Break the cycle

Remember that moment when you realized that your parents were human? 

Our DNA changes when we go through trauma.  The feelings become part of our bodies and then are inherited by our children. 


Our family has been going through some things as of late and my brain constantly has this phrase on loop, "Break the cycle."

Don't become a hoarder. 

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.
  

Don't stay in an abusive relationship. 

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle. 

Don't fall for get-rich-quick schemes. 

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle. 

Don't fall in line to uphold the patriarchy. 

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.

Don't hold hate in your heart.  

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.

Don't be close-minded and judgmental.  

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.

Don't be emotionally unavailable to your children.  

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.

Don't demand help without gratitude.  

Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.  Break the cycle.

There are plenty of things my parents have taught me that I know have made me a better human being.  My father is the hardest worker I know. Even as an adult, he always finds a way to provide me with what I need to progress.  

My mother taught me how to hustle. She gets things done, one way or another. I can count on her if I need something. That's a fact. 

Yet there are so many things that I wish I could unlearn more easily. This isn't to make my parents feel bad, they did the best that they could with what they had. 

So many misconstrued ideas that I look at now and am surprised by. These were things that I was taught while reading scriptures on Monday nights growing up and am trying to unlearn. 

- Black people have darker skin because they were hesitant in the pre-mortal world. 

WRONG. Melanin has nothing to do with a premortal decision and everything to do with British people being pale because they hardly get any sun in their part of the world. 

- Indigenous Americans were brown because Laman and Lemuel didn't want to move to America.  

WRONG. When someone is bad they have a dark aura about them. Being brown doesn't mean that you are cursed. 

- Jewish people suffered the Hollocaust because they killed Jesus. 

WRONG. Racism. 

Its all so confusing. Not the race part, the part where I have to love the people that raised me, but choose for myself. I have to relearn ideas to what I think is truth. I have to overcome inherited trauma of generations so that I don't pass it on to my children. 

My siblings and I are trying. We are trying to help each other in this weird world where truths of our childhoods need to be re-examined and re-constructed because they are wrong. I'm trying to be a better human because inherited pain is real while racism is taught. 

So much I need to unlearn.