CHAPTER 5 - The Journey Begins

A grown-up who, one day out of the blue, uncovers the worst possible memory from if its childhood, realizes that the hole that he was trying to fill all along with his ambitions, awards and achievements; was simply an unreachable and brilliantly crafted marketing strategy created by the commercial film industry and television.

Let's start from the beginning...

“Children with hidden childhood traumas tend to generate a very particular type of behavioral pattern since they’re very little; and instead of living their life fully, they tend to perceive life as something to survive in it.” Middelton-Moz MS, Jane - Author (Children of Trauma).

Hence the children with hidden childhood trauma usually have a hard time establishing a base of normality in their lives. They unconsciously define their environment as hostile and grow a tendency to escape from it with every chance they get by the help of books, films and television. This ‘unknown’ pain that they feel inside, also keeps them from connecting with others and give them the constant feeling like they’re missing something in their lives.

“People don't just buy products, they buy feelings! They buy identities! All humans at some level want to feel significant in their lives.” Lee Clow

Also this hidden blueprint that they carry around makes them extremely vulnerable to the commercial film industry when they're grow up. For instance a formulated and idealized fictional relationship of a father/son in a television show, written deliberately to sell more ice-creams to 6-12-year-olds; can become more appealing for the child than the reality itself and establish a new aspiration for his life... Same example applies in various other life situations with tempting distorted facts, unrealistic goals and fairy-tale conclusions.

“Most children with hidden childhood trauma, later in life, describe the period around their age of 25-30, as their darker moments in their lives; at which time they leave their families and get out to the real world where for the first time they realize that the fantasy and the promise of a normal life that they were aspiring simply wasn't there like it was in the movies.”  Lorie Dwinell - Author (After the Tears).

This is also the same period in their lives that they develop addictions, experience constant problems at work, repeat dysfunctional relationships, and face similar patterns in their lives by simply focusing on the stuck past rather than being able to live on with their lives.

“By tapping into our emotions, the commercial industry uses ‘nostalgia’ to encourage us to buy a piece of a memory; a moment in time when things seemed simpler and we thought we were happier. So the care-free, naive, innocent parts of our childhoods are always there for us to fix.” Ben Ho - Associate Professor of Behavioral Economics, Vassar College.

But the past can never be changed or fixed… only can be forgiven and healed. And it is at this moment that I want to dive into a journey following my dreams/subconscious where the two piles of years of bad coding; the ones from the hidden trauma and the ones of years of messaging from commercial film industry have been clashing all along.

And its worth mentioning that this journey does not intend to conclude or claim anything in psychology’s field… This is a journey of healing! It is a journey of revolt against the industry that I’ve been a part of for all these years! A journey of rebooting the subconscious mind; healing the pains of the trauma and reverse engineering the obnoxious behavioral patterns that the commercial film industry carved into our minds for all these years.


TED TALKS:

Lucid Dreaming | Healing of the subconscious mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK3SfNxbK3Y

Is There a Buy Button Inside the Brain | Patrick Renvoise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rKceOe-Jr0

How movies teach manhood | Colin Stokes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueOqYebVhtc