Leaving The Baggage of the Past Behind: Part Four
Surviving College and Beyond
Leaving The Baggage of the Past Behind
Lots of folks grew up in unsafe, risky, messy, and dysfunctional homes devoid of parental guidance and love. Those who spent their childhood in homes where stealing, lying, screaming, abuse, chaos, and sexual behavior without boundaries end up being prone to adapting a similar life style in their lives and future homes. Teen mothers will beget teen daughters and sons who in turn will become teen parents, and as the saying goes: “hurting people hurt people.”
But whatever your home environment was; good or bad, and whoever influenced your early walk of life, you don’t have to follow a path set for you by someone else.
We don’t have to travel on a road that’s messy, wrong, destructive, and detrimental to our earthly journey. You and I have a choice to either hand- deliver a messy and ugly past legacy, handed to us by others, to our children, friends, and strangers, or better off to choose to reject and end any depressing and sorry legacy passed unto us.
“The Buck stops here”
To stop such a sad legacy we all must be resolute that the “buck stops here”. That simply means that a mothers’ or father’s unfortunate raging anger or any form of abusiveness directed once at you won’t be passed by you unto others. This is because you will no longer agree to hold on to a cursed baton that has been passed by someone or by a horrible life experience to you. It means that any emotionally detestable legacy of a mom’, a dad’s, or someone’s painful rejection or abuse, non caring, selfishness, or aloofness will fade and gradually die when you leave home.
You and I can begin a new dawn in our life journey as we close the pages of an old painful chapter of the book of our lives, and start a new one. It also means that you will no longer blame, judge, sentence and hold any one in your past, present, or future responsible for your choices of thoughts, emotions, and actions for “the buck stops here.”
Taking responsibility for your words and deeds and pursuing help and healing for any of your hurts and damaged emotions from a toxic legacy is the foundational step needed to let that legacy disappear and die.
And friend, that is what’s needed to prevent the mess that was once passed to you from being passed by you unto others, and to all of your future generation.
We can all make this life transforming choice of not passing such a sad and destructive legacy to our college life, friends, roommates, loved ones, work, and future homes. The final choice is ours; to pass a curse or a good measure of grace and love to our loved ones and into others.
And just like we all must choose to no longer hold on to the bad and toxic mess that was passed unto us, we all must alternatively choose to replace a wrong and harmful legacy we inherited with a new one made up of forgiveness, faith, hope, and love.
A life filled with forgiveness, joy, grace, peace, hope, faith and love is indeed a fulfilling one. It’s a better life that’s purposeful, full, and worthy of living and passing it on to those around us.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
Advice and recommendations offered here are not meant to replace your medical provider’s individual evaluation, diagnosis and treatment. Please see your medical provider for any physical or emotional concerns.
The views expressed here are only of the author and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity.
Adel G. Hanna, M.D.
Author: Soldier to Soldier, Heart to Heart
A Doctor’s Stories from a Military Camp
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