Cutting With Family And Social Mandates Is Also Healthy

Cutting with the strong family and social mandates is also healthy. Because those codes and covert obligations make us captives of an unelected plan of life. However, sometimes, it is better to be the black sheep than a character invented by that false perfection that defines some families.

All of us, in some way, have been captives of that invisible web woven by family mandates, inherited many times from generation to generation. They rise as an invisible consciousness, as the soul of a legacy where there are certain things that one must accept without question. In fact, we do so during our childhood. Until suddenly something awakens in us. We get tired of being hostages of those admonitory glances, of those expectations inscribed in the family bond.

Each family is like a clan. It is a dynamic and tremendously complex dimension where an emotional legacy, a past, some beliefs, some repressions and of course, some mandates are integrated. Viktor Frankl, famous Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, wrote in his book “The Doctor and the Soul” that the only thing worse than suffering is that the suffering itself goes away without witnesses. Hence the value of the family as the first circle of remembrance, as heir to that legacy.

This idea is true, however, if that suffering is wrapped with resentment, we can conceive a bad legacy. Because most likely it will generate distrust as its main mandate.

We suggest you reflect on it.

The unconscious commands that shape us every day

A command is more than an implicit obligation to go to lunch every Sunday with our parents. We speak first of all about those  thought patterns that build, brick by brick, a large part of our emotional castle. It is part of that psychogenealogy that often acts as an authentic vettor of the vital impulse of growth.

Phrases such as “I can’t be wrong”, “I must control my emotions”, “people must be mistrusted” or “if they don’t agree with me, it is because they don’t love me”, define that mark. Because we believe it or not, the imprint of each of these intergenerational mandates is inscribed with hammer and chisel in the depths of our personality.

Cognitive psychology is one of the best approaches to understanding this delicate web. The most significant and determining beliefs are acquired in childhood from relationships with our family. Now, in turn, there is an even more complex concept. Authors like Aaron Beck remind us that part of these schemes have a genetic component. 

According to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, our DNA transmits information from experiences of stress and fear inherited from generation to generation. The Mount Sinai Hospital also talks about this same aspect: the weight of epigenetic inheritance and its influence on the genes of the children.

Now, we have to be clear about one aspect. Genetic predisposition does not determine our personality, it only predisposes us. However, if the continuity of mandates, values, guidelines and dictates is added to the weight of genes, a continuous cycle of reciprocal reinforcement can undoubtedly be established.

Keys to cutting family mandates

We have to understand that family mandates are like a contract that we have not signed. We can take them on if they enrich us personally and emotionally, or we can simply not sign them. Don’t assume them.

• A mandate is a constellation of verbal and non-verbal codes that we must know how to decode. We ourselves integrate many thought patterns that need to be questioned. The revolution to bring about this liberation must start with ourselves. Reflecting on what has been transmitted to us is an act of introspection that will help us detect what is imposed by our environment.

• Delve into your intellectual contracts. Ideas like “I’m clumsy” or “I mustn’t let you down” are like the “irrational ideas” that Albert Ellis described to us. They are the roots of dysfunctional emotions that we have to correct. Ask yourself where your ideas, thoughts and ideals come from. Why do I think this is so? Where does this come from? Why do I have a specific ideology?  We will be greatly surprised to realize that many times we do not have an answer and we end up realizing that they are ideas imposed from a young age.

• It begins to question those common phrases that are heard in many families. Expressions such as  ” that couple does not suit you”, “in this house we are all from such a political party, such a religion, such a sports team” or “studying that is a waste of time, doing the other is silly …”  They are codes to invalidate, to begin to tear down in our mind. As mentioned in the previous point. Ask yourself where your thoughts come from. Why am I on this team? Why do I defend one thought and not another?

• Being family does not imply a devoted loyalty, just by sharing the same blood.  Not if they impose a destiny on us. Not if being oneself has consequences and never if those dynamics subject us to a kind of infinite cycle of unhappiness. As we form our conception of the world we can move away from those ideas that have predominated in the family. How many times have we defended a family member but then privately told him that he was wrong?

Sometimes challenging and breaking the commands of the extended family is much more than an obligation: it is a necessity. It is the right and the duty to reaffirm one’s personal integrity so that our identity is not compromised. Thus, we will move away from being that articulated doll that others invent and over which they pretend to have control.

Images courtesy Sara Riches