How To Accept The Wounds We Reject From Our Family?

Are you rejecting a side of your family?

Sometimes there is a person in our family that we just can’t stand being around. Maybe it’s not the person but several actions that they do that you might find extremely annoying. This week my therapist was explaining to me that when we hate or dislike something that much it can be because we are rejecting that side of ourselves. It can be hard to come to that conclusion but even harder to admit it.

For example, let’s say that my dad is a collector and that he enjoys buying things compulsively. He then buys me a whole collection of figurines. That is the way that he shows that he loves me. When rejecting that part of my family (or of myself), I would say thank you and then complain to my mom about how he wastes money. Or why he buys a lot of things. If we look at it deeper we can see that I was rejecting that side of myself that is emotionally attached to the material things. If we look even deeper we can come to the conclusion that I am scared of opening up to my dad’s love. That is because of childhood trauma, just like he is afraid for the same reasons. That is why he has a hard time showing love otherwise.

How to figure out rejection?

To find the root of this problem or just find if you are rejecting a part of the family’s emotional heritage we need to take several steps. It is important to first look at the relationship you have or had with close family members. Study the main emotions you have towards them. We then need to look at your triggers when you are with your family. By triggers, I mean when strong emotions are provoked by small actions of family members. Such as the way they talk, how they walk, or things that sometimes they can’t control. Maybe the trigger is not something as obvious. It could be that they just asked you to pick up the plates.

My trigger was that a family member wanted to take a trip with me. Even though the trip was only 2 days I started crying uncontrollably about missing my room and privacy.  It was an unexplainable reaction because this trip was intended for me to get some paperwork settled. Looking deeper I was afraid to spend time with this person. I didn’t want to open up emotionally to that side of my family that I had been disconnected from.  

How do you see it in yourself?

When you find out your trigger it is now important to relate it to ourselves. As many people say, what you hate in others is what you dislike about yourself as well. For example, we might hate that a certain parent is funny and makes jokes with our friends. This might be because we fear that we can’t make our friends laugh. So we might hate that our parents are funny when in reality what we have is general insecurity for not being liked. 

Sometimes it can be rough to be this critic of yourself and analyze deeply what we feel. It can feel really lonely and sometimes trying and devastating to do it. If you want a tip, journaling is awesome for this type of personal exploration. It feels more private because you are hiding those feelings and thoughts in a certain way. With journaling, you let them out of your head and when writing it down it becomes easier to come to conclusions. 

How can you integrate it instead of rejecting it?

It is important that once we realize how we feel to integrate it. It can be great to start by making amends to those that were in a way damaged by our emotional reactions to the triggers. We need to start looking at that trigger with love and compassion so we can accept it. This is the next step, acceptance, we need to look at that side of ourselves and acknowledge that it was created as a defense mechanism for something else.

We should thank that side of ourselves for protecting us when we needed it as a child and then telling it that we got it from here. Telling that side that they no longer need to protect us from an (irrational) fear of a hypothetical event. To integrate this is to know that we are adults and that we can now handle these overwhelming emotions from a mature side without judging our past selves.