I saw a post on Instagram in honor of Mother’s Day. It was a husband honoring his wife for being in tune with the needs of people around her, especially their children and how by doing so, she was raising their girls to be emotionally healthy individuals. Prior to that I saw another post from a highschool friend of mine, honoring his wife. It was not lengthy in words but the caption however short, was insightful. It read: “A mother is always the beginning. She is the beginning of how things begin”. These words made me think long and hard about my own journey of bettering myself and how it was not about me but about the legacy I wanted to leave to the generation after me.
I have had many days lately where the work to better myself felt heavy on my best days and hopeless on the worst ones. Heavy because it is a burden that is heavy to carry: the undoing of things that started before me that I inherited; the breaking of curses that go back to generation before me. Hopeless because sometimes it feels like all the odds are stacked against me; hopeless because the breakthroughs are expensive and demand that I live on borrowed hope that, although available through Christ, doesn’t always feel tangible. The work of bettering one self is hard. It requires sacrifice and commitment. A commitment to go high when people go low and there are days where I want to go all the way down in the mud because although I am saved (praise God!) and on a journey, the thug in me is always whispering to me “start a riot”. It is a battle between my higher self, the person I aspire to be and my old self, the one that was created as a result of generational trauma, brokenness and let's be honest, my very own not-so-smart life choices. Although it is tempting at times to want to give in mainly because of how people sometimes come to me and/or at me, I have to train and remind myself daily that the work that I am doing is not only for me, but also for generations to come. During my most recent session with my therapist, I remember telling her : “I am terrified of being a mother because I would hate to be the reason why my children have to one day sit on a therapist's couch, trying to undo the damage I would have done to them”. My therapist responded by saying [something along the lines of] the fact that I am putting in the work now having that in mind, if anything else, is one of the reasons (along many others) why she could picture me as being anything but a bad mother. Those words brought me comfort because I then realized that I was doing something well. Or at least I am trying to.
How does all of this relate to the two things Instagram posts stories that I shared at the beginning of this article? Well, it brings forth the idea that being a mother (a parent) starts before kids get here. It starts with the choices we make everyday that shape our life, our character and directly influences the way our children live their life and who they grow up to be. Now there are limitations to this as, ultimately, children grow and are responsible for making their own choices and creating their own paths. However, they are more likely to mimic what they grew up seeing and will tend to recreate the environments we put them in while growing up. Although they will question and might at time reject some of the beliefs/ ideologies we expose them to as they grow up, think for themselves and make sense of them, they will most likely hold on to the ones that have positively impacted the lives of their parents and theirs.
Although this post is in honor of the mothers who are taking care of business, handling their business and undoing the cycles they grew up in so their children can do better, it is also a post to encourage those who are on a journey to do better (mother or not, men AND women). This post is for those who are breaking generational curses and making changes today that will impact generations tomorrow: I see you. I am proud of you. I am rooting for you. And if you are in a place where the going is getting tough, I hope this article gives you the borrowed hope that you need to keep going. You’ve come too far to give up right now. And I know this is hard right now but one day, as you look back and reflect on how far you’ve come, you will realize that your journey was worth everything you are sacrificing now. We’re in this together and we’ll make it.
Until next time,
