June 17, 2026 • 23 mins
This week on Mid Week Tease, we're talking about generational cycles! Not just the obvious ones, but the invisible family rules, coping mechanisms, beliefs and survival strategies that quietly shape our lives. Many of us inherit ways of thinking, loving, communicating and surviving long before we're old enough to question them. We grow up believing they're simply part of who we are. But what happens when we begin to realize some of what we've called personality is actually inherited pain?
In this episode, Adelle explores:
Join our community:
Website: https://www.legallycluelessafrica.com
Newsletter: https://www.legallycluelessafrica.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legallycluelessafrica
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@legallycluelessafrica
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LegallyCluelessAfrica
In this episode, Adelle explores:
- The unspoken rules every family passes down
- The survival strategies we mistake for personality traits
- Why the first person to choose differently is often labelled difficult
- The difference between understanding and excusing our parents
- How trauma can be passed down through behaviours, not just experiences
- What it truly means to become a cycle breaker
- The legacy we're creating through our healing
Join our community:
Website: https://www.legallycluelessafrica.com
Newsletter: https://www.legallycluelessafrica.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legallycluelessafrica
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@legallycluelessafrica
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LegallyCluelessAfrica
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Midwick Te's with me adele Jangle, where
I share some random and not to random thoughts on things.
And in this episode that I am recording from in
front of my fire, So if you hear any cackling,
please just understand, just understand. The cold season has kind
(00:22):
of sort of begun. Anyway. In this episode, I want
to talk about the family patterns that we inherit and
what it takes to break them. Because I have a
feeling that most of us who listen to the shows
here at legally clueless Africa, who read the newsletter, who
(00:45):
come for the talks, I have a feeling that you
are the breakers of generational patterns in your families. I
have a hunch, am I right, let me know in
the comments wherever you're listening to this on. But I
want to start this episode with a question if someone
(01:08):
studied your family for let's say the past three generations,
what patterns would they find. Now, your answer should not
be about what jobs people had, or where people lived
or who married who. I'm really talking about deeper things.
(01:30):
So your answer needs to look at how did people
handle conflicts? You know, how did they express love? What
happened when someone was struggling, How were emotions treated? You know,
what did the women in the family believe they had
to sacrifice? What did the men believe they had to suppress?
(01:52):
What were people not allowed to talk about? Oof? Tend
of that one, you know, because one thing I've come
to understand it that is that families. Families pass down
a lot more than genetics, a lot more than just
looking like each other. By the way we pass down.
(02:15):
Families passed down beliefs, fears, coping mechanisms, They passed down
ways of relating to ourselves and to other people. Ooh,
they passed down survival strategies. And I think that most
of us inherit these things without ever consciously choosing them.
(02:37):
We just kind of absorb them. We've grown up for
decades thinking it's normal. And then which is why I
think you are a generational breaker if you're listening to this,
because one day, in adulthood, we realize some of these
(02:58):
things that we call personality traits are actually family patterns.
You know, so it's not just oh, this is just
who I am. A lot of that was learned, you know,
a lot of the things that we think are our choices,
We really inherited. And the reason I want to talk
(03:19):
about this is because breaking generational cycles. It's not just
about identifying what hurt us, because I think that's where
a lot of us start and stop. I think it's
also about becoming conscious enough to decide what we want
to carry forward and what ends with us. It's so
(03:40):
funny because I think about my mom a lot, but
I've been thinking about her a lot more in the
past couple of weeks. It hit me that I learned
a lot of kindness from her. So, for those of
you who follow me on Instagram, you know then I
(04:01):
live on a farm, and so I grew vegetables and
I shared these vegetables with family members, with friends and
you know, people I care about. And I was doing
deliveries a couple of days ago of broccoli and cauliflower
to my aunties, and I suddenly remembered, Oh my god,
(04:24):
I really did learn kindness like it was modeled to
me by my mom. I started remembering how every Christmas,
you know, a couple of years before she died, my
mom would buy cakes, like big cakes for different families
and she would have them delivered. This was before taxi apps,
(04:46):
and like motorcycle apps for deliveries. She would have these
cakes delivered to each family to say Mary Christmas. And
I was delivering my vegetables and I just thought, oh,
my goodness, I did learn kindness from this lady. And
the way she showed kindness to anyone and everyone was
(05:06):
something that in the generations before her and even those
around her. This was unique to her in terms of
the intentionality. She broke a cycle there. She broke cycles
in the way she mothered me. And why I'm saying
me is, you know, I can't speak on behalf of
my sisters, but my mom had a very non toxic
(05:31):
way of mothering me. I can count the number of
times that she physically bait me, which was the norm
in that generation. Right. We would have conversations, we would
go for concerts together. There was a generational pattern where
(05:51):
children feared parents that my mom broke right anyway, So
that's why I was like, Oh, I have to talk
to you about this now. I remember reading about family
systems from a psychologist who also happens to be a
family therapist. I think I've talked about them to you before.
(06:11):
Murray Bowen, and one of the ideas that really caught
my attention. Is that families function like emotional systems. So
what this means is that everyone is influenced by everyone else,
So the patterns don't exist in isolation. They are passed down, repeated, reinforced, normalized.
(06:33):
And another thing is every family has rules, and most
of these rules are never actually spoken, Like there's no
daily family gathering or meeting where everybody's told AAA, these
are the twelve commandments of this family. No, you just
kind of learned them and you absorb them, and you know,
(06:55):
a rule, for example, maybe in your family was like,
don't challenge elders. What I was talking about, which I
think is a rule my mom broke and decided it
was going to end with her. Maybe it was women
must endure. Maybe it was don't complain, just be grateful
(07:15):
all the time. Maybe and this one I find to
be so toxic. It was keep the peace no matter what,
don't cry. Success is good, but don't make other people
uncomfortable with it. Am I shouting? And because these rules
(07:36):
are invisible, as I say, there's no meeting to reinforce them,
we don't realize how deeply they've shaped us. So, for example,
if you grew up in a family where expressing your
needs was seen as selfish. As a grown up, you
may struggle with boundaries. Or if you grew up in
a family where conflict was avoided at all costs, you
(07:56):
may find yourself as a grown up completely terrified of
difficult conversations. Or maybe you grew up in a family
where women were praised for sacrificing themselves. You know, and
you may grow up to be a woman who feels
guilty every time you prioritize yourself. The family rules become
the lens through which we see the world, and many
(08:19):
of us are still living by these rules that we
never consciously agreed to. You know what I mean? So
another question, what were the unspoken rules in your family?
And which of those rules are helping you? And which
of those rules are costing you your peace? You don't
(08:39):
even have to share your answers with me, Just like,
think about it, right, What were the unspoken rules in
your family? And out of those rules, which ones are
helping you and which ones are costing you your peace?
I feel like one of the easiest things to do
is to identify what hurts us. But what is a
(09:03):
bit trickier is identifying what we are carrying forward. There
is a researcher who specializes in trauma besel Vandercoc, and
they talk about how trauma often continues through the adaptations
we make to survive it. And this is such an
(09:26):
important part because like a lot of us think that
trauma can only be passed down through abuse, No, it
can also get passed down through coping mechanisms, through survival strategies,
through habits, through habits that once protected us. Right, So
(09:48):
take hyper independence for example, this is something Eh, I'm
so glad I'm at the tail end of eraising this one.
But a lot of us wear it like a budget
of honor. Right, I don't need anybody. I can figure
myself out our carriage. But if we were truly honest
with ourselves, if you are a hyper independent person, you
(10:14):
will acknowledge that hyper independence is in freedom. It's not
it's protection, right, It's what happens when you learned that
it's not safe to rely on other people. And that's
just one right hyper independence. There's people pleasing perfectionism, emotional shutdown, conflicts, avoidance,
(10:35):
you know, constantly feeling responsible for everybody else's emotions and yes,
at some point, these behaviors probably probably helped us, right,
they probably even protected us. But I think it's okay
to acknowledge that what protected us in one season can
(10:58):
imprison us in another season. Another question which I think
requires a lot of courage, But I believe in you.
