We as humans and individuals of unique skills and talents are always aiming to know ourselves better. For the most part, we are born into a family and raised by adults/parents that take care of us, feed us, educate us, and help us grow to be productive members of society. Our parents/guardians raised us using their ideas, theories, and concepts and with time and environment engraining these thoughts, theories, concepts, and ideas within us. As we grow up we are introduced to others that don’t feel as we do and in the beginning we don’t understand it, we might even laugh it off because it’s so far out of our realm of thought. Once we get through school and move out on our own, we begin to see more of life and we come into contact with more conflicting thoughts, ideas, concepts, and theories from how we were raised. For some, over time you begin to develop your own thoughts and ideas and options and discard some of your family’s. For some, they try and stick to their family’s thoughts no matter how much they internally argue or avoid the critical truth. I have some clients that do not want to be anything like their parents. I’m sure we’ve all heard others speak about not wanting to be like their parents and they tend to turn out similarly.
It’s not about being like your parents; it’s about you being you. In order to be you, you must find out who you are. In order to be you, you must make up your own mind, create your own thoughts based upon your own theories, and develop your life concepts with individual thought. For the most part, absent from extreme childhood conditions, you were raised with many good ideas and concepts and you just have to make them yours. Example: Your parents adhere to a certain belief structure and raised you with that structure. Why do you believe in that specific belief structure? Do you go to church to go through the motions or do you know why you are there? Do you clearly understand the faith/belief structure and does that particular faith/belief structure speak to you and does it embody all that you believe? Or do you follow that particular faith/belief structure because you were brought up in it and don’t know any different? When a client begins questioning believes that were family engrained, I begin by suggesting for them to begin a personal search and inventory. Instead of throwing everything away and going a completely different direction, I advice checking out alternatives, doing personal homework, and then making clear thought out decisions. If you were raised within a certain belief structure, and up until now you followed it without question and now you are having questions, you must search for your true answers. The answers you get may bring you back to where you already were and that’s good too, now you know you made that decision based on your search not because you were born into the belief, faith, and/or concept.
These questions can be extrapolated and asked about any subject with regards to how you were raised and how you live now. In order to be you, you need to make choices based on your ideas and thoughts not based on other’s interpretation. Getting to know your self and taking the time to develop our own and true beliefs, ideas, options, and concepts creates a thoughtful, independent, honest, and wise human being. Continue on your life journey creating your personal philosophy that defines your life mantra.
