Over It And On With It

This episode is about breaking the cycle of generational patterns. Today’s caller, Cathy, experienced corporal punishment as a child, and finds herself doing the same thing to her daughter. As you listen to the call, I hope you are able to separate her character from her behavior. Her behavior is a reaction to her past. [For show notes go here: Christinehassler.com/episode83] I’ve said many times, parenting does not come with an instruction manual. Often, we play out behaviors we learned from our parents. It requires a conscious awareness to know what behaviors we want to leave in the past, and which we pass on to our children. We need to have deep compassion for our parents and then forgive them, to stop repeating generational patterns. Stopping the cycle entails awareness, healing of our past hurts, and then the reparenting of ourselves to become the loving parent we never had. Abuse continues because the victim never heals. The victim either becomes the abuser or internalizes the abuse. Often, people do no