I think you can answer this. What am I doing
today that once kept me safe but is no longer
serving me? This is such an important question. It's how
(11:18):
I figured out hyperindependence is costing me my peace? You know,
people pleasing is costing me my identity. And so it's
really about deciding whether you still want that behavior to
lead your life. And yes, you can acknowledge it protected
(11:41):
you at a point, but bro, you can also decide
that it's now overstayed. You know now, Because I really
know this space, I created it for primarily women. I
want to talk about something that I know many many
women will relate to being the first woman who chooses differently.
(12:05):
Change in one person affects the entire family system. And
if you've ever started healing, you've probably experienced this. Hey,
maybe you're the first in your family to go to therapy,
Maybe you're the first to set boundaries. Maybe you're the
first person to leave an unhealthy relationship, or you're the
first person to choose rest instead of burnouts. Women am
(12:30):
I shouting? Maybe you're the first person to decide you
don't want children. No one has hit close toom. Maybe
you're the first person to, you know, just openly prioritize
your mental health. And suddenly you're being called difficult, or
(12:51):
you're being called selfish, or you're hearing statements like, oh,
you've changed, or you're becoming too much. But here's something
of the thinking about Hey, I think sometimes people aren't
reacting to your boundary. They're reacting to what your boundary represents.
I mean, there's also the people who are reacting because
(13:11):
they used to really enjoy when you had no boundaries.
They're those ones. But there's also people reacting to what
your boundary represents because your boundary represents a possibility. It
represents another way of living, another way of loving, another
way of existing. And sometimes that can be so uncomfortable
(13:34):
to other people who have been part of a family
system that has made them believe they had no choice
and now watching someone else choose differently, Oh that feels uncomfortable.
You know, it can feel like if you're the cycle breaker,
that you're being punished for changing. But I think what's
(13:57):
happening is that you are being punished for reminding everyone
else that change is possible, and that can be very lonely.
That can be very lonely because breaking cycles is not
just about healing. It's also about being misunderstood. It's about
(14:20):
you being okay with disappointing people. It's about you choosing
your well being even when other people don't understand why,
and that is not easy. It's so lonely right now.
I want to bring another layer here because I think
sometimes when we're talking about breaking generational cycles, we can
(14:43):
get stuck in like blaming our parents. This is not
to excuse them or not to hold them accountable, but
I don't think blame is where freedom lives. I always
talk about Gabor Mate because he asks us to understand context,
(15:04):
to understand that people were parent from their own wounds,
that our parents inherited things as well, and their parents
inherited things, and their parents inherited things. So when you
start looking at family histories, you start to see the
different things people were carrying, be it violence, poverty, colonial trauma,
(15:28):
religious shame, patriarchal expectations, fear survival that one emotional neglects.
You know. The other day I wrote about my dad.
I do some long form writing on my Instagram, and
(15:49):
I turned two years in my sober journey, and I
was writing about my dad, who definitely had a drinking
problem and was violent because of it to my mom.
And I remember being, you know, speaking about habits. I
learned my hyper vigilance from watching him as he drunk
(16:14):
and knowing when the tip would happen that would signal
to me, where unsafe because he's about to be violent.
But as I was growing up and as I was
doing my healing work, I started to unpack, like what
was my dad caring? Not to excuse him, I still
(16:37):
hold him very accountable. I can love him and be
pissed off by how he treated usen and my mom.
My dad is deceased, by the way, But as I
was saying, this guy was like firstborn African son by
I don't know thirty, He had most of his kids,
(17:00):
a law firm supporting his siblings, and his dad died
before I was born. So I also wondered, hmmm, the
way grief kicked my ass? I wondered if this guy
had a space to grieve, you know what I mean.
So I started to be like, what was he carrying?
(17:20):
And that allowed me to have compassion. But at the
same time, when I say compassion, compassion is not synonymous
with like self abandonment, right, So I'm not excusing, I'm
not even sure. Yeah, I have forgiven him, but you know,
(17:41):
he's passed away, so that there's no reconciliation there, And
compassion doesn't mean unlimited access, you know. I think you
can understand why someone became who they are, and you
can still have your boundaries, and you can love someone
and you can still choose distance, you can still hold
them accountable, you can have empathy for someone's pain, and
(18:02):
you can still refuse to accept their behavior. That's helpful.
