Wendy K. Laidlaw

And I say, I use the word bad in inverted commas.

I'm acutely aware now with the knowledge that I have

is how important positive reinforcement is, positive conditioning, if you want to call it that is, because it's, and if we didn't get that, because maybe our parents didn't know that, because most parents just replicate what their parents taught them, then we're kind of already at a default mechanism where we, as we're forming, as we're developing as babies, so literally we're born into this world

We've previously been in this nice, warm, safe bubble of umbilical fluid.

And then suddenly we are being shoved out into the world.

We're probably having our bottom slapped and we are like, wow, bang, we're having lights, we're having sensory overload.

And if the mother has had a very traumatic pregnancy or there's been tension at home, we would have picked that up even just from the womb, even just with the fluids and the energies and what's coming into the baby.

Already that could have preset the baby to be sensitive.

So I think what, again, what I'm trying to say here is I'm hoping as part of this journey, there's a learning to acknowledge and accept the degree of sensitivity that we have as a major strength.

It might seem a kind of oxymoron.

It might seem almost a contradiction in terms, but it's not.

I couldn't do the work that I do if I didn't have the degree of sensitivity, yet I know the strength that I have.

Sometimes people mistake my kindness and sensitivity

And they try and push my boundaries and they try and they misinterpret who I am.

But then that's up to me now on where I am in my journey to put boundaries in and reinforce the protection that I need for myself.

So as we are thinking about our early conditionings.

it does pay kind of homage to almost allow yourself some gentle thoughts as long as it's not too distressing or upsetting as to kind of what was it, what would it have been like for little you when you were born?

And I see this in a very kind of you can do it from a sensory perspective.

You can even just as I'm asking the question, you can think that I feel safe, even though I didn't have any language, I didn't have any thoughts, feelings or beliefs or any context as to kind of, you know, what that meant.

Did I feel safe?