Choose to be a cycle breaker
Were you raised in chaos and pain? You can choose to break the cycle, and this is how you can do it.
by: E.B. Johnson
We are standing on the bring of a new age and we are all looking major change right in the face. At the center of this change is the American family. Long gone are the days of nuclear perfection. Now, traditions are redefined every day into new roles and customs. Cycle breakers are the sole of this transformation. The oddball of family, these are the outcasts, the poets, and the change makers. They never quite fit in and always stand out. Are you the cycle breaker in your family? Believe it or not, your pain serves a purpose.
What is a cycle breaker?
When it comes to life and love, we can find ourselves stuck in toxic patterns that hold us back and hold us down in dark places. These cycles perpetuate through families and across generations. Our parents pass them down to us, and we pass them down to our own children without even being aware. In order for us to build futures that are secure and hopeful, we have to acknowledge these cycles and take conscious steps to stop them. To become a cycle breaker is hard, though. In many ways, it’s a death and a goodbye to everything that we knew.
The cycle breaker is a disrupter, sent to call the shadows up and put the family pain to rest.
Cycle breakers can be rare in some families, but they are important catalysts for change. To be a cycle breaker means to stand apart from the family and forge a new path away from the trauma and the heartbreak that keeps spreading over-and-over again. According to psychotherapist Jennifer Nurick, it’s one of the hardest roles we can inhabit and not one we willingly choose. It’s a path of necessity and a path of survival. Are you the cycle breaker in your family? Have you come to usher in change and a stop to the pain? You must acknowledge yourself and embrace all that is to come.
Signs you’re ready to break your family cycles.
Are you the cycle breaker in your family? Do you stand as a beacon of change and hope for a better future? Being the catalyst for transformation is often uncomfortable and hard to understand. It is precisely this discomfort that pushes us where we need to be, though. Look for these signs that you’re ready to break the cycles and live happily.
Don’t quite fit in
Have you always felt like an outcast in your own family? Did you always go against the grain? Or have a different way of seeing things that your loved ones otherwise found taboo or “off limits”. These core differences are often one of the first signs that you may be the cycle breaker in your family. If you’ve always thought differently, approached conflict differently, etc. — you might be the catalyst that’s going to bring about major change within and without.
Kick-starting healing
We can think of the cycle breaker as a form of spiritual medicine for the family. They heal themselves, but even as they piece their own lives together, they force their family to confront their own issues. This isn’t always welcome, but it is necessary. When you’re a cycle breaker, you kick-start healing in your family by calling out poor behaviors and beliefs in others, challenging them on it, and demanding accountability. You also set boundaries that you demand respect for…no compromise.
Looking for understanding
Would you describe yourself as someone who is always seeking to understand problems so that you can get to resolve? You don’t just judge and walk away. You seek to understand why your family acts the way they do. And you do it with the intention of changing things for yourself. This desire to understand both yourself and others could be a sign of your role as a cycle breaker. It signifies your desire to do things differently and break away from the pain you’ve been experiencing.
Disrupting the imprint
As we grow and become who we are, we are imprinted on by our families. These imprints dictate everything from the way we communicate at work, to the way we build our intimate relationships. When you become a cycle breaker, you disrupt these imprints. You break outside of what has become the toxic “norms” in your family and you begin to consciously change your thoughts and behaviors. This can manifest in major life choices too, like deciding not to have children, or foster toxic relationships.
Committing to shadow work
Have you ever heard the term “shadow work”? This refers to the other self that we keep buried inside. This is that hurt and struggling inner child; that insecure adult that doesn’t want anyone to see their flaws. The cycle breaker grows so uncomfortable with this person that they seek out real, holistic healing of their entire being. They don’t run from the work to feel better in head and heart. This person is willing to change and actively empower themselves to change by confronting fears, insecurities, and needs. Often, they subtly demand the same from those around them.
Seeking chosen family
When you’re a cycle breaker, you’ll find yourself surrounded by conflict and judgement when it comes to your family. For this reason, you may find that you’re always seeking to understand yourself outside of the family by building tight relationships with those who understand you. This building of a chosen family is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. That’s because true family has little to do with blood, and everything to do with choosing to support someone.
How to choose a cycle breaking life every single day.
Although the path of the cycle breaker isn’t easy, it’s one of the best and most beautiful things we can do for ourselves. To stay the course, though, we have to accept who we are and what we want from our futures. Are you ready to build a tribe for yourself? Are you ready to build better boundaries and align yourself with your values? That’s the only way you’re going to find peace. Take it one day at a time.
1. Accept yourself for who you are
The first and most important part of embracing your path through cycle breaking is acceptance. You have to accept who you are and what you want in order to stand up for it or go after it. This is a process on its own that takes some time. You’ve got to peel back the layers on that person you’ve been burying all along. Get back to the core of what you want and need from this life. And you have to stop hiding from your truth out of fear that you’ll lose people who may not deserve to be there.
Accept yourself on the inside and the outside. Accept yourself for everything that you are. This acceptance is absolutely crucial in moving forward and finding your way to self-defined happiness. Until you embrace who you are fiercely, you’ll continue to get hurt, pushed around, and bullied into places that you don’t belong.
Make no mistake — total acceptance of self isn’t an overnight job. As a matter of fact, it’s something you’ll have to work at consciously every single day. Start small. Celebrate the things you already love about yourself, and all the things in your life that you adore. Love your body and love your heart. As you become more comfortable, spread that love to your insecurities and your shortcomings. Becoming more comfortable with the wholeness of who you are will allow you to accept yourself and all your needs equally.
