Sarah Peyton Explains Unconscious Contracts, our Four Month Old Selves, & Early Childhood Attachment

In order to address and overcome traumas, we first have to understand and name them. By four months old, we learn to restrict our emotional expression to only the faces that our primary caregiver can accurately reflect back to us. In other words: we learn to make ourselves fit into a box that is determined by our primacy caregiver. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people will make a smiley-face when they're crying? (Their lips curl upwards even though the tears clearly express grief?) This is an example of what can happen when our primacy caregivers give us the impression (through their facial expressions) that grief isn't allowed, so we might try to turn it into a smile. Baby humans learn in early childhood that in order to exist in what's true for us and still be acceptable to our people, we may need to change our expressions, or make them look more acceptable to fit in the window of welcome of our parent. In this clip I talk about: Beatrice Beebe’s work with mother and four- month- old child interactions How babies learn to make expressions main caretakers can easily respond to How our mother or main caretaker’s responses form our unconscious contracts The importance of the 2 part system of joy The “inverted u” of attachment How interactions with our main caretakers tell our left hemisphere which expressions and emotions are valuable The most common unconscious contract- “I will not feel joy/ hope so I will not be heartbroken again” For more resources about resonance and healing trauma, go to https://sarahpeyton.com/