If you come from an imperfect family (and who doesn’t?), then life coach Lauren Zander says that you are about to experience some enormous personal growth—if you accept one intriguing challenge. Your mission: To fact-check your family history.
Now, when we talk about family history in a health publication, usually we’re referring to medical history—but according to Zander, family medical history is just one aspect of what you need to know to promote your overall well-being. The family history she wants you to dig into are the stories…including the hushed-up secrets and the lies.
Here are the details you need to learn to discover how your family history is affecting the way you live your life…
Why go there? Because Zander is firm in her conviction that each of us has the ability and responsibility to “design” our own lives…and to do that well, you must know your roots. “You are an apple on the tree that is your family. The more you know about that tree, including the parts buried underground, the more awareness you can bring to who you are now and how you want to live going forward. Knowing your family’s true past helps you shape your future. You discover the steps to take to turn your own story into one you’ll enjoy and feel proud of,” she said.
This process can be a little scary, yes…but also positively exhilarating, like throwing open window after window on a beautiful day to let the air in.
How to start your family fact-checking…
Recognize that there’s always more to learn. Even if you are sure that you’ve heard every possible family story a dozen times already (Uncle Joe’s teenage antics! Mom’s first boyfriend who not only became a movie star but also came out of the closet!), there’s plenty more to discover, Zander said. Yes, you may need to sit through some retellings of already familiar tales. But if you really listen to what people are saying—and do some gentle but persistent prodding to get them to break out of their own often-repeated patterns—they may well reveal things you never knew.
What if people won’t open up? “Tell them that emotional history tends to repeat itself…and that you are researching your family history so you can learn from others’ mistakes. The more we open up in our lives, the more the past can be put in the past,” Zander said. “If a family member still doesn’t want to talk, you can interview people who are close to that person to hear what they say.”
Talk to everyone…ask questions about everyone. The stories that are most relevant to your life probably do concern your own parents, grandparents, siblings and/or children—but you also should try to learn a lot from and about your aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. You never know when a story from or about a more distant relative is going to shed light on a closer relative—and thus on you, too.
As you listen, look for patterns. Zander wants us to understand that everything we’ve lived with continues to shape us—and that’s most particularly true when it comes to our parents. “It’s undeniable that our parents’ traits live on in us. No, they’re not blueprints—you may consciously or unconsciously reproduce a certain trait or you may vehemently reject it. But either way, the familiar patterns of the past are part of you,” she said.
For example, suppose a man grew up with a father who was a very talented, passionate entrepreneur—but who rode a financial roller coaster, repeatedly making money and then losing it. The son, in contrast, embarks on a career that pays a reliable salary, though he has zero passion for that particular type of work. “The son needs to recognize that he and his father are both obsessed with money, though the obsession impacts their lives differently. The son did the opposite of what his father did, yet because his fear of financial insecurity guides his decisions in life, he’s miserable,” Zander said. “Once he sees that he has become a version of his father, he can search for a career he is passionate about and that also pays a good steady salary. That’s how he’ll find happiness and fulfillment.”
Go boldly, dig deeply. The biggest challenge in fact-checking your family history is to take your line of questioning into topics your family treats as taboo. Zander’s suggestion: Start your conversations with a known “safe” subject (marriage, habits, jobs, pranks, depending on the person) and gently probe toward its more sensitive side (illicit love affairs, addictions and compulsions, financial disasters, crimes). You may think that you don’t want to know this dark stuff—but every family has some, and the point is that you need to know it…because it will help you spot those patterns we mentioned earlier. For instance, learning that your grandmother died of cirrhosis (not liver cancer, as you had always been told) should push you to look harder at your own sometimes-excessive drinking.
Put judgment aside. The goal in learning as much as you can about your family is not to stir things up, but rather to understand yourself better while also growing closer to your loved ones. If you have a hard time listening without assigning blame for past mistakes, try to experience the stories as though you were watching a movie or reading a book, Zander suggested. In other words, bring a spirit of curiosity and exploration to your conversations, and make an effort not to take things too personally.
Remember, too, that history repeats itself. “Even with the awful, seemingly unforgivable stuff, it helps to keep in mind that that darkness came from somewhere. For instance, many people who verbally abuse others were themselves verbally abused as children. Understanding the bad things that happened before can help keep them from happening again,” Zander said. “If you keep in mind that most people do the best they can with the resources available to them at the time, you’ll be able to hear your family stories, not with censure, but with compassion.”
And the insights you’ll gain—both at the moment of revelation and later, after you have time to reflect—will be invaluable as you reshape your life according to your vision of the ideal.
