You’re filling in a form at the doctors office or at the physio. You come across the question: which of the following health conditions run in your family?
It is familiar to us that addictions, abuse or health issues can run in a family. Character traits also run in the family. Traits like hospitality and generosity or anger and being stubborn might be a common factor in several family members.
When we think of dealing with family issues, we often focus on the negative traits. But we can also look for the good ones.
Exploring family traits can make us more aware of our tendencies, give us opportunities to develop an area of strength that we might not have recognised before and give us the chance to deal with long term issues.
We don’t always know our stories. Recently I went on a trip with my mother and sister to search out places where our ancestors lived. We didn’t always connect with people, sometimes we just saw what the place was like and imagined what it might be like to live there. In some places we heard family stories, and we discovered traits that we didn’t know about.
We were travelling with intention. We chose to deal with the issues that we stumbled upon and consciously take up the positive traits that we hadn’t known about previously.
What stories do you have in your family? Is there an infamous moment that gets repeated or a funny story about someone that keeps coming up? Take notice of those stories. What are the character traits in the story? Do you share that character trait? Is it a trait that you want to continue?
If you don’t know your history, what are the stories that come up about you? What can you learn from them?
I am grateful that one particular line of the family was known for their administrative ability. One way that plays out in my life is that I can do maths with relative ease.
My nana used to bake and had her tins full for whenever anybody popped in. As a result, people popped in often – they knew that they’d have great conversation and something delicious with their cup of tea. Her hospitality was legendary. Interestingly, I learnt to bake when I was young, but didn’t learn to make meals until later. Perhaps I should pin that on nana.
Our family has always been generous; generous in different ways mind you. Nana was generous with her produce and baking, others are generous in different ways. I have observed that there are multiple ways for a trait to play out. Just because someone displays it differently to you doesn’t mean that they don’t have that trait. Look for it more broadly and see what you notice. You might not recognise a trait immediately because it’s different from how you imagine it.
For example, when the kids were young, I learnt that there are two kinds of patience. I was patient for the big things, just quietly confident that things will come together in time. My husband was patient for the here and now. When the kids were demanding, he had patience to come alongside them, change the atmosphere and deal with their immediate need.
Those are the traits that we want to continue, we can be thankful for those.
But what if you see something you don’t want to continue?
Just because something runs in the family doesn’t mean that you are doomed to repeat it. If you see something that you want to change, you can. Just identifying it is a significant step in the right direction. Once you know that thing is there, you can make a plan to deal with it. Depending on what it is, you may need to get help. If it’s manageable it might mean learning a new habit or way of doing things, perhaps it’s purposely putting yourself in situations where you meet people different to you and observe different patterns of behaviour.
The downside of this is that as humans, we tend to keep doing what we’ve always done until some major catastrophe comes along that finally snaps us out of our comfort zone enough to actually make a change.
You don’t actually have to wait for a catastrophe, you can notice your tendencies and start to work on them intentionally.
One thing that might help is to figure out the positive opposite of your trait. For example, someone who is bossy might just be a person who pays attention to details. I’ve mentioned before; the friend who encouraged me that she saw me as persevering – others saw it as stubborn.
Modifying a positive trait is easier to handle than trying to stop a negative one.
Often when we work toward change, we slip back into old habits – be kind to yourself: depending on the trait, it might be a long process. It might be a spiral of gradual improvement – making one small change, making mistakes, but continuing to walk the path.
Sometimes it takes a spiritual change. If you’ve been working on something over and over and that thing doesn’t budge, it may have a spiritual root. Finding out what that root is and dealing with it could be the key to sustaining change.
For example: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” 1 John 4:18
If you have an issue with fear or worry there may be a root cause of conditional love: being loved only when you perform well enough or toe the line; expecting love to be withheld if you fail to meet expectations, trying to gain someone’s approval. That’s pretty common.
It is possible to get to know your creator; the one who made you as you are and who loves you. Discovering the depth of love that God lavishes towards you is a powerful reality. Suddenly, the fact that people fail doesn’t matter as much. You can rest securely knowing that you are loved.
I don’t pretend that change is immediate nor easy. But it is possible. We know that change is a constant in our world. So much of it happens outside of our control. But there is some change that is actually within our capability, we can choose to act.
Exploring family traits can make us more aware of our tendencies, give us opportunities to develop an area of strength and give us the chance to deal with long term issues.
So next time a family story comes to mind or gets retold for a laugh, think about the traits it displays – what traits can you be thankful for and invest in and what traits could you deal with?
Being proactive on this sort of thing is life changing. We often take our medical check-ups seriously and leave the character traits to chance. Growing with intention is possible. I hope that you notice things now through reading this blog that you didn’t see before. You are on the journey, be encouraged.
