A Daily Dose

I am not quite sure why the word "drawback" is used in trying to reverse or change a family relational pattern while growing up, because it can be a very positive learning experience. For example, my father both smoked and drank excessively when I was a child. When my parents got divorced, I did not have to be around his smoking as often. However, when I was around him and he was smoking, I encouraged him to quit, sometimes even throwing away or damaging his cigarettes. After two years of badgering him, he finally quit. He has not smoked in 4 or 5 years, and he has been healthier and more active. As a result - along with the constant burden my grandmother faces from lung disease - I have convinced myself that I will never smoke in my lifetime. Period. I'm not sure how me not smoking is considered a drawback in my life, because I believe me learning from my family's experiences has contributed to my life in a positive fashion.

So, I must ask, how is that a challenge? Being offered cigarettes, pot, or whatever else one may smoke may seem like a hard thing to ignore. However, if you know yourself well enough and have a strong enough will power you may easily, without a doubt, find yourself striving for improvement and the betterment of yourself.

If the drawback is referring to what problems my father and grandmother have faced, then I would strongly consider smoking cigarettes to be a drawback in their lives. It has prevented them from living normal lives - my father from his passion for running and my grandmother from leaving her house for more than 3 hours due to her constant need of pure oxygen. Smoking has definitely been a drawback in both my father and grandmother's lives.

Great question, Matt. One thought I have is that a drawback to a positive change might include the continuation of an underlying dynamic (Lerner uses the term the "emotional field" which we tend to miss when narrowly focused on behaviors). For example, people often drink or smoke as a way to self-medicate or self-soothe, especially when feeling anxious. So, smoking or drinking may be a functional way (think of it as second-best) of calming down and avoiding something worse (e.g. child abuse, self-inflicted cutting, etc.). In that sense, ending a person's behavior might not be recommended until they identify what emotions are driving the behaviors or until they develop skills to self-soothe some other way.

Now, this isn't always the case as you story seems to illustrate, but it's another perspective when considering the implications of changing ourselves.

As a child you are so easily influenced by adults and other people you look up to. It a time in your life when u are most easily molded. We saw in The Dance of Intimatacy how easily out anxiety created during childhood can cause problems in future relationships and the only real way to fix the present relationgship is to figure out where the anxiety began and attacking that problem first. Obviously it's hard to change something that you have been doing form childhood. " Old habits die hard". One drawback is one can enter a cycle of worrying about their past issues causing more anxiety. Another challenge when it comes to changing yourself is the fact that you may change how your relationships fuction and how your partner reacts to you and your changing personality. A lot of honesty and self reflection will be needed to make this change successful.

I believe that anxiety is the number one issue in all relationships. Anxiety can cause so many problems. From drinking to the point of becoming an alcoholic to becoming a chain-smoker. No matter who you are, you are in some way, shape or form affected by anxiety. To tell someone that they need to change is eccentric. It's like telling a fish to grow fur. A person may be able to change thier ways for awhile but will soon change back to their old habits. You can't change a person or a persons character. Especially if those the person's personality or behavior was shaped when they were a young child. These behaviors will ultimately affect their future relationships. A draw back could be a person being neglected when they were a child and now neglect their children or they keep themselves distant from other people. This sort of behavior would only cause problems for future relationships that the person may have. The only way for these draw backs to be reversed is for the person to admit to having the draw backs and wanting to change them and their ways. You won't be able to change unless you want it.

The greatest challenge I found in trying to change in some way, my family’s distant relational pattern, was that not everyone acknowledged our lack of communication as a problem; or if they did, had not wanted to implement the necessary sacrifices on their part, to see any long-lasting results. My parents, who came from an old-fashioned Russian background, grew up not being able to communicate with their parents about anything personal, other than information about where they were going that day, and when they would be back. To my parents, this amount of conversation with their children was enough, and when I mentioned that I felt distant from them because of this, they would get angry and deny our way of relating to one another, as the source of my disdain. These talks, or rather arguments, would only leave all of us more frustrated, and feeling more distant that before, because no real change had occurred.

There's usually more to the problem. My dad has a drinking problem that he'll probably never admit to. I've said many a times growing up that I would never drink because of him and most of my dad's side of the family. I still find myself drinking every now and then and I'm constantly wondering what will happen down the road? This is a problem I myself will never be able to fix till I confront my dad about it. It's better said then done. Here in lies the challenge for most people and often the Catch-22. However I realize I can't fix myself till I get other things off my chest and let others go. It's hard to stand up to the people you love because you don't want to hurt them and you don't want them to react negatively to you.