2. Build a better tribe for yourself
The fact of the matter is that being a cycle breaker is painful. It’s not a straight road, nor is it easy. And it may come with the ultimate sacrifices — the emotional and physical loss of your family. That’s a price you may have to pay, however, if you’re determined to feel better about yourself and your happiness. The families we come from aren’t always the families that can supply us with the quality of love and affection we need. That’s why you have to build a tribe for yourself; one who values what you value.
Surround yourself with a chosen family who sees you and accepts you for who you are. Look for people you can trust; people who want a happy future for you as much as they want it for themselves. These are genuinely kind people who see our struggle and empathize with it. You should always seek compassion in these relationships — not judgement.
It’s important to remember, though, that building a chosen family or “tribe” isn’t just about the friendships. Tribes are complex and varied living bodies that are made up of many moving pieces. As you continue to heal, it may be necessary to make a mental health professional a part of your tribe. This is an expert who has experience helping people like you move forward through trauma. It’s not an easy road, after all, and it’s one that is often safer traveled with a pro.
3. Cultivate better boundaries
Your trajectory of transformation comes with some terms, and one of those terms requires that you set boundaries. Our boundaries are an imperative in every relationship. They protect our feelings and our needs, and they help us to express our expectations to those around us. Boundaries are especially important when it comes to a toxic or abusive family. As you break free and make strides to better yourself, you’ll need to remind them that there’s a line — and they’re not welcome to cross it, at any cost.
Build better boundaries for yourself and find the courage to stand beside them. Look around at your life and the relationships that make you happy. What about those relationships bring you joy? What similarities would you like to see echoed in your family relationships? What behaviors, reactions, or beliefs are you no longer willing to tolerate?
Getting these answers is the start of setting your boundaries. You need to draw a line around your happiness and your needs. Once you know how you want to be treated, make it clear to your family. Directly (and civilly) express how you want to be treated. Let them know that disrespecting your boundaries will result not in conflict, but in loss of access to you — emotionally or physically. This is how we establish boundaries and this is how we stand up for them. Nothing needs to be a fight. If it’s a problem, make a statement and remove yourself.
4. Let your empathy take the wheel
It can be easy to lose sight of our empathy as we battle uphill against the dynamics we have always known, but it’s something which can’t be avoided if we want to grow. We have to embrace a kinder path in order to become the softer, happier person that we want to be. No one wants to live life as though they’re always walking on the edge of a knife. To get rid of this endless tension and aggression, we have to allow our empathy to take the wheel and let it lead us against those who aren’t ready to change with us.
Rather than allowing your anger and resentment to prevent you from moving forward, approach all the chaos with empathy. Accept your family for who they are. Know they can’t change until they’re ready and feel compassion for the struggle they’ll have ahead. Try being empathetic when you would be angry and your perspective will change.
Our empathy will open us up. It’s not always easy to choose this more compassionate road, but it’s a necessary part of being a cycle breaker. You end things by understanding them; you see the world for what it really is. Don’t turn your back on the emotional awareness that is blossoming inside of you. Choose kindness. Choose to see your family as players in pain who have not yet understood the errors of their ways. Feel empathy for the struggle they will continue to repeat until they wake up and take action to change.
5. Take value-aligned action for you
As we struggle to break free of the generational trauma and heartbreak that holds us down, we can find ourselves being dragged back into the darkness. Our family might lash out as we struggle to break free, and goad us into poor reactions that bring us back to that baser self. It’s crucial that we avoid this backslide. It’s our responsibility as cycle breakers. To do that, though, we have to hold tight and fast to our values — while committing ourselves to a life that’s lived with an integrity defined by us.
Pinpoint your values and align your actions with them every day. Before you react or commit to anything, take a step back and compare your emotional response to your highest values. Are you lowering yourself by acting out of line with your core truth? That’s a path to regret, and a path right back into the cycles we’re trying to break.
Stop allowing yourself to slide back into those painful places. Don’t let the anger and the accusations and everything else keep you from your truth. Who is the person you want to become? How do you want to look back over your life? How do you want to feel about yourself? By always ensuring we are reacting (and acting) in line with our values, we can ensure we are always doing what we believe is right. It allows us to create a life that is filled with integrity, and that’s a powerful and transformative thing.
Putting it all together…
Are you the cycle breaker of your family? These are individuals who consciously shift the dynamics in the family. They change their behaviors and the way they see the world, and they do it in an effort to heal themselves and those around them. Being a cycle breaker isn’t easy, but it’s a path to ultimate peace and enlightenment. To make the most out of this heavy burden, though, we have to accept ourselves and take action to align our lives with our values.
Accept yourself for who you are and embrace your needs for what they are. You have a right to be happy on your own terms, and no one can define that for you. Build a better tribe for yourself and surround yourself with chosen family you can rely on. Cultivate better boundaries and find the strength to stand up for yourself. Never lose sight of your empathy and use it to understand those around you. Above all else, though, figure out your values and take action to align yourself with them every single day. For more on being a cycle breaker — as well as the ups and downs of the path — check out the great work of Jennifer Nurick. Forge a future for yourself one day at a time.
- Nurick, J. (2021). What is a Cycle Breaker?. Retrieved 8 April 2021, from https://www.jennynurick.com/what-is-a-cycle-breaker/
- Grand S., Salberg J. (2021) Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma. In: Hamburger A., Hancheva C., Volkan V.D. (eds) Social Trauma — An Interdisciplinary Textbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47817-9_22
