[ad_1]
Breaking Generational Cycles
Breaking free from these patterns takes awareness, and a commitment to personal growth for the benefit of yourself and the people you love. It also requires certain skills that help you overcome your automatic programming and intentionally choose to do something new.
Here are the steps to breaking generational cycles and creating a healthier legacy:
Step One: Building Your Self Awareness
The first step in breaking generational cycles is cultivating a deeper self-awareness. It’s very easy to say, “I want to stop yelling at my kids.” But do you understand what triggers you to yell? Are you in touch with the deeper feelings — like anxiety, or hurt — that are underneath your anger?
Building your self-awareness means understanding the patterns that were passed down to you, understanding how they’re showing up in the present, and also understanding the emotional responses that follow your triggers. Developing greater bodily awareness of your feelings through mindfulness exercises can be a helpful tool. Many clients also find it helpful to journal about their thoughts, feelings, and reactions in order to build self-awareness.
Step Two: Building Emotional Intelligence
Building your emotional intelligence is another important step in breaking generational cycles. Not because getting caught up in what your parents did indicates low emotional intelligence, but because it takes high degrees of emotional intelligence to override your programming and create new patterns.
Emotional intelligence includes becoming more attuned to your feelings and learning to manage them effectively. It’s about maintaining a connection to your emotions and taking guidance from them, without allowing them to dictate your actions. Emotional intelligence also extends to your relationships with others, requiring you to understand the feelings of other people and respond to them accordingly.
One of the most powerful outcomes of building your emotional intelligence is the buffer it creates between your feelings and your actions. Rather than automatically storming out of the room, or saying something you’ll regret, emotional intelligence gives you the space to choose how you want to show up in your relationships and the model you want to give to your kids.
Step Three: Healing Old Wounds
Truly breaking the cycle in the present often requires a journey into the past. This means confronting and processing the experiences that have shaped you, and acknowledging the harm that may have been done by your parents or other family members. This is not about assigning blame, but rather understanding and forgiving the people who came before you. When you reach that state of forgiveness for others, it becomes easier to remain compassionate toward yourself.
Step Four: Get Support
Getting help from a good therapist, especially one who understands relationship dynamics, can be the biggest step you take in creating a new legacy for your family.
Doing this work with a partner in couples therapy gives you the opportunity to address not only how these patterns show up for you, but also how they impact your relationship. And, chances are there are patterns to explore from your partner’s family of origin as well!
Doing individual therapy to break generational cycles can also be transformative. Look for a marriage and family therapist who specializes in evidence based forms of counseling that are designed to improve relationships. That is the type of expert who will be able to quickly crack into these cycles and help you make real, substantive changes — not just talk about it.
Learn more about how to find a therapist or how to find a marriage counselor.
Support for Breaking Generational Cycles
Breaking generational cycles allows you to step away from the past and towards a future of your own making. By committing to this path, you’re not just changing your own life; you’re contributing to a legacy of growth, healing, and resilience that will echo through your family for generations to come.
And if you want to do this valuable work with an expert on my team, I invite you to schedule a free consultation.
With love,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
P.S. — For more advice on shifting your patterns, see my “healthy relationships” collection of articles and podcasts.
[ad_2]
Source link
