Surprisingly, images that got imprinted in our minds during childhood still play out in our adult lives. Sometimes they provide good motivation and other times they can cause a person, as an adult, to be a victim of their childhood imagination.

For example, any time we children got rambunctious, my mother would say we were acting like a bull in a china shop. The image that statement pulled up in my imagination was one of complete chaos and destruction. And since I didn’t like either of those two conditions, I became a very quiet, careful child. On the other hand, my brother seemed to like the image that a bull in a china shop brought to his mind, because he was beyond rambunctious. Perhaps it made him feel powerful like the bull.

My sister never got her nose out of a book long enough to be rambunctious, so she was never given the same evaluation as my brother and me. However, she did get impacted by a story told about how a straw was pushed through an animal’s head by a tornado. I heard the same story, but it didn’t make me fearful of strong winds as it did my sister. To me wind, even strong wind, is refreshing.

So as you can see, childhood impressions are very personal. But they also can have a long life span. Part of getting to know yourself requires looking at what right brain images back your actions. Do you have heartful images directing your actions or are you a prisoner of your childhood impressions?

Some people don’t believe they have an active right brain, but they do. They may not have ready access to it, because our society doesn’t nurture that part of us. Nonetheless, your right brain still continues to store images, even when you aren’t aware of the cataloging. But you don’t have to live your life from reruns. If your images come from childhood reactions instead of your heart’s present intent, you may want to take charge of your inner art work and make a few changes.