How to Move Forward When How You Were Raised Conflicts With Your Current Values

Episode #17: How to Move Forward When How You Were Raised Conflicts with Your Current Values

Dr. Prianca shares how she once worked with a client suffering from an abusive marriage, only to slowly work their way into realizing that the real issue is with the client's dysfunctional upbringing. Ultimately, she explains how one can normalize going against taboos, beliefs, and programming that make life miserable.

What you will learn:

• How you were raised can impact you more than you think

• Awareness is the first step to breaking negative cycles

• How to forge your own way

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[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:]

Indian people never get divorced. That felt like a fact I grew up knowing. What I also grew up knowing was that a lot of my aunties and uncles were trapped in unhappy marriages. Openly miserable. Unhappy and constantly gossiping about other people's lives. Being competitive, trying to one up each other with a better house or fancier car. Or whose kid could get into the best college.

Personal growth and development. Mental health. Questioning how they were raised. This wasn't in the mix at all.

Mental health as I knew it was my father saying "you must PRODUCE" regardless of my effort.

What I knew as normal: most people had arranged marriages. They were unhappy and made it work. Made it work. That's funny right. What works for each person is different for him or her. But a lot of what worked for them doesn't work for us. Because we aren't in india.

Many of us are born and raised here. The internet exists. Lots of free-flowing information. Striving to do better than our parents as they did too.

Mental health is more acceptable to discuss as physician suicide is on the rise. Maybe something needs to change.

Today I want to talk about how you might be raised. And how that may impact you a lot more deeply than you think.

I am going to give an example of a southasian client of mine. An attorney.

She was never good enough always messing up in her parents' eyes. Nothing she did was good enough. When she got into a top 14 law school that was finally good. She "made it". When it came time to get married they wanted her to marry someone from a good family and good on paper.

She meet a handsome, charming, Indian doctor. Her parents were thrilled. She was finally doing the "right thing"

Once she married him, things got ugly on the inside. He would have fits and abuse her about the dishes not being done correctly. He was unpredictable. He would punch holes in walls. One time he hit her. She would gtell her mother about these issues because she was too ashamed to discuss them with her friends. She was afraid her friends would tell her to divorce him. Her mother would reply that "everyone has problems in their marriages." Because divorce wasn't an option.

It wasn't until coaching with me, getting clear on her vision, understanding that she had been programmed a certain way that she realized how dysfunctional her home was. Her mom often abused her father so this behavior was normalized for her. What she realized with coaching though was that she didn't want to model this for her children.

She would often beat herself up about being "stupid" enough to marry such a person when there were early red flags. After she started working with me, she learned her to be gentle with herself and to give herself compassion. To acknowledge that she was programmed from a young age to 1) think abuse and dysfunction normal and 2) to marry an Indian doctor/someone good on paper 3)to make marriage work no matter what because that's all she ever observed.

As I often talk about…awareness… that's the key. The first step in changing, breaking free from the cycles and negative patterns to which you are accustomed.

She was able to heal herself, forgive her past self, like we talked about on last week's episode, for overlooking red flags to do what she thought was the right thing. To make her parents proud.

In south Asian families, gaining our parents' approval is huge. From going to a good college, getting a higher degree, being successful, and marrying "the right" and I say that with air quotes person.

This programming is deep. It can cloud us from what we actually want. Because living for other people, including our own parents, will never make us happy. What will make us happy is living a life that aligns with our own values.

Our values can be partially ours and the good ones we want to carry on from our parents.

There are also things we don't want to carry forward.

Back to my client: once she realized how dysfunctional her house was with abuse. She got clarity on whether this was acceptable to her regardless of what other people or her parents thought. Life eventually became unlivable for her. (probably because abuse tends to escalate over time).

She created boundaries and decided abuse wasn't acceptable to her. When her perfect on paper husband continued to abuse her, she realized nothing was going to change. She had changed. What was acceptable to her at the start of their marriage no longer was. She came to a decision. It was time for the marriage to end. Even though she had been taught that you don't get a divorce EVER. Even when her father told her she was setting a bad example for her children. Even though she was ashamed for her family to think she had failed or that her seemingly perfect life was so imperfect. The jig was up. And she was okay with that. She learned to do what was right for her. Separate from her southasian upbringing. She was paving her own way. Coaching helped her to gain the clarity she needed, to live a life aligning with HER values, to make clean decisions without spinning in confusion about what others do and think. She found herself confident, free, and at peace.

She also learned that no one else really cared as much about her own life as she did. No one understood her day to day issues.

She had to decide what worked for her and ultimately she realized divorce would never be okay by her. Because she was brought up to never get one. When she filed, she told me, she was so unhappy. She struggled with how doing the right thing hurting so much was counterintuitive.

Sometimes our programming from a young age dictates our decisions as adults. Of course, we allow this. If we are able to acknowledge how we were programmed and make an active decision as to whether or not we want to subscribe to that particular programming, we can empower ourselves and take hold of our lives.

If you, like my client, know in your gut your marriage for example is dysfunctional, that things aren't going to change and the right thing is to leave but you can't bring yourself to make a move. You feel stuck and paralyzed. Remember to give yourself grace, remove your self-judgment, follow your instinct, know you may not enjoy every right decision, know you can always change your mind, and do the hard things with self-love.

Please be patient with yourself when making big scary daunting decisions. Trust yourself that you will find your way. We have a chance to do things better than the previous generations, break cycles of trauma.