“The word dysfunction has, I think, served its purpose and now has lost its meaning. Every family, like every person, is imperfect, after all. The idea that there is a Family somewhere who functions is an odd concept. In my youth I was running from my family to try to find out who I was — their influence distracted me. Now I see what a powerful hold they have, no matter what.” Susan Minot
Susan Minot whose father was an alcoholic, reminds us that there is no perfect family even though we try to create that perfect family, or find it especially if we did not grow up with it. The family of our origin has had an enormous influence on us. Instead of running away from it, we are to embrace it.
There are influences in our family systems that we are called to stop if possible. If we have an addiction such as alcohol, which is inherited in our genes, we are to seek recovery, talk about, let other family members know that they may also be affected instead of hiding our addictions in the family hall closet.
We learn to accept that our parents did the best they could do. If they were not able to be a mother or father figure to us, my experience is that God will provide that person for us, a teacher, a neighbor, an aunt or uncle, sometimes even a sibling. The difficulty is accepting that person who loves us as unconditionally as humanly possible who is not our mother or father. We almost always unrealistically yearn for our biological father or mother to be that figure.
The rest of our life will be influenced by our family of origin. We cannot run away from it. We may try to be very different from our mother or father with different goals. We may become associated with a different political party or religion, or we may admire the religion or politics of our family and stay connected to them.
Each of us has been given positives and negatives from our families. The negatives affect us just the same or more as the positives. The negatives are our learning laboratories where we try to live life differently as we grow aware of reality. We also find others who can guide and care for us as we change the direction for our family on this part of the journey.
God calls us to find whatever we may be grateful for in our family of origin. Give thanks. Give thanks for our origin. We are called to pray for healing for any harms. Instead of obsessing about what we missed, we are called to spend our energy in how we are going to live on as God heals our wounds and calls us to become wounded healers for others.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com