Bringing awareness to family patterns
What are we passing down and who does it serve?
Someone once shared with me, “The family is the unit by which culture is transferred from one generation to the next.” If that’s true, it takes a lot of power to interrupt patterns and cycles, and just as we transfer love and values, we transfer secrets and dysfunction.
I spend a lot of time thinking about patterns in families and how to effectively break them. There are so many behaviors I grew up observing and experiencing that made no sense to me and hurt—whether patterns of abuse, emotion, reaction, or relationship. I didn’t want to repeat the past and chose into many out of the box therapeutic modalities that directly confront pattern-breaking: family constellations, meditation and self-inquiry, movement practices. It seems to have delivered me into a better way of being.
But I still must guard myself against the calling of old patterns. They are not far. I hear the distant roar of my mother’s disorders threaten in times of intense stress, or the resonant waves of past relationship dynamics rise as I structure healthier bonds. I sense that if I go to sleep in my life, I will be swallowed into the powerful force of legacy.
The way I know one of those unwanted patterns is hovering is because I experience fear. Fear is feedback. It’s the cue for one of the most useful acronyms I’ve ever adopted: H.A.L.T.. Am I hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? Nap. Eat. Write. Connect. Taking action from a place of fear is the fastest way to reenact every ugly family pattern.
The only thing I know for sure that changes patterns, families, and therefore culture, is consciousness. To bring awareness to what was once automatic, to interrupt impulse and pause to feel inside for what is true and one’s own. There are certainly times I wish I could press delete and leave no trace, especially when these patterns bring pain and suffering to children. But there must be a reason we move slowly and evolve over time. Maybe it builds a bridge from then till now, which gives others a chance to follow, if they choose.
How can you pause today and choose what comes next?
Brilliantly written and observed.