Breaking the Chains We Never Chose

You know what I’ve been thinking about lately? How much we pick up from our families without even realizing it.

And I’m not talking about the good stuff we usually think about—family traditions, recipes, holidays, or those little things your family has always done. I’m talking about the things we learn just by growing up in a certain home.

How we deal with conflict. How we act when we’re upset. Whether we say “I love you” easily or have a hard time getting the words out. Whether we apologize when we’re wrong. Whether we talk about the things that hurt us or just act like they never happened.

Even the way we parent, deal with money, set boundaries, or feel like it’s our job to keep everybody happy can come from somewhere.

And for a long time, we don’t even question it. Why would we? It’s just normal to us. It’s what we grew up with.

Then you get older and start catching yourself.

Have you ever said something and immediately thought, Oh my gosh, I sound just like my mother?

I know I can’t be the only one.

Or maybe you start noticing other things about yourself. Why do I shut down when someone is upset with me? Why do I feel so guilty saying no? Why do I avoid certain conversations? Why do I feel like I have to fix everything for everybody?

And eventually you start asking yourself, Wait...is this really me, or is this something I learned?

I think that’s where things start to change.

And I don’t mean we should sit around blaming our parents for everything. I don’t think that gets us very far. Our parents had parents too. They learned from the people who raised them, and those people learned from the generation before them.

Things were different back then, too. Feelings weren’t always talked about. Family business stayed in the family. You respected adults and didn’t question them. Certain things simply weren’t discussed. You dealt with whatever happened and moved on.

Or at least everyone thought they moved on.

I think we can look back and recognize that our parents probably did the best they knew how to do while still being honest about the things that affected us.

Both can be true.

You can love someone and still admit, That hurt me.

You can have good memories of your childhood and still think, There are things I want to do differently.

You can understand why someone acted the way they did without deciding you have to keep doing the same thing.

But you know where it gets uncomfortable?

When you start seeing those patterns in yourself.

It’s easy to notice what everybody else is doing. It’s a whole different story when you realize you’re doing it too.

And if you have children, I think it hits even harder.

Maybe you hear yourself saying something you swore you would never say. Maybe you react to something and afterward think, Why did I handle it like that? Then you realize it reminds you of something from your own childhood.

That’s when you start thinking, Wait...am I passing this down too?

I’ve wondered what our children will have to unlearn from us.

Because we can try our hardest to do things differently, but we’re still going to get some things wrong. Our kids might grow up and have their own conversations about what they wish we had done differently.

And you know what? Maybe that’s okay.

Maybe breaking generational patterns doesn’t mean we’re supposed to become this perfect generation that fixes everything.

Maybe we just need to be more aware than we were before.

Maybe we apologize when we’re wrong because nobody apologized to us.

Maybe we tell our kids we love them because affection wasn’t always easy in our home.

Maybe we let them talk about how they feel without immediately telling them to get over it.

Maybe we have the uncomfortable conversation instead of pretending nothing happened.

Maybe we learn to say no without spending the rest of the day feeling guilty about it.

Maybe we finally realize we don’t always have to be the strong one.

And sometimes maybe we just stop and ask ourselves, Why do I do this?

That question can open up a whole lot.

Because some of the things we carry don’t even look like problems at first.

Being the person who takes care of everybody sounds like a good thing. And it is. But what happens when you’re so used to taking care of everyone else that you don’t know how to let someone take care of you?

Being strong is a wonderful quality. But what if being “the strong one” means you never feel like you’re allowed to have a bad day?

Keeping the peace sounds like a good thing too. But what if you’ve spent your whole life keeping everybody else comfortable while making yourself uncomfortable?

Sometimes we have to stop asking whether something looks good from the outside and start asking what it’s costing us on the inside.

That’s what I’m starting to understand about the things we inherit from the generations before us.

We don’t have to get rid of everything.

Actually, I hope we don’t.

There are so many beautiful things worth keeping. Keep the recipes. Keep the traditions. Keep telling the family stories you’ve heard a hundred times. Keep getting together. Keep laughing about the things only your family understands. Keep the lessons that made you stronger and the memories that remind you where you came from.

Carry all of that with you.

But we don’t have to carry everything.

We’re allowed to look at something and say, I understand where this came from. I understand why my family did things this way. But I don’t want to keep doing it.

That doesn’t mean we don’t love where we came from.

It just means we’re growing.

Maybe we’re not supposed to completely rewrite our family story. Maybe our job is simply to make the next chapter a little healthier than the one before it.

So if we were sitting together over coffee talking about all of this, I think I’d leave you with the same question I’ve been asking myself lately:

What am I carrying just because someone before me carried it?

And maybe the bigger question is:

Do I really need to keep carrying it, or can I finally put it down?

Ana