These things can exist together, and I think there's a
lot of liberation that comes from that, and it can
really help you be the cycle breaker in your family. Okay,
so away from our parents, let's come back to you
(18:24):
and I because it's very easy to spend a lot
of time looking backwards, but eventually healing is going to
ask us to look forward. And the question I want
to ask is, what are you passing down. Do you
know what I mean? If someone inherited your way of living?
(18:50):
What would they inherit? Would they inherit anxiety, self criticism, burnout, fear?
Or would they inherit self worth and joy and rest
and honesty and emotional safety and courage breaking generational cycles.
(19:15):
It's not only about what you're refusing to pass on,
but it's also about what you are intentionally creating. I
see that in my own life and how especially like
being in business. Not very Actually, none of the generations
(19:40):
before me and around me are in business and are
living an alternative lifestyle, you know the way I am.
And I see alternative in quotes because honestly, the way
I'm living is how our ancestors lived. So I'm just
like you know what I mean. But anyway, what I
(20:00):
mean when I use the word alternative, and so I'm
intentionally doing that not only because it feels good for me,
but I want to add another's option of womanhood on
the spectrum for my nieces and nephews to see. So, yeah,
what are you intentionally creating? And so as I close,
(20:24):
every family passes something down, some passed down silence, some
passed down shame, some passed down fear, self sacrifice, and
every once in a while someone decides that the inheritance
(20:45):
changes with them. I have a feeling you are that person.
And you decide this not because you know you're perfect,
not because you've healed everything, not because you have all
the answers, but because you've become conscious, because you've stopped
(21:05):
running on autopilots, because you've started asking the difficult questions,
because you have become willing to choose differently. And every
time you choose let's say, honesty over silence, or boundaries
over exhaustion and resentment, rest over burnout, self worth over
(21:32):
self abandonment, every time you choose better, you are changing
something bigger than yourself. And YO, see, I've given you
many questions in this episode, but I'm going to leave
you it too. When future generations in your lineage, in
(21:54):
your family, when future generations look back at you, what
will they say ended with you? I start off by
telling you about my mom's kindness, about her way of mothering,
and the many things that I can say that ended
with her. What is going to end with you? When
(22:16):
you know down your lineage they look back you know,
and the last question is when future generations in your
family look back at you. What will they say? Begun
with you? O listen. If you want to share your
(22:40):
answers to all the questions I've left you with in
this episode, you can do so in the common section.
This is a safe space and I love hearing from you.
And if you connected with this episode, make sure you
share it with someone that you love. Thanks for listening
to The Midwig. TI's a Legally Kill US Africa production.
(23:01):
Episodes go out every Wednesday, and you can learn more
about us by going to Legally Close us Africa dot
com m
Welcome to the Midwick Te's with me adele Jangle, where
I share some random and not to random thoughts on things.
And in this episode that I am recording from in
front of my fire, So if you hear any cackling,
please just understand, just understand. The cold season has kind
(00:22):
of sort of begun. Anyway. In this episode, I want
to talk about the family patterns that we inherit and
what it takes to break them. Because I have a
feeling that most of us who listen to the shows
here at legally clueless Africa, who read the newsletter, who
(00:45):
come for the talks, I have a feeling that you
are the breakers of generational patterns in your families. I
have a hunch, am I right, let me know in
the comments wherever you're listening to this on. But I
want to start this episode with a question if someone
(01:08):
studied your family for let's say the past three generations,
what patterns would they find. Now, your answer should not
be about what jobs people had, or where people lived
or who married who. I'm really talking about deeper things.
(01:30):
So your answer needs to look at how did people
handle conflicts? You know, how did they express love? What
happened when someone was struggling, How were emotions treated? You know,
what did the women in the family believe they had
to sacrifice? What did the men believe they had to suppress?
(01:52):
What were people not allowed to talk about? Oof? Tend
of that one, you know, because one thing I've come
to understand it that is that families. Families pass down
a lot more than genetics, a lot more than just
looking like each other. By the way we pass down.
(02:15):
Families passed down beliefs, fears, coping mechanisms, They passed down
ways of relating to ourselves and to other people. Ooh,
they passed down survival strategies. And I think that most
of us inherit these things without ever consciously choosing them.
