Have you ever thought of going back to school to get a Ph.D. in an exotic area, such as Integral Psychology? Chances are, someone in your immediate or extended family will suggest you don’t waste your time. If you are serious, you should get training in a lucrative field, such as data science.
Your family knows you better than most people, and they wish you well. Should you listen to them, or should you think for yourself?
Your Family Doesn’t Always Know What’s Best For You
While your parents are literally a part of you on a biological level, this is not so true on a psychological and spiritual level. The deeper you probe, you will find that you are a unique individual with your own sensibility, priorities and talents.
What's Holding Me Back Quiz
30 Second Quiz
You were born a generation later, and the world has dramatically changed. Just think how different things are since the Internet was commercialized 20 years ago.
Your parents and siblings have their own values and priorities, which may fit their world better than yours. When I was going to college, I had the privilege to do a Work / Study program in an educational institute.
My boss, Mildred (“Millie”) Henry, was a lady doing research around what constitutes a liberal education. She had interviewed coeds in a Boston girls college, while I transcribed and profiled them.
I learned that the whole point of going to college is to break away from parental influence and experience the world through different lenses. From a Jungian standpoint, we are each concerned with individuating ourselves, becoming our own unique person.
Universities allow a moratorium from the demands of a family and career. Millie explained to me that students were often either psychically foreclosed or situationally foreclosed. They may be closed off to both considering and acting on new life options.
The task of a liberal education is to get students to open up on both mindstyle and lifestyle. For example, you might change your religious persuasion in college.
You might go from studying architecture to enrolling in an aeronautics program to become an astronaut. If you, as a coed, are the same before and after college, your education was more or less a failure.
Your Family Wants to Realize Their Unfulfilled Dreams Through You
Even the best of parents can’t help but have many dreams that never materialize for them. Maybe the mother wanted to become a university professor, and the father wanted to go into business for himself.
When you were born, they gave up their ambitions with the hope that they could raise you in such a way as to achieve what they didn’t dare to do vicariously through you.
Years ago, around the time the first Star Wars film came out, The Turning Point was released, nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Shirley Maclaine plays the mother of Leslie Browne, a talented young lady in the Mid-West with high potential to be a ballerina.
Her godmother, played by Anne Bancroft, is the prima ballerina of a major ballet company in New York. Anne comes to town to visit her old friend and suggests her daughter try out for the summer in New York.
It turns out that Shirley had originally danced in the same company, but left it to get married and settle down in the Mid-West. Anne Bancroft had held out and made the supreme commitment to ballet, forgoing marriage and children.
Anne was at the top of her career and peaking, while Shirley’s daughter could be the next debutante. The daughter dates the stunning Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Shirley is afraid that her daughter will lose her one and only chance to become a star by marrying him.
In the film, both ladies let go of their attachment to determining the future for their daughter, Leslie wisely decides to maintain a professional relationship with Mikhail, rather than falling hopelessly in love.
Parents or no parents – as an adult (or young adult), you ARE in CHARGE of your own decisions in life. Once you choose your action, the consequences will follow and you are the one who will have to live with them... and learn from them.
The World Is Moving Far Too Fast to Let Anyone Hold You Back
Once upon a time, the world was stable enough for parents and grandparents to be in a strong position to decide their children’s future. They were the matchmakers, and took care of a young couple economically until they could get established.
In that civilization, age was equated with wisdom.
During the modern and post-modern civilizations, the world has undergone continuous, ever-escalating revolution. Middle-aged and senior people often tread water in a desperate attempt to keep up. Just think of the constant changes in your smart phone and table.
As William Wordsworth put it, “The Child is father of the Man.”
As children, it is our challenge to keep our parent’s informed. How can they possibly determine our future?
Your Family May Still Be Holding You Back Subconsciously
Chances are you have a cool family and your parents are liberal-minded, doing their best to accommodate your present values, vision and sensibility. Nevertheless, you may be dealing with buried childhood memories that are still shaping your thoughts and behavior in ways you could never even imagine.
Buried Childhood Memories
My late father was an angel to me and in many ways my best friend. However, he was permanently impacted by the experience of the Great Depression, and went around turning off all unused lights. It took him a decade to put himself through college, eating peanut butter, crackers and sardines!
My late mother was totally nurturing and accepting, definitely praising anything I did. My father’s greatest complement, out of his English heritage, was to withhold any criticism. He prided himself in being realistic, whereas my mother, out of her German heritage, championed vision.
I got my love of the English language from my father, but in matters of vision, I wish I had listened more to my mom.
We grow only when we take on new challenges (the outcome doesn’t matter … failure or success). If you have a vision or dream… go for it! Don’t let anyone talk you out of it. Sometimes our family members forget that every individual is unique… even though, we are genetically related.
You must remind them, that you are a unique soul with your own unique gifts, talents and desires. Remind them, that you need to pursue them… or else… you’ll never know and might end up being miserable. It’s your journey to travel and your destiny to fulfill!
Our family members can advise and educate us of possible “dangers” in life… after which, they must set us free… to make our own final decisions. They should allow us to bruise our knees in life… doesn’t matter how much they care and want to protect us. This is how we learn and evolve into solid, bold and conscious beings.
It Is Never Too Late to Re-envision Your Life
Whatever your age, whether single or married, going to school or long out of school, in a boring, thankless job or charged with an exciting career, you can envision a new life.
You are rare, indeed, if your childhood influences have not taken a toll on you. If you come from a happy family, all the better. But, statistically, this is not the case for most of us.
Not only can you create the relationship of your dreams, you can completely change your career and even get rich. Most important of all, you can find yourself and discover how you can change the world.
John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, Inc., left being President of Pepsico with an extremely lucrative package and a plush estate in Connecticut to go to work for a chancy startup on the West Coast.
His lure from Steve Jobs, “Do you want to sell soda water for the rest of your life, or would you like to change the world?”
Even if you are a senior citizen, the world needs your voice, your vision and your passion as never before. Despite terrorism, climate change and financial instability, there is more opportunity in our networked global society than ever. On the Internet, you can go viral in a positive way in just seconds, minutes and hours.
Related article: How Self-Acceptance Leads to Inner Peace
All the Support You Need Is Waiting For You
If you are like most of us, you want, need and crave support to make dramatic changes. Some of the most powerful assistance can come from within as you consciously seek to erase past conditioning, and look at the world afresh.
The simple quiz below could lead to some very interesting possibilities.
We look forward to hearing from you on your dreams and desires.
Is My Family Holding Me Back From Discovering Myself? appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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