Relationships Create the Journey
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Relationships Create the Journey

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

Humans are social creatures.

We humans, need other humans to survive. For good or bad, the other people around us shape the nature of our lives and our journeys. Some of the most significant transitions involve changes in relationships. If we want to understand the struggles of adult humans, we have to look carefully at their experiences with other humans across their lifespan.

While it’s possible for an occasional human to exist without others, there’s that feeling of loneliness that drives us to just seek out other humans for companionship. Throughout a large portion of a person’s life, they are heavily dependent on other human beings. A newborn infant couldn’t survive without more mature individuals taking care of their needs.

The dependence of immature humans on adults is the basis for a lot of our customs and societal rules. The trajectory of many people’s lives is heavily influenced by the care they get during those first few years before starting school and experiencing other adult role models.

All humans are born prematurely.

If human infants had to wait until they could function on their own, our species would have gone extinct early on. The head of a fully developed human could not pass through the birth canal. Being born incapable of walking, talking, and feeding themselves begins each person’s life in a state of total dependence on an older human. For good or bad, that early imprinting becomes the pattern for the rest of that person’s life.

It takes a few years for a child to learn to walk and to be able to feed itself without help from adults. This long developmental time is the reason for many human customs, including the importance of the parents of the infants staying together to provide food, shelter, and nurture for young Humans.

Males of almost all species that utilize sexual reproduction are willing to mate with any available female. By spreading their genes widely, they increase the chance that their characteristics will be carried on in the future.

Females of many species are much more selective about their mates. A man’s contribution to the creation of a child may take only a very few minutes. The female Human must carry that developing child for nine months, and then the mother, or some nurturing surrogate, must raise that child until adulthood.

To preserve our species and our society, we have strong reasons for encouraging couples who produce children to stay together as long as possible, even in the worst of relationships, until that child reaches something close to adulthood. It is only since the post-World War 2 era that women have been able to earn enough money or have had enough social support to be able to raise children as a single parent. Even now, most families struggle to raise a family, with both parents working.

Early life experiences influence the life trajectory.

A major source of problems in adults and older adults is recovering from the emotional injuries of childhood. Sometimes these are the result of adults who were less than adult or who deliberately and intentionally harmed children. Other times, it’s the result of random chance.

We see 2 competing results of people who were raised by parents who lacked parenting skills. Some people repeat the dysfunctional parenting family pattern. If your parents were drunk and did drugs, you may choose to drink and do drugs yourself. If your parents engaged in domestic violence, you may adopt that pattern.

Other people go in exactly the opposite direction. They never touch drugs or alcohol, and their kids grow up not knowing how to relate to it when they see it. Some people are so afraid of showing emotion for fear of becoming angry and violent that the expression of feelings is nonexistent in their homes.

With all the generations of humans who have lived on earth, you would think we would have gotten things right by now. But each generation lives through that changing time and must navigate unique situations.

Entering and exiting relationships is one of the most trying challenges a person is likely to face. In a subsequent blog post, I want to talk about how getting into and getting out of relationships is likely to change you.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

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