Summary

The provided text discusses the universality of human brokenness and family dysfunction, emphasizing the inevitability of inheriting ancestral wounds and the futility of self-improvement as a means to escape this inherent human condition.

Abstract

The article delves into the concept that all individuals and families are inherently flawed, tracing the origins of these imperfections back to the earliest interactions between children and their parents. It suggests that despite our best efforts to break free from these cycles of dysfunction, we are all carriers of our ancestors' emotional baggage. The text critiques the self-help industry's promise of fixing these inherent flaws, arguing that the pursuit of self-improvement often leads to a deeper sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction. Instead, it proposes that true healing lies in shifting our focus from self-obsession to service to others, while also practicing self-care and acknowledging our shared human experience of pain and fear. The author advocates for acceptance and forgiveness, both for ourselves and our families, as a starting point for recognizing our innate wholeness and capacity for love amidst our brokenness.

Opinions

The author posits that the initial experiences of a child, including being told "NO" by parents, can be a source of lifelong emotional wounds.
Physical and emotional violations by parents or with their consent are seen as contributing factors to a child's dysfunctional development.

Fun Fact: We’re All Broken

And all families are dysfunctional

Photo Credit — Rosmarie Voegtli / Flickr

The very first time a tiny, helpless human is told “NO!” it is by this enormous, confusing being who holds all power. Its parent. This is the source of all food, security, and care and this parent, this god can simply withhold all that for any or no reason. And sometimes…it does.

Quite often the first time a tiny human’s body is hit, slapped, pinched or otherwise violated, it’s either done by parents or with their knowledge and consent. From that unpromising start, it’s all downhill. Granted many, even most, families don’t hit their children (anymore) or otherwise knowingly harm them. But even the most woke, evolved, and engaged parents were raised themselves by fallible humans who in turn also had their buttons installed by messed up, confused, fearful, and often angry people.

We carry the wounds from all our ancestors. There’s no escape.

And those wounds are weeping sources of contagion. I carried the misconception that I could break the cycle in my family by simply not having children. I was wrong.

Screwing Up Royally

And living to tell the tale

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Once my sister and I were talking late at night and she said something about our family being dysfunctional. I’ve thought about that conversation many times and have come to the conclusion that, at some level, every family is dysfunctional because every human is born of fear, pain, confusion, and an innate need to grab onto anything that looks solid and hold on for dear life. No one is immune.

Self Improvement Doesn’t

Walk into any Barnes & Noble and check out the self-help section. It’s huge!

We’re ravenously hungry to be fixed. That gnawing hole that we all seem to have been born with gets bigger with every drink, every high, every failed relationship, every purchase, every 3 am monologue, every lottery win or loss, every trip to Cancun. People talk about “not getting the manual that explains life” or “being behind the door they passed out the instructions in first grade”. We all carry around this shifting sense of insecurity and worry. Everyone. Everywhere.

We read those books and listen to those podcasts and buy those programs and go to hear those speakers and we still hurt. Blindly, urgently, we keep throwing stuff into the hole, each time with the desperate hope that this will work. This time will be different.

But it’s no different. And it never will be no matter how hard we try to change ourselves. No amount of therapy or medication or prayer or running or meditation or talking or crying or resolving or traveling or working or journaling or having babies or taking lovers is going to change us. This is because our problem is lodged deeply behind our eyes and between our ears and until we stop obsessing about ourselves and how to fix this broken mess all we can do is limp forward, spreading the pain.

What we stare at becomes bigger and bigger

And as we keep staring, it eventually blocks out all light and hope and grace. We grow up believing some harmful or at least not very helpful things. We think that we need to “work on ourselves”. We also, curiously enough, believe that other people have got this thing down. We look around us and see what appears to be confident, capable adults who are comfortable in their own skin. How do they do that?

Here’s what most of us have mastered (maybe even you): looking like a confident, capable adult.

And here is a basic, unalterable truth: every one of us lies awake at 3 in the morning, grinding about the dumb ass things we’ve done while we prepare ourselves for the wreckage of our future. Everyone. Margaret Atwood does. Henry Kissinger did (as well he should have). Barack Obama does. Joan Baez does. Jeff Bezos certainly does (see Henry Kissinger). When I understood that I’m just another sick and suffering person in a world filled with sick and suffering people, something eased right under my breastbone.

Moving the focus from inward to outward

When I had the opportunity to be of service to another person who needed help, it was my saving grace. This is not to say that putting others’ well-being ahead of my own is some kind of silver bullet. Many of us go that route and wind up more confused and broken than ever.

We learn to care for our own precious selves knowing that eating well, keeping our living space clean and neat, sleeping enough (naps are gifts from the gods), moving our bodies every day, having a good poop every day, enjoying the company of others as well as enjoying our own company from time to time are all vital.

We cannot transmit something we haven’t got.

When I was able to accept that the family I love and who loves me are, in many ways, living in the wreckage of my past as well as suffering from multi-generational patterns of abuse and denial, I could stop blaming them for my brokenness. And I discovered that my story is not unique and telling others about my experiences helped them see that they’re not alone either.

Towards the end of my two-plus years in therapy, I was able to see that while I was negatively impacted in real and tangible ways by the damage inflicted by people in my family, I was also able to understand that on another level I was whole and beautiful and able to offer and accept love (and so are you). I’d been operating under the assumption that I was so wrecked, so shattered, so damaged by my past that there was no hope of me ever walking upright.

Acceptance and forgiveness

Understanding that we’re all damaged and that our families carry the weight of generations of unfounded (and founded) fears, selfishness, hurt, and confusion allows us to forgive them and ourselves. It’s a start.