.

Regularly nod to show he was paying attention to what the other person was saying.

Try to resist entering to any major back-and-forth dialogue. Instead, just acknowledge what the other person was saying, and respond with short, powerful statements of support, validation, and love.

I recommended Axel try this for 30 days and report back. If he felt an urge to yell, argue, or otherwise engage in verbal combat, he was to simply turn and walk away. Such confrontations were, for all intents and purposes, a boxing ring, and either he or his opponent were likely get pummeled. But he was under no obligation to fight.

Instead, I helped him see he could use this technique to better manage his relationship with his stepfather. Rather than constantly confront this difficult man, Axel should instead let his stepfather have his say and use the opportunity to learn his stepfather's point-of-view and the reasons for his unhappiness.

Alex is building a fierce emotional support team—an “A-Team”—including his mentor, a close friend, and myself. Together we are providing the support he needs to develop the personal, professional, and spiritual aspects of his life .

Axel wishes to mindshift to the persona of a brave leader, a man who takes healthy and benevolent charge of others. This vision is beginning to support and reconfigure his career map. It has also led him to bravely follow his passion: working with animals.

Axel continues to have difficulty concentrating in the moment—being mindful— as he is regularly troubled by his difficult past. Based on our work together, he is developing strategies to manage the guilt and fear associated with his early separation from his mother. He is also working on managing his expectations, to understand and adjust his own needs as well as those of his friends and family. To deal with others collaboratively, with respect, kindness and understanding, he is using the Boxing Ring Technique to spend the time necessary to really listen to other people rather than reacting compulsively to perceived threats.

As noted above, Axel is now going to school, while working part-time in the food-service industry. He has a girlfriend and appears far better adjusted than when I first met him. He reports his home life is more peaceful, and he feels more confident about his ability to cope with adversity as well as what awaits him in the future.

We are still seeing each other professionally and I am coaching him on an as-needed basis. Having worked with him for four years now, I can see the growth and maturity he has gained. He is far more capable of diffusing his anger, fear, and confusion than he was when we first met. This has led him to enjoy an overall better quality of life. He is looking forward to the future and has a solid new benevolief : He is King of His Jungle.

Childhood traumas—violations of trust, innocence, and safety—are like physical injuries; even after they have healed superficially, we can often feel their pain well into adulthood. They can even lead to long-term disability. Such traumas can often manifest themselves in unexpected ways. The four most common manifestations are:

When we encounter trauma as a child, it’s natural for us to believe we are to blame for our pain. Being self-centered children, we believe the trauma is our fault . Therefore, if we can change who and what we are, perhaps the pain will stop. This causes many trauma victims to devise new personas they believe will be more acceptable to those causing them anguish or to better cope with the adversity they’re facing. Unfortunately, this inevitably leads to conflict between the false and true self for dominance.

Trauma leads most people to naturally see themselves as victims. Victims are, by definition, weak. Helpless. They are to be pitied. The greatest challenge for a trauma sufferer is to mindbreak from the “victim” mode of thinking and mindshift to an attitude of strong and capable self-sufficiency. Acquiring such a benevolief can at first appear impossible, but it is critical if one is to function as a fully realized adult .

A core trait of trauma disorders, avoidance is a natural tendency to steer clear of triggers or reminders of the trauma. Unfortunately, avoidance also tends to weaken the will and make one take a passive approach to life. Things happen to you , not because of you. Again, recovery from trauma demands we take an active role in our own life story. Resilience is among the most important traits to nurture to thrive in life.

A common exterior manifestation of trauma survival is the so-called “hair-trigger.” We see this occurring with former soldiers experiencing PTSD. A sudden noise, like a door slam, a firecracker pop, or an automobile backfire, can cause them to snap into a fight-or-flight mode. In cases such as Axel’s, we find people who immediately expect the worst from others and approach any conflict in full combat mode. To overcome this, we must learn to step back emotionally, to not take every conflict as an existential threat, and, above all, to practice empathy. By connecting with adversaries on an emotional level, we can learn to diffuse conflicts and find the basis for peace and cooperation.

“Removing blockages from your past leaves you free to move forward and get what you want out of life.”

Do you have a core wound (or more than one)? How did it affect you when it happened, and how does it now? How do you nurture it? What have you done to heal it ?

“All of my wounds are healing themselves.”

I don’t like to reinforce pain from the past by referencing our so-called “inner child.” Rather, I let my clients know it’s imperative to understand exactly where we have been and more importantly, where we are now. I remind them life is a process of continuous discovery. To release the pain of your past, I recommend you make a list of three to five self-reflective questions concerning the most disturbing part of your childhood. Afterwards, create a column filled with helpful suggestions you would give as a present adult to your former inner child. Doing so will put you into a mindshift thought pattern, allowing you to take back control and yet also adopt a forgiving, loving mindset.