(02:37):
We just kind of absorb them. We've grown up for
decades thinking it's normal. And then which is why I
think you are a generational breaker if you're listening to this,
because one day, in adulthood, we realize some of these
(02:58):
things that we call personality traits are actually family patterns.
You know, so it's not just oh, this is just
who I am. A lot of that was learned, you know,
a lot of the things that we think are our choices,
We really inherited. And the reason I want to talk
(03:19):
about this is because breaking generational cycles. It's not just
about identifying what hurt us, because I think that's where
a lot of us start and stop. I think it's
also about becoming conscious enough to decide what we want
to carry forward and what ends with us. It's so
(03:40):
funny because I think about my mom a lot, but
I've been thinking about her a lot more in the
past couple of weeks. It hit me that I learned
a lot of kindness from her. So, for those of
you who follow me on Instagram, you know then I
(04:01):
live on a farm, and so I grew vegetables and
I shared these vegetables with family members, with friends and
you know, people I care about. And I was doing
deliveries a couple of days ago of broccoli and cauliflower
to my aunties, and I suddenly remembered, Oh my god,
(04:24):
I really did learn kindness like it was modeled to
me by my mom. I started remembering how every Christmas,
you know, a couple of years before she died, my
mom would buy cakes, like big cakes for different families
and she would have them delivered. This was before taxi apps,
(04:46):
and like motorcycle apps for deliveries. She would have these
cakes delivered to each family to say Mary Christmas. And
I was delivering my vegetables and I just thought, oh,
my goodness, I did learn kindness from this lady. And
the way she showed kindness to anyone and everyone was
(05:06):
something that in the generations before her and even those
around her. This was unique to her in terms of
the intentionality. She broke a cycle there. She broke cycles
in the way she mothered me. And why I'm saying
me is, you know, I can't speak on behalf of
my sisters, but my mom had a very non toxic
(05:31):
way of mothering me. I can count the number of
times that she physically bait me, which was the norm
in that generation. Right. We would have conversations, we would
go for concerts together. There was a generational pattern where
(05:51):
children feared parents that my mom broke right anyway, So
that's why I was like, Oh, I have to talk
to you about this now. I remember reading about family
systems from a psychologist who also happens to be a
family therapist. I think I've talked about them to you before.
(06:11):
Murray Bowen, and one of the ideas that really caught
my attention. Is that families function like emotional systems. So
what this means is that everyone is influenced by everyone else,
So the patterns don't exist in isolation. They are passed down, repeated, reinforced, normalized.
(06:33):
And another thing is every family has rules, and most
of these rules are never actually spoken, Like there's no
daily family gathering or meeting where everybody's told AAA, these
are the twelve commandments of this family. No, you just
kind of learned them and you absorb them, and you know,
(06:55):
a rule, for example, maybe in your family was like,
don't challenge elders. What I was talking about, which I
think is a rule my mom broke and decided it
was going to end with her. Maybe it was women
must endure. Maybe it was don't complain, just be grateful
(07:15):
all the time. Maybe and this one I find to
be so toxic. It was keep the peace no matter what,
don't cry. Success is good, but don't make other people
uncomfortable with it. Am I shouting? And because these rules
(07:36):
are invisible, as I say, there's no meeting to reinforce them,
we don't realize how deeply they've shaped us. So, for example,
if you grew up in a family where expressing your
needs was seen as selfish. As a grown up, you
may struggle with boundaries. Or if you grew up in
a family where conflict was avoided at all costs, you
(07:56):
may find yourself as a grown up completely terrified of
difficult conversations. Or maybe you grew up in a family
where women were praised for sacrificing themselves. You know, and
you may grow up to be a woman who feels
guilty every time you prioritize yourself. The family rules become
the lens through which we see the world, and many
(08:19):
of us are still living by these rules that we
never consciously agreed to. You know what I mean? So
another question, what were the unspoken rules in your family?
And which of those rules are helping you? And which
of those rules are costing you your peace? You don't
(08:39):
even have to share your answers with me, Just like,
think about it, right, What were the unspoken rules in
your family? And out of those rules, which ones are
helping you and which ones are costing you your peace?
