Family is our first teacher. This is where it all begins. We spend the first several years of our lives being conditioned to the rules of our caretakers, community and society, then we spend the rest of our lives in therapy trying to understand and be understood.

I am the black sheep of the family I was born into. I have no contact with my parents or siblings. The family was very dysfunctional and riddled with personality disorders. Somehow, at a young age I realized I would have to get out of Dodge if I wanted to break the cycle. There was no way I would raise a family of my own in such conditions.

Two months after my high school graduation I was on a plane headed across the country. The family had many hateful theories as to why I left, all of which were based on what they believed to be wrong with me. After all, I never went along with the tide.

It took a very long time to become acquainted with myself. I’d spent all of my first eighteen years in survival mode, suffering abuse, neglect and trauma. I had no baseline for knowing what a healthy relationship was, either with myself or with others. Over time, I realized that no one else in my family had a baseline for a healthy relationship, either.

My mother was also brought up in an abusive environment. My father had been neglected. Neither one had sought any emotional healing for themselves. They made the effort to go to church, but the sentiment was mostly about seeing their enemies suffer the wrath of God. That took the psychological trauma to another level.

I wanted to be a good mother when the time came. Certain things stuck out in my mind, like the moms who brought cupcakes to school on holidays, the girls in my class who always had cute hairdos with ribbons, the shows on t.v. where the family would eat dinner together. If I did those things it would be a start.

Unfortunately, I picked the wrong man the first time around. He had experienced his own childhood trauma. The difference was that he didn’t think about being a better parent when it was his turn. He only thought about himself.

My second husband is the love of my life and the heart of our family. He, too, had his share of knocks. But, he makes his role of husband, father and stepfather his absolute priority. He has filled the hole in my daughters’ hearts that was left from their father’s selfishness.

It would be ideal if people took time to heal their wounds before taking on parenthood. But, since that’s not likely to happen for most, there has to be another way. As adults, we need to understand our individual responsibility. We cannot spend our entire lives blaming our parents or siblings or other family members for how our own lives have turned out. We have choices.

We make a conscious choice to create a beautiful life for ourselves or not. To truly see the beauty going forward, we have to let go of the darkness behind us. Every one in our family was once an innocent child, who was guided along by someone else who may not have known the best way. Forgive them for their inability to teach correctly when they were misled and too hurt to find their way back. By forgiving, we turn the tide and break the curse of repeating the trauma for future generations.

For those of us who know how to love our neighbor even in the smallest of ways, we must share it far and wide and often. You never know whose heart you may touch and how much they may have needed to feel kindness that day. After all, we are all God’s family which makes you my family and I yours.