“It ran in your family until it ran into you.” – Unknown
During our childhood, we learn many things that shape the way that we interact with others and ourselves during our lifespan. It is during the formative years where we learn how to process our emotions, what relationships look like and many of us may experience adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s). Most of our parents were repeating the same habits that they have learned throughout their life, which sets the stage for generational trauma and detrimental habits. It is only when the next generation is conscious of these patterns and habits where they can begin to break those “generational curses.”
On both sides of my family, we have a legacy of teen pregnancy, broken marriages, destructive habits, and general feelings of low self-worth. I am well aware that no family is totally perfect and each person has their own flaws, but throughout many generations my family was faced with adverse behaviors that carried on throughout our bloodline. For instance, on my mom's side of the family teen pregnancy was a generational thing that carried on from my great grandmother. My maternal grandmother had my mom when she was 15 years old, my mom had my sister when she was 14 years old, and my auntie had my cousin when she was 15 years old. It was only until my siblings and my cousins chose to consciously take a different path than for our parents that those generational traumas started to perish and we all started to heal.
The core pillar of reparenting is consciously choosing to heal and choose different habits during our adulthood than what we were faced with as children. I grew up with grandparents who were emotionally present and very generous to my siblings, but I still developed an anxious attachment style that I did not notice until I was well into my 20’s. An anxious attachment style manifested in my life as being insecure, being a people pleaser, having weak boundaries and trying hard to change people who had no intentions of ever changing. By discovering my inner childhood wounds and applying reparenting techniques, I began to learn more about how my parents only did the best they could with the knowledge they had. I also took into account how their childhood was and how it would be difficult to be a young parent. I began to learn grace and understanding now that at the age of 25 my parents are actively in my life. I think that by seeing a therapist regularly and educating myself on generational trauma and reparenting that I was able to finally heal my inner wounds and live a more peaceful life.
Some advice that I would give to an individual who has experienced similar experiences as me is to first work on your own healing before you can work on healing your broken relationship with your parent(s). When I was not in therapy regularly I was very angry and held resentment against my parents due to my childhood trauma, but it was only until I got clinical help that I began to really show myself and others grace. You may also acknowledge how you are feeling so that you can become responsible for your own healing. Reparenting is a process for you and by completing the process you will become able to effectively identify, express, manage and accept your emotions.