This blog has been born out of my own heartache, hardships, and my ability to find my thrive through the difficult situations that I had growing up. As well as the situations that my family life has most recently presented. I was a family member of a dysfunctional family growing up.

As I matured and found transformation in myself I learned a new value that is so important to me which is “experiencing SoulFUL Peace” I’m going to go into more detail about this but first let me give you context.

I grew up in a family environment that was ALWAYS fighting, we had no peace. In hindsight, I see benefits to experiencing what I did growing up.

My parents did not do any kind of work on themselves, they believe in God,  but they fault all the time and they never held what they believed and felt to the point where what they said was cruel. Truthfully my Dad survived it, my Mom was a huge cause of it. You see, my Mom had me when she was 20 years old. I’m 33 today. 

What I don’t regret:

I cannot imagine that I would have the skills, insight, and emotional development having a baby at 20, that I do today.

So with compassion…

I see what really happened in my upbringing as I’m far wiser than my mother was when most of the trauma happened to me in my childhood. My Father stepped in at one point and became the mother in my life, showing me compassion, listening, and love, as well as my father.  I will break it down to you in what I see as the pros and cons of the dynamic of my childhood growing up.

1. I love the values of Christianity they taught me:

The reason for this is that from a young age, I learned to be accountable for my wrongdoings. This happened in the form of praying every night and asking for forgiveness for my ‘sins” I can tell you as an adult I do pray but not in the manner that I did as a child, I also do not go to church but I see a huge lack of accountability in adults that were not taught these values. The ability to look at yourself at the end of the night and be accountable for your wrongdoings, then also go a step further and clean it up with God, the universe if that is what you believe in, and the actual human being that you hurt.

2. We were all allowed to express what we felt:

There were no boundaries to this and sometimes we could be hurtful but as an adult and my most recent experiences which I will express more about later in this blog. Being silenced and not being able to express yourself, is FAR worse… than being able to find and have your voice in your family dynamic. 

3. My Dad took the role of Mom and Dad:

He was all the emotional support I needed. He also taught me things that Dads teach their daughters… Like what to look for in a good partnership, who to look out for and not trust, and how to stay out of trouble. To sum this up, I had at least one healthy parent, once my Dad managed to heal after his family broke apart.

4. I Was Independent At A Young Age:

I learned to rule my own life at a young age once my parents split, there are lots that my Mom did that didn’t align with my values. Growing up in that type of environment taught me to have an opinion about what I think is right and wrong. What experiences cross my boundaries?

5. I Started Learning From Other People’s Mistakes:

One thing my Dad taught me is to always learn from other people’s mistakes, My Moms & their mistakes. I started observing other people and learning from what I didn’t like what they did to me.

6. Learned Wisdom Beyond My Years:

Because of the trauma and lack of peace I had as a child, I became a sponge for knowledge… How could I not be like my parents and make the same mistakes? Trauma, and going through hard times can teach you self-awareness & if you own it, self-awareness will bring you more intelligence.

7. I grew self-awareness:

I started to learn that, what was going on, was not healthy. In learning that I also started to become incredibly aware of myself. Am I acting like Mom? I don’t want to be that way. So I started to analyze my surroundings and learn how I wouldn’t be that way growing up. In many ways, I also started to nurture my inner child because I wasn’t getting the love I needed from my Mom. So I would listen to my own feelings, and journal or think about my emotions. Self-awareness brings on more emotional intelligence and more.

1. Mean Yelling:

There was no filter about what was said. If my Mom could say something mean and hurtful she would. My Dad would yell back. This left us kids living in an unsafe environment, which we always wanted to escape or never felt at peace in. 

2. Lack of Presence:

My parents were always fighting and their minds were elsewhere… I used to tell them things about kids being mean at school or teachers singling me out and they never heard me. I found myself telling them my experience as an adult and they never recalled me telling them. They were so wound up in the chaos and drama, that they lacked being present to their children.

3. Ridgid Rules:

There were a lot of rules that I had as a child that oftentimes as an adult I find myself often being referred to as “Where have you been, living under a rock?” Because of our beliefs growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch a lot of mainstream movies. As well as our culture was different, so I felt confused as to what our tradition was. 

4. Out Of Line Sharing:

My Mom used to tell me that I was in an accident and she wished she never had me. As I find as an adult I’ve transformed and healed being told this as a child. Growing up I always felt like I didn’t belong and sometimes didn’t feel loved. As a result, I crave connection with people, and I want to hear that once in a while the people I’m around appreciate my presence. 

5. Home Was Not A Safe Place:

Every time I’d come home as a child/high school student. I never felt safe at home. It wasn’t until I moved back with my Dad in grade 11 that I started feeling safer, as my Dad had a healthier approach and had a lot less anger towards us kids. Oftentimes when two parents are fighting and you see this dysfunctional family environment… children do not feel safe at home. Having peace creates that feeling of safety. 

6. Not Doing The Work As Parents

My parents never went to counseling/therapy… They never went to work through their stuff while I was young. Though my Dad was more loving and stable, he went through a phase where he was incredibly traumatized by the spit from my Mom & hurting about what it did to his family. So he could never stop talking about the problem and his fears about what my Mom would do next.

My Mom did a lot of dysfunctional things growing up. Just had no filter and did not respect boundaries. This all created a toxic family environment, that brought on lots of trauma that I had to work through.

I ended up getting enrolled into a series by my boss at the time. It was a personal development series. That series opened up a whole new world for me. 

I learned the following:

1. What being 100% accountable is. Can also be referred to as taking responsibility.
2. That my perspective is different, how I experience the world is different from other people & I should use that as a tool in my life.
3. That I could call out for what I saw for myself in my future. Accessing creating results in my life through intentions. 

After getting dumped by my boyfriend at about 19 years old, which I was with at the time I was enrolled in the seminar. I set out to become the best version of myself. To learn about who I am as a woman. After doing that for 9 years, I became an expert at being single. 

Later I overcame new hurdles and learned about what it takes to get into a relationship with a man. I met my husband, and man did we ever have changes. Two people who love each other. I had never felt that kind of commitment and love from someone.

The family aspect was a challenge. Let’s just say I didn’t feel a warm invite into the family because of certain people who were drama-filled. This experience opened up a whole new set of lessons for me. I learned how to deal with a dysfunctional family-in-law.

What I can tell you for sure is that growth will always come.

You can do one of two things with it:

1. Resist growth & suffer. Maybe even blow up your life over resisting your growth. You can hurt a lot of people when you resist growth. 
2. Embrace growth & grow. This will give you power. Learning from your mistakes or extracting lessons from when you allow yourself to be misguided in your life is a powerful move.

There have been months at a time in my life where I resisted growth. Those were months filled with suffering. Each one of us gets to choose which direction we get to go into & the choice is yours.

Today I’m going to GROW through this…

Or

Resist growth and suffer…

The choice is yours!