I grew up as an only child living with my mom and step-dad during the week and seeing my dad every other weekend and then I though that was the worst situation in the world. I wanted my parents to be married and vowed then as a child to never separate my family or get a divorce but I think now reflecting back on that attitude it gave me more anxiety in dating when I became a teenager and continues to happen today. I think if you put too much pressure on yourself to say change will happen no matter what you will make your self upset and focus too much, in my case on keeping a relationship and thinking it has to last forever, when really I have time, there is no need to worry right now. If you want change, you have to be more relaxed about it and let it come without forcing it.

There definitely can be drawbacks to trying to reverse a family relational pattern experienced growing up. If you grew up with family members who drank a lot and you decide that you will never drink, there are complications that arise. If you don't allow alcohol in your house and forbid your children from drinking, I think they will be more likely to start drinking just to spite you. I have pretty lenient parents who trust me to make my own decisions. I'm allowed to drink and never had a curfew and it's because I wasn't given strict rules that I never got into trouble. I guess this wouldn't work for all kids, but it did for me. Another example from my life comes from my parents. They had very hard childhoods with absent parents. They both pretty much raised themselves. Because of their negative experiences as children, my parents have vowed to always put us kids first. I have extremely attentive and supportive parents. They are more my friends than parental figures. But, I can see a drawback to this. Because my parents never let me down growing up and they always put me first, it has made it extremely difficult for me to accept the fact that my dad is having internal struggles and is letting our family down. It just makes the times when my parents aren't as "strong" really hard to handle.

I really don’t see it as a challenge. I see it as an advantage to becoming a better person. My parents were divorced before I turned one years old and so I grew up traveling back and forth between the two parents. Each place was a total different environment and I grew to love my dads way of living and to hate my mothers. We ate dinner all together at dads and my at my moms everyone was scattered, eating by themselves and my mom in the living room forbidding us to follow her. My dad took time out of his busy schedule to play a game of catch or to read me a book whereas my mom always pushed me away. My dad was always proud of me, praising me for everything I succeeded in, whereas my mom never seemed to be satisfied, and never approachable. It was as though I was never good enough.

This has made me discover what I like and what I dislike when it comes to family and I have learned that I want to be like my dad and have a lifestyle like his. I realize what I want and what I don’t want. And it has made me become a very driven person. I have become totally opposite of my mother only because I saw and felt what its like to be that way and how suffocating it can be.

So I guess what Im trying to prove is that there are no drawbacks when trying to change family relationships. You learn what you like and what you dislike and if you get stuck in a hole you can always climb back out. You just need to know what you want. But Im not saying it is easy. It has taken me a long time to discover whats underneath and Im still trying to change certain family patterns that effect my daily life. So Im not quite where I want to be.

I think it can be a drawback to be so set on an idea that one can not see the other side of this issue.

For instance, my father began smoking when he was a fourth grader, and didn't quit until his 63rd birthday. Needless to say, i HATE smoking. I think it should be illegalized, it made me cry myself to sleep when i knew my dad was smoking cancer sticks secretly in the garage. I tried throwing away his cigarrettes, hiding his lighter, anything to make him stop. But it took his doctor telling him he was dying to finally quit.

After he quit I began working in a bar, in Dakota County, where smoking is still allowed in public. Needless to say, almost every employee was a smoker. I was at first disgusted by this. Every person I met was either a good or bad person, or a non-smoker or smoker.
But after working at that bar for a year and a half and getting to know my fellow employees better, i don't HATE smokers as I did before. I would never smoke myself, but I can at least accept others. I hurt people's feelings by judging them based on a habit that doesn't really affect what kind of person they are. For that reason, being very stubborn about trying to change problems can be bad, and can close someone off to good things that appear to be sinister. Sweeping generalizations never help anyone grow into a better person.

I think that the challenge is social acceptance issue. I think a lot of times with family changes, such as the alcohol example, the person who would choose to obstain from alcohol would feel like he wouldn't be as accepted in the family. He would feel left out of many family events, simply because he chose not to drink. This probably happens in many instances. And most likely in some family instances one might feel as though they're breaking traditions, sometimes people get used to doing stuff just one way, and are never open minded about changing there ways. Some people think if they found something that works good "enough" for them then why go through the troubles of change.

A person who is building self confidence to get over shyness could have had a hard time doing so. If he has done it already but caught in a situation where he tends to get shy again, it would be easier for him to show some self confidence because he has done it already. He just need to get motivated.

When we decide to have a change, we must stand by that decision. Though we still sometimes get back to what we used to, we just need to motivate ourselves to change. In building self confidence for example, it helps us to overcome shyness everytime we are in that same old situation where we couldn't get into an effective conversation.

They need to develop their conversation skills so that they can handle their conversations even if they feel shy.

With their conversation skills, they can overcome their shyness. Once they can handle the conversation, their shyness will tend to wear off.

I think people who grow up in such family tradition would follow the tradition and hard to leave it

I think one key to succeed in making a change is to get positive and motivated. It could really be hard since they're used to the old ways. But if they are really eager to change, they should be positive about it for them to be successful.

Excellent comments.