I feel like one of the easiest things to do
is to identify what hurts us. But what is a
(09:03):
bit trickier is identifying what we are carrying forward. There
is a researcher who specializes in trauma besel Vandercoc, and
they talk about how trauma often continues through the adaptations
we make to survive it. And this is such an
(09:26):
important part because like a lot of us think that
trauma can only be passed down through abuse, No, it
can also get passed down through coping mechanisms, through survival strategies,
through habits, through habits that once protected us. Right, So
(09:48):
take hyper independence for example, this is something Eh, I'm
so glad I'm at the tail end of eraising this one.
But a lot of us wear it like a budget
of honor. Right, I don't need anybody. I can figure
myself out our carriage. But if we were truly honest
with ourselves, if you are a hyper independent person, you
(10:14):
will acknowledge that hyper independence is in freedom. It's not
it's protection, right, It's what happens when you learned that
it's not safe to rely on other people. And that's
just one right hyper independence. There's people pleasing perfectionism, emotional shutdown, conflicts, avoidance,
(10:35):
you know, constantly feeling responsible for everybody else's emotions and yes,
at some point, these behaviors probably probably helped us, right,
they probably even protected us. But I think it's okay
to acknowledge that what protected us in one season can
(10:58):
imprison us in another season. Another question which I think
requires a lot of courage, But I believe in you.
I think you can answer this. What am I doing
today that once kept me safe but is no longer
serving me? This is such an important question. It's how
(11:18):
I figured out hyperindependence is costing me my peace? You know,
people pleasing is costing me my identity. And so it's
really about deciding whether you still want that behavior to
lead your life. And yes, you can acknowledge it protected
(11:41):
you at a point, but bro, you can also decide
that it's now overstayed. You know now, Because I really
know this space, I created it for primarily women. I
want to talk about something that I know many many
women will relate to being the first woman who chooses differently.
(12:05):
Change in one person affects the entire family system. And
if you've ever started healing, you've probably experienced this. Hey,
maybe you're the first in your family to go to therapy,
Maybe you're the first to set boundaries. Maybe you're the
first person to leave an unhealthy relationship, or you're the
first person to choose rest instead of burnouts. Women am
(12:30):
I shouting? Maybe you're the first person to decide you
don't want children. No one has hit close toom. Maybe
you're the first person to, you know, just openly prioritize
your mental health. And suddenly you're being called difficult, or
(12:51):
you're being called selfish, or you're hearing statements like, oh,
you've changed, or you're becoming too much. But here's something
of the thinking about Hey, I think sometimes people aren't
reacting to your boundary. They're reacting to what your boundary represents.
I mean, there's also the people who are reacting because
(13:11):
they used to really enjoy when you had no boundaries.
They're those ones. But there's also people reacting to what
your boundary represents because your boundary represents a possibility. It
represents another way of living, another way of loving, another
way of existing. And sometimes that can be so uncomfortable
(13:34):
to other people who have been part of a family
system that has made them believe they had no choice
and now watching someone else choose differently, Oh that feels uncomfortable.
You know, it can feel like if you're the cycle breaker,
that you're being punished for changing. But I think what's
(13:57):
happening is that you are being punished for reminding everyone
else that change is possible, and that can be very lonely.
That can be very lonely because breaking cycles is not
just about healing. It's also about being misunderstood. It's about
(14:20):
you being okay with disappointing people. It's about you choosing
your well being even when other people don't understand why,
and that is not easy. It's so lonely right now.
I want to bring another layer here because I think
sometimes when we're talking about breaking generational cycles, we can
(14:43):
get stuck in like blaming our parents. This is not
to excuse them or not to hold them accountable, but
I don't think blame is where freedom lives. I always
talk about Gabor Mate because he asks us to understand context,
(15:04):
to understand that people were parent from their own wounds,
that our parents inherited things as well, and their parents
inherited things, and their parents inherited things. So when you
start looking at family histories, you start to see the
different things people were carrying, be it violence, poverty, colonial trauma,
(15:28):
religious shame, patriarchal expectations, fear survival that one emotional neglects.
You know. The other day I wrote about my dad.
I do some long form writing on my Instagram, and
(15:49):
I turned two years in my sober journey, and I
was writing about my dad, who definitely had a drinking
problem and was violent because of it to my mom.
