Want to be well? Own it.

It can be tough acknowledging harms from one’s family of origin. It can lead to defensive posturing, extolling only the virtues of one’s past.

So doing, one omits the challenges and sometimes untoward behavior that occurred that also shape and influence one’s own adult behavior and life.

There may be truth to one’s positive memories despite the bad. One doesn’t have to be forsaken for the other. One doesn’t have to deny the bad to protect the good.

Both memories and experiences can be true simultaneously.

It is important to acknowledge both, for both have informed who you are, how you see the world and how you act in relationship to others.

Only by accepting the positive as well as the negative of one’s past can one truly understand who they are and what they brought to their own adulthood, their current family, their parenting of their children.

If you idolize your past and deny the harms, you are apt to repeat them and not take full responsibility.

Change requires being whole. Being whole requires us to identify all parts of our background and makeup.

We integrate our experiences, take responsibility and then may make better choices.

Own your past. All of it.

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I am Gary Direnfeld and I am a social worker. Check out all my services and then call me if you need help with a personal issue, mental health concern, child behavior or relationship, divorce or separation issue or even help growing your practice. I am available in person and by video conferencing.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

gary@yoursocialworker.com
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Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert in social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations and custody and access matters. Gary is the host of the TV reality show, Newlywed, Nearly Dead, former parenting columnist for the Hamilton Spectator and author of Marriage Rescue: Overcoming the ten deadly sins in failing relationships. Gary maintains a private practice in Georgina Ontario, providing a range of services for people in distress. He speaks at conferences and workshops throughout North America. He consults to mental health professionals as well as to mediators and collaborative law professionals about good practice as well as building their practice.