When we think of…
legacy, we usually think of a family business, real estate, money, or other items of value that are left to us. We may think of legacy as an example such as a way of living one’s life. Or the importance of character, integrity, or working hard to achieve your goals that were demonstrated by a loved one.
There are other things that we leave behind that we don’t consider legacy like family addictions to alcohol, drugs, or food. We talk about breaking the cycle of a broken home, poverty, debt, or crime.
When we think about our childhood, we list the things that we may or may not have had. A roof over our heads, money for school lunch/supplies, clothes, food in our bellies, a two-parent home.
We call all this generational trauma. But it is a legacy, nonetheless.
We think about what we experienced as children that we may carry throughout our entire lives. We talk about it, we get therapy for it, and hopefully we heal. However, before a person is strong and brave enough to face everything they went through, they typically have lived a number of years and have “passed on” those lessons to their children, grandchildren, maybe even nieces and nephews, in the meantime.
We think about what we learned, but not about what we’re teaching.
Lessons
We teach the same way that our parents or guardians taught us, by showing us what to do in certain situations, how to process emotions, or not. They show us if we should respond or react, if we should be brave or fearful, or if we should speak up or feel shame and guilt for our feelings.
Their triggers become our triggers. They cause us to hold the same beliefs and re-enact the same behaviors in a way so intimate it’s like there is another person handed down through the generations within us. They perform the same exact behavior that came before. And we are completely unaware of this other entity.
These lessons are handed down in the shadows of our minds. We learn certain facial expressions, gesticulations, the sounds, the tone, the irrational and unbalanced reactions to perceived disrespect or wrongdoing, or danger. Whether factual or false is irrelevant.
Our children learn to see through our eyes. Yet, they separate what they see from themselves. They know that what they’re seeing doesn’t feel right. They believe that they are just witnessing. In actuality they are learning.
By the time they are old enough to realize that they don’t want to be, and don’t have to be, like their parents, it’s too late.
We Become What We Witnessed
As children we learn how to communicate with our future partner by watching our parents interact with one another. Whether it is in a mature, kind, loving way, or hateful, childish, spiteful way is of no matter. We will replicate positive and/or negative. Either one can be a problem depending on what we believe is positive or negative. You might have learned that smothering someone is love for example. Either way there is a great chance that we will become what we witnessed.
My parents didn’t’ sit me down and tell me how to express myself in times of stress, anxiety, fear, or anger. They didn’t tell me that my feelings, opinions, and needs were to be less than a husband’s. They showed me.
The handful of arguments that I witnessed between my parents were explosive, scary, and sometimes physical. What I mostly saw was them ignoring one another. I saw my mother censor herself. I saw her trying to keep the peace. Witnessed her diminish herself so that he wouldn’t see her. I saw him throw his weight around. I saw the satisfaction in his eyes when he did and said things to control her.
In my early twenties, I would say out loud that that would never be me. That I was never going to have a husband because all he would do was tell me what to do. When I had children, I taught the opposite of what I learned but they weren’t listening, they were watching too.
Manifestation
I remember seeing my daughter interact with her significant other, a little puzzled as to why she was acting the way she was with him and in front of other family members. I was witnessing the manifestation of what I taught her by passing down my communication style that I learned from my mother, and she learned from hers and so on.
Early on in each relationship there was complete submission, and then things were done and spoken. Wounds that would be impossible to mend. And then later when things calmed down because of age and maybe a little maturity, the bill came due. The tables turned and the once submissive wife became the aggressor. There was ridiculing in order to feel superior. Forgiveness as a way of taking back power and an underlying rage that came out in the most inappropriate times.
I can’t speak for those who came before me. I’m pretty sure that it was the same out of body experience as it was for me. I felt like I was two people who were vaguely aware of one another and didn’t know that they were connected. And afterwards, I felt embarrassed, ashamed, and remorseful. It was a waste of time because the problem, if there was one, was not addressed. All I succeeded in doing was putting a spotlight on my very bad behavior.
Some Lessons Holdfast
Since becoming aware of the legacy that I inherited I have managed to lessen its occurrence. Mindfulness is the key. However, I fear that it will never leave me.
And one of those reasons might be because my partner was one of my triggers. I chose someone who would love me the way I saw my stepdad “love” my mother. Once in our own household, we think we have done better. Maybe we have on some level, but the essence of the relationship is the same, at the very least in the beginning.
I have come a long way, but some lessons holdfast. My brain wants to assume rather than ask questions, stew rather than express my fears and concerns, I even hesitate to share my joy. Sometimes I feel like myself and sometimes I feel like my mother.
I learned very young that the role of wife wasn’t something you performed. It was who you became and the person you were before was no longer.
Love and respect cannot develop in a room full of strangers. When both parties make themselves known to one another, transparency is either a strong foundation or an indicator that the relationship will not last.
Checking in with yourself, honoring who you are. Being honest about what you need and want, and sharing your true self will keep you centered. This involves staying in the moment. Which is either a breeze or almost impossible. The point is to keep trying.
Everybody behaves a little differently around different people and in different environments. Who you are should always rise to the surface.
Therefore, the legacy that I want to leave my children is authenticity, or will be, I’m a work in progress.
Aren’t we all.
“There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example”
Albert Schweitzer
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