Today you’re going to learn about how discovering your origin story can help you create a lasting and satisfying relationship.
For over 12 years, I’ve been a Licensed Professional Counselor and relationship expert and my practice is grounded in the science of what makes relationships work.
Your origin story is your particular childhood upbringing and how it affected your ability to be in relationship as an adult. Understanding your origin story will give you some amazing insights into behaviors in relationship–both yours and your partner’s–that will create a sense of relief and compassion for each other instead of blame.
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Ok, let’s dive in!
Now, if you’ve been following these videos, you’ll see that the first four were about the different attachment styles and how to figure out what yours is, and what your partner’s is.
Your origin story refers to your childhood experience and specifically the quality of the relationships that you had with your parents when you were little. Attachment theory says that you form a relationship template when you’re little and you bring this template with you into your adult intimate relationships. This template is what informs your behavior in relationship–for better or worse.
But attachment theory isn’t the only field that emphasizes the importance of origin stories.
What Do You Have In Common With Batman?
The term origin story is a word that you find in American comic books and movies. It refers to the backstory of a hero or a villain that describes how they came to be the person that they are and how they developed their superpowers.
An origin story give you an understanding of where the character came from, how they came to struggle in the ways they do, and whatever kind of redeeming qualities they have. It gives you a deeper understanding of the character and adds meaning to the character’s journey.
Similarly, it’s important that you and your partner understand where you came from, and understand your origin stories. That means being able to take a deep dive into your personal history, especially your history between the ages of 0 and 12.
What’s interesting about superheroes and their origin stories is that they often have very tragic ones. Batman’s parents got murdered. Superman’s home planet blew up. Captain America got polio when he was little and then was given a special serum that turned him into a bionic soldier who could save the world.
The characters who turn out to be real superheroes frequently come from these very dark, tragic, devastating kinds of beginnings.
That’s actually one of the things that makes them so appealing and so relatable. They go through a kind of redemptive process. The fact is, we’re like that, too. Many of us come from very, very difficult, tragic childhoods, but we’re able to rise above them.
We’re able to somehow overcome our backstory in every area of our life.
And that’s really the kind of amazing thing about being human and becoming everything that we are: We don’t have to be bound by our history. But we still have to know what happened to us so that it doesn’t have to rule our life.
Understanding Your Origin Story
Understanding your origin story is really helpful when it comes to understanding your relationship and making it better. That’s because it can help you stop acting out in your relationship.
By acting out, I mean things like blaming and criticizing each other, yelling at each other, and fighting all the time with no repair. If you’re like most people, you don’t really understand why you act the way you do in your relationship and you don’t understand your partner’s behavior either.
As we’ve talked about in my earlier videos, we know that all of your behavior in relationship actually comes from somewhere. This behavior predates the relationship that you’re in right now.
You form a relationship template when you’re very little that’s based on the repeated interactions you have with your partners. You bring that template with you into your adult relationships. You’re going to get into trouble with your partner if you don’t understand that fundamental blueprint. That’s the only way you can start making different choices in your relationship. Understanding your origin story is vital.
It means you understand why you have relationship problems now; What it is that happened to you when you were a child that you’re now continuing on in your own relationship.
It’s critical to understand your strengths and weaknesses in relationships. Undoubtedly you have superpowers, but maybe there’s also a part of you that’s kind of a supervillain in relationships sometimes. Regardless, you need to understand all of these different parts so you’re not just running on automatic.
Our society is very good at blaming you for how you behave in relationships. You may have been accused of being a narcissist, too needy or codependent. But the truth is, when you really understand where your behavior comes from, it’s a relief because suddenly everything starts to make so much sense.
Adapting to Survive
All behavior is adaptive.
You have to learn certain behavioral patterns in order to be able to survive in the kind of family you were born into. If you think about it that way, you realize that it’s actually a sign of wisdom that you were able to work out a way to make it in your family of origin. This might have meant you had to shut down parts of yourself, or you had to became arrogant. You might have had to make yourself feel better than other people because you were actually made to feel so bad about yourself.
Or maybe you had to take care of other people at your own expense.
All of these types of strategies that you see so often in relationships are things that you learn very early in life because you had to. It was the only way you were going to be able to maintain a sense of connection with your parents, which is what every child needs in order to thrive.
Stop the Blame Game
The bottom line is it’s time to get out of the blame game and start understanding the truth behind where you came from. Both you and your partner can appreciate the early experiences that shaped you and created the kinds of ideas and attitudes that drive the way you relate to one another.
And that’s really going to up the empathy in your relationship.
You and your partner are going to start to develop a greater level of compassion for each other and start to see each other in ways that you never have before.
Suddenly, ways that your partner is behaving with you that might be really problematic for you are going to start to make so much sense to you, especially when you can understand the link between their behavior today and what they experienced in childhood.
So, with everything from Wonder Woman’s incredible super feminine powers to Superman being paralyzed by kryptonite, you’re going to have a deep understanding of what your partner is really struggling with and who they really are.
The value is that you and your partner can start to really help each other. When you understand your partner’s deepest vulnerabilities, you’re going to know exactly what they need from you in order to become the best person that they can possibly be.
And they can do the same for you.
That’s something that you can’t achieve by yourself.
You actually need another person in order to receive that kind of understanding, reflection, support and healing.
It’s a real reason to be in relationship at all.
Final Thoughts
In The Power Couple Formula, I teach you exactly how to create this kind of transformation in your relationship, including how to make use of your origin story.
Please hit the subscribe button, give this a like, and leave me a comment below about what you’d like to know about your own origin story. And I will look forward to seeing you in the next video.