On Family Beliefs and Resisting Oppression

As children we are born completely open-hearted, in awe, in innocent relationship with the world. The environment we were born into was composed of the belief systems our primary caregivers held. We were unaware of how these beliefs became a part of the map we would come to use to understand other people, the world we live in, and ourselves. It was incredibly necessary to learn how to navigate within our family of origin, to belong, to try and reach for love and ultimately to survive. Now, as adults, our family of origin’s belief systems may be contributing to our suffering. Let me explain how.

Family beliefs as defined in Sacred Attention Therapy (www.sacredattentiontherapy.com) are “The shared and collective judgements and prejudices that appear in a family grouping” and they are akin to the air we breathe, the water we swim in, the oftentimes invisible presence of shoulds and should-nots.

Some examples of Family Beliefs:

“We will always have your back”

“Earning money is of utmost importance”

“You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try try again”

“It stays within the four walls of this house”

“Pull yourself up by the bootstraps”

“Do as I say, not as I do”

“You have to work hard to survive”

“You can’t always have what you want”

“You can always depend on us”

Because of the coinciding with early life, these belief systems have become entrenched in our root base experiences of fear and desire, as early life is when we learn (or don’t) if the world is a safe place to be in. Whether we know it or not, the fears we carry today have their foundation in our original family belief system. Many of us have been operating unconsciously through the very, very early beliefs which marked our first experience of love, nourishment (or lack of) and fear. 

When we suffer it is because of our beliefs, and the conflicting nature of reality which bumps up against these edifices. 

So many friends I have had over the years, deeply involved in political organizing groups, have carried a kind of guilt combined with a wide open heart, in response to the oppression taking place around every corner. It is so hard to watch the unfolding violence around us, and it is precisely these systems of violence which have created the societal messaging that has influenced our families of origin. The battle cry to rally against it is deeply wise. When I have witnessed such anguish among my community, such a persistent yearning to do something immediate and radical to change the system, I am most heartened at how a few brave individuals will look into themselves to understand their own root systems of violence, sometimes dramatic, oftentimes very subtle and hidden. To make urgent change in the world, some of us need to be on the streets, some of us need to be at home making the nourishing food to support those on the frontlines…some of us need to write, to sing, to make art, to channel our creativity into beautiful action, to inspire and lift up others in these heavy times. But one thing we all must do, the most potent thing you can do, is to look deeply within yourself and jettison all violence that remains inside self-talk, thought patterns, and the disordered relationship with self.  It may feel like a small act, and it may feel pointless when violence is raining down in places like Minneapolis, Gaza, New York City, Iran, and social media is rife with flashing images of horror….but it is a profoundly huge one to turn towards ourselves, and dare I say, the most brave act of all. To transform oneself is to set about streams of transformation across the entire globe~ think of the butterfly effect~ the flapping of a small insects wings creates great change through ripples of wind, reaching the complete other side of the planet. Your healing has the exact same impact. 

In Sacred Attention Therapy we begin to examine the beliefs we still hold, so many years after they were imposed upon us, to understand how these messages are the remote control of our lives.  Until we can see them, name them and release them, we will be governed by these statements unknowingly. It is incredibly liberating to examine our family beliefs and relinquish them from our lives so to live into our authenticity, one where we truly honor our completely unique self. By doing so, we become able to take right action in response to the violence we see happening because we will turn towards right action with ourselves, our primary ground of being, the place we have first influence, the source of our greatest liberation. But this kind of transformation cannot happen in isolation~ in community with others we practice liberatory acts of resistance, of non-conformism, of unique demonstrations of beauty and creativity, and in the therapy room, we practice liberatory acts of great self-love: incredibly courageous gestures of trust, listening and healing ourselves. These are our tasks, in this time.