Your journey starts with family – they are your roots. Good, bad, indifferent… this is the beginning. Family is where you try out new behaviors, new ways of interacting – whether or not you are aware of this. Regardless if your family is supportive or demanding, encouraging or dysfunctional this is the beginning of your learning and discoveries. Those of us who were blessed with a caring, nurturing family feel blessed when we finally realize this. Those who weren’t sometimes rise above their beginnings and sometimes drown and become dysfunctional too.
There is an age old battle between nature v. nurture as to which has the most impact on our development. The answer is – yes. Though I personally give the nod to nurture, why battle? They both exert an influence, the context upon which we grow and learn. “They” say you can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends. Trite but true. There’s another saying that’s equally apt – home is where your story begins.
Personally I’ve been blessed with a very supportive family. It never seemed to be a question of if I could accomplish something, more a question of how. Did I always succeed? Of course not, but I never was made to feel like a failure if I tried – it was simply not in my personal ‘tool box’ of talents and gifts. Before you think I’m glamorizing my family – I never said we are the paragon of all virtues. However, there are two invaluable qualities that permeate our relationships: saying your sorry and forgiveness. This can go a long way.
What does your story look like from your vantage point of time? Do you see how your roots impact and affect your likes, dislikes, predispositions, etc.? Family is every one’s beginning – for good or not – and how you grow in that environment begins your story. While you can argue that your ‘control’ is dictated by the mores operating in your family, you still have choices that you can make within that framework. Another way of looking at your beginnings is for you to see how many of these activities and behaviors you have kept in your now.
…but, what do you think? what do you believe?
