Give yourself a break; you are a product of your surroundings

No one is an island.

We pick up so many things from our family, especially from our parents.

A couple years ago, my wife and I flew across the country for her cousin's wedding. We spent a week with her family. She has a big family. Siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws. So many branches from the same tree.

The wedding was beautiful and fun, but one of the coolest (read: psychologically nerdiest) parts happened in the space between all the activities and events. Spending all that time with her family, just in the mundane moments throughout the house - helping the kids get dressed, preparing breakfast, cleaning dishes, etc - I learned something deep and healing. I realized that some of the things about my wife that used to vex me, confuse me, even frustrate me aren't really hers. They belong to her family.

They were all co-conspirators in conditioning certain thought and behavior patterns. And indeed, her parents had outsized influence on the conditioning she inherited growing up. She couldn't help but to develop certain ways of being, having lived in the household she did. After spending so much close time with her parents, in situations running the gamut between stressful and joyful, I better understood. I noticed the similarities. (And yes, her parents were subject to the conditioning of their own parents, and on and on until we are back to protozoa.)

My wife and I are on parallel journeys to understand our specific emotional blocks and blind spots. We want to learn where they are and how they got there so we can understand how to mitigate and make peace with them. This will make us healthier and less reliant on these old crutches, those creaky patterns of thought and behavior which were helpful when we were children but now hinder our growth and development.

As introspective adults who have "done the work,"[1] we understand why we have these coping and defense mechanisms: during the wartime of our childhoods, we needed to wear these suits of armor to protect ourselves and remain okay. Similarly, we understand that as adults fashioning our own lives now, we don't need the armor anymore. It only slows us down, prevents us from connecting with others, and leaves us exhausted.

So it was reifying to see those ghastly, stress-escalation[2] loops play out between generations during the week of the wedding. And it reinforced a piece of the puzzle we sometimes miss in our individually-focused Western society: We're always influencing and always being influenced. Much as we might wish it so, no person is an island.

"So what?" you say. "Get to the point, man."

Firstly, rude. Secondly, here are some implications of these realizations[3]:

Give yourself slack about the things you don't like about yourself.

There's nothing wrong with you. You are the product of lots of patterns and circumstances you had no control over. They sunk their teeth into you good. But as long as you're honestly trying, then remember this: you are good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.

Give grace to others about the things you don't like about them.

Try to look at them with affectionate awe ("acatamiento," as Ignatius put it). In other words, twist the tone just a smidge from "how the hell can someone be this way?!" to "how did my [mom/dad/spouse/etc] actually become this way?" and grapple with it honestly. It might improve the relationship via empathy and understanding.

Greatness is in the agency of others.

Hat tip to Scott Galloway for this turn of phrase. The surest way to help yourself is to help others.

Everything you do matters.

Not in a gross way that applies pressure, but in a hopeful way that means that you can do a lot of good in this world. Just resolve to do little things with love and care and intention. Sometimes we can think what we do doesn't matter, but it does. It has ripples. In your family, in your community, and beyond. It starts with you. Break the crappy cycles. You can! And speaking of ripples...

We're all ripples in the same big pond.

And our ripples affect the ripples of everyone around us. Make ripples of goodness. We're all mucking around in this pool together. And your example is genuinely meaningful to all the people in your life, even if you don't see it on any particular day.

We're all working on it. Keep working on it. Give yourself grace, put your oxygen mask on first, and give it to others after you've done that.

And sooner or later, we will finally prove Belinda Carlisle right.

Yours, Jacob

Footnotes

[1] I put that in quotes not sarcastically, and not reverentially, but merely as a helpful shortcut that others who have done the work will immediately understand. If you're on this path too, you will appreciate how much lifting those three little words are doing.

[2] Is it time to make "stresscalation" a thing? Froyo, jeggings, stresscalation? No? Of course, who could come up with an idea as silly as that?! *Hides head quickly inside a smart-looking book.*

[3] "Implications of these realizations... Implizations?" *Ducks to avoid the dense projectiles* Okay, you're right. No more portmanteaus for me today.