And I remember being, you know, speaking about habits. I
learned my hyper vigilance from watching him as he drunk
(16:14):
and knowing when the tip would happen that would signal
to me, where unsafe because he's about to be violent.
But as I was growing up and as I was
doing my healing work, I started to unpack, like what
was my dad caring? Not to excuse him, I still
(16:37):
hold him very accountable. I can love him and be
pissed off by how he treated usen and my mom.
My dad is deceased, by the way, But as I
was saying, this guy was like firstborn African son by
I don't know thirty, He had most of his kids,
(17:00):
a law firm supporting his siblings, and his dad died
before I was born. So I also wondered, hmmm, the
way grief kicked my ass? I wondered if this guy
had a space to grieve, you know what I mean.
So I started to be like, what was he carrying?
(17:20):
And that allowed me to have compassion. But at the
same time, when I say compassion, compassion is not synonymous
with like self abandonment, right, So I'm not excusing, I'm
not even sure. Yeah, I have forgiven him, but you know,
(17:41):
he's passed away, so that there's no reconciliation there, And
compassion doesn't mean unlimited access, you know. I think you
can understand why someone became who they are, and you
can still have your boundaries, and you can love someone
and you can still choose distance, you can still hold
them accountable, you can have empathy for someone's pain, and
(18:02):
you can still refuse to accept their behavior. That's helpful.
These things can exist together, and I think there's a
lot of liberation that comes from that, and it can
really help you be the cycle breaker in your family. Okay,
so away from our parents, let's come back to you
(18:24):
and I because it's very easy to spend a lot
of time looking backwards, but eventually healing is going to
ask us to look forward. And the question I want
to ask is, what are you passing down. Do you
know what I mean? If someone inherited your way of living?
(18:50):
What would they inherit? Would they inherit anxiety, self criticism, burnout, fear?
Or would they inherit self worth and joy and rest
and honesty and emotional safety and courage breaking generational cycles.
(19:15):
It's not only about what you're refusing to pass on,
but it's also about what you are intentionally creating. I
see that in my own life and how especially like
being in business. Not very Actually, none of the generations
(19:40):
before me and around me are in business and are
living an alternative lifestyle, you know the way I am.
And I see alternative in quotes because honestly, the way
I'm living is how our ancestors lived. So I'm just
like you know what I mean. But anyway, what I
(20:00):
mean when I use the word alternative, and so I'm
intentionally doing that not only because it feels good for me,
but I want to add another's option of womanhood on
the spectrum for my nieces and nephews to see. So, yeah,
what are you intentionally creating? And so as I close,
(20:24):
every family passes something down, some passed down silence, some
passed down shame, some passed down fear, self sacrifice, and
every once in a while someone decides that the inheritance
(20:45):
changes with them. I have a feeling you are that person.
And you decide this not because you know you're perfect,
not because you've healed everything, not because you have all
the answers, but because you've become conscious, because you've stopped
(21:05):
running on autopilots, because you've started asking the difficult questions,
because you have become willing to choose differently. And every
time you choose let's say, honesty over silence, or boundaries
over exhaustion and resentment, rest over burnout, self worth over
(21:32):
self abandonment, every time you choose better, you are changing
something bigger than yourself. And YO, see, I've given you
many questions in this episode, but I'm going to leave
you it too. When future generations in your lineage, in
(21:54):
your family, when future generations look back at you, what
will they say ended with you? I start off by
telling you about my mom's kindness, about her way of mothering,
and the many things that I can say that ended
with her. What is going to end with you? When
(22:16):
you know down your lineage they look back you know,
and the last question is when future generations in your
family look back at you. What will they say? Begun
with you? O listen. If you want to share your
(22:40):
answers to all the questions I've left you with in
this episode, you can do so in the common section.
This is a safe space and I love hearing from you.
And if you connected with this episode, make sure you
share it with someone that you love. Thanks for listening
to The Midwig. TI's a Legally Kill US Africa production.
(23:01):
Episodes go out every Wednesday, and you can learn more
about us by going to Legally Close us Africa dot
com m
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
iHeartRadio 24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.