Who cares who’s right about Nature vs Nurture? The bottom line is – our parents affect us.
Genetically, it’s pretty obvious. Your parents are tall? You play basketball. They’re black? It’s a pretty safe bet (although not 100%, amusingly enough) that you are too, and so on.
Emotionally (or environmentally/sociologically), it’s a little more complex.
And, if you stop to think about it – given that your parents also pass on genetic proclivities to our brains – intelligence, disposition, behaviours, and so on, it’s a complicated mess we have to try and unravel.
After all, who really is in control of our lives? Us, or them?
But wait, there’s more. Where did they get their lives from? Well, their parents, of course, and so on back up the tree.
So, in summary: Our lives are (at least initially) a result of our ancestors.
Do we want to take back control? Do we want to make choices, and not just be driven by this history? Do we actually want complete free will to lead the life we want to?
Well, if so, we’re going to have to take responsibility. A lot of it.
Not just for ourselves, but also for our parents. Not for their lives (after all, that’s their job), but for the influence they’ve had, and continue to have, on us.
image by M Bowman
One of the things that has become abundantly clear to me is how often issues I’m trying to heal in myself really aren’t mine. I’ve learned them, or had them passed on, from one or other (or both) of my parents (and back in time to them).
Now, sure, you can heal everything that’s happened in your life – but a lot of times it ends up like that old tale of heroically fishing bodies out of a river – what you really need to do is go upstream & find who’s throwing them in.
I’ll give you an example.
One thing I’ve worked on a bit is a definite need for approval. Particularly from the women in my life. This has been noticeable, and, on occasion, actually driven women I’ve cared about away. *ouch* Now, I took this to be because when I was growing up, I never felt like my mother loved me – the important point here being, how I felt, not how she actually behaved or whether she did or not. Once I had healed, I was able to see that of course she loved me – or, as she put it when I talked to her about it later “Are you crazy? You’re my first born son!!”
However, this need for approval, while lessened, hadn’t completely disappeared. Hmm, interesting. What to do, what to do?
Then, this week, I heard a very interesting story. My grandmother’s mother (on my Mum’s side), well, her mother was very young when she had her, so she was raised by her grandmother, not her mother. Keeping up? My great-grandmother was raised by my great-great-great-grandmother. Yep, it’s a pretty great story alright. Ha ha, I’m here all week, try the veal.
Imagine that though. The girl you think is your sister is actually your mother. The woman you think is your mother is actually your grandmother. Hmm. Would you ever actually truly know a mother’s love? Would you feel like something was missing from your life? I tell you, that’s crazy.
Of course, I heard this, a big lightbulb went off in my head, and I immediately went and healed on this. How? As if I was my great-grandmother. Why? Because part of me is. Genetically, big duh there. But more than that. I believe energetically a lot of stuff is passed down. But whether you believe that or not, it’s hard to argue against habits & beliefs being passed down from mother to daughter after a significant life event like that.
I’ve chosen to do similar things with every significant event I’ve heard about – from my parents & back up the tree. I’m not healing them specifically, what I am doing is healing their effect over me. I’m regaining control over my life. I’m removing the echoes from older generations, and replacing them with conscious choices about exactly the life I choose to live.
If or when I have kids, I’d be pleased if they did exactly the same thing about me – although yes, I’m aware of both the likelihood of rebellion, and the recursive irony of such a desire – I want them to choose to make the same choice I did to make their own choices to.. uhh.. oh forget it!
Regardless, the bottom line is this: If we truly want 100% freedom within our lives, it’s necessary to not only consider our immediate history, but that of our parents and ancestors too.
