Uncovering Your Childhood Vows Summary

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

Keep your eye on the ball for 2017 with all the opportunities that it brings to you.

Even though some insights are not practical, they are the most important.

Childhood vows: Through your childhood (from birth till 25 years old), a lot of deep attitudes where cemented in your childhood and your teenage years and are wired in the brain. You yourself played a big role in shaping your own attitude and behavior (the vows that you made).

There were moments in your life that were forks in the road (can be huge decisions or just minor situations). You formed an ideological core based on which fork in the road you chose. And now you have many ways in which you are ideological and you have certain values/principles which you uphold and you react against. AND YOU ARE PAYING THE COST OF IT STILL! It makes you inflexible.

The vows are decisions you make to behave and be a certain way and have a certain attitude towards a certain thing. The problem comes because you become ideological about it and you want to stick to that vow. Vows create a black and white dichotomy that is not applicable in the real world.

Examples:

-          A kid goes to school and gets humiliated. He might vow that from now on he will keep his mouth shut when with a lot of people.

-          Someone was cheated on in college. He vows that he will never be loyal to another woman.

-          You are in school and your teacher punish you for being messy in your desk or bag. You vow that you will be a good little boy.

-          There is a kid that is watching a movie (Star Wars). He vows that he will never be like Darth Vader because he was really evil and join the dark side.

-          You have an uncle that joins a religious cult. You vow that you will defend rationality and atheism.

-          You are a kid that starts a business. You contact a mentor and he rejects you. You vow to never reject anybody like this.

-          You are in a car and see a homeless guy. You vow that you will never become a homeless guy and must have a good job. 

-          Your dad was someone with lots of status and reputation. You vow that you will be more successful than your dad. And you will do anything to acquire that (even evil things).

A vow is a choice that you make about how you will act because the world is a certain way. All of them are subjective.

Go back into the past and recall as well as you can the moments that shaped your life the most (sometimes it is the little stuff that shaped your character).

Problem of having strong vows:

-          They are mechanical instead of conscious

-          They are inflexible

-          They are simplistic and black and white

-          It is founded upon very limited life experience

-          It creates a lot of emotional traumas

You need to use consciousness instead of vows. You need to be flexible and not live in reaction.

Which is the solution? AWARENESS AND UNDERSTADING.

Assignment: Set aside 60 minutes with sheet of paper and recall every single decisive moment that occurred to you. Brainstorm them in chronological order (write a short sentence). Don’t mention what the vows were yet. Then use the worksheets!

Even people that are teaching Enlightenment don’t know which is the full potential of the human being.