What Are Generational Cycles?

What are generational cycles?

They are behaviors, patterns, beliefs, etc. that get passed down from generation to generation; can be positive/helpful and negative/unhelpful; and are most often done unconsciously or automatically.

Examples can include:

-Greeting your child with a big hug when they walk in the door, as your parents may have done.

-Carrying on happy traditions, such as baking holiday cookies or going trick-or-treating together.

-Taking nostalgic family trips, such as going on road trips, like you did as a child.

Examples can also include:

-Sending your child to their room to feel their big feelings, as your parents did, because your child's emotions feel intolerable. Even though feeling your emotions alone as a child was devastating for you.

-Telling your child to “stop crying”, as you may have been told, because tears caused discomfort.

-Yelling at your child for ‘bad’ behaviors, rather than trying to understand why the behavior is occurring, because your parents prioritized obedience over respect.

If you recognize yourself in the latter set of examples, I want to gently encourage you to have compassion for yourself. Generational cycles are often repeated unconsciously, and you can only know what was modeled for you by the adults in your life when you were a child.

But guess what? We can make positive changes right now, this minute. We can start to identify the unhelpful patterns in past generations, and create new ways of responding to our children, as well as to our own thoughts and emotions. How, you might ask? Stay tuned for tomorrow.