A speaker argues you can stop passing family trauma to your kids by addressing your own unresolved pain. He says children measure their worth through parental attention and validation, and that emotional unavailability and poor communication become collateral damage to those around you. Breaking the cycle is a choice you make now.
Will you be the one? Will you be the one to metabolize the poison? There's got to be someone in this generation that can metabolize the poison, can deal with the wounds, can deal with their pain so that they don't put it off on the next person. Your unresolved pain, your unresolved wounds are bleeding out on everybody around you. Everybody's becoming the collateral damage to the work that you haven't done on the inside. And there's got to be someone in this generation or future generation that's going to break the chains. There's got to be someone that's going to create legacy in the family. What's that legacy? Legacy of healthy communication, legacy of emotion regulation, legacy of stress management, legacy of true mental and emotional health. Who's going to be the one? Will it be you, or will you leave your loose ends for your son to have to clean up? All the attention that you're giving your bad habits, all the attention that you're giving everything else in your life just to fill that void inside of you could be given to the people in your life that would literally do anything for your attention. You got people in your life that just want your time. Will you be the one to metabolize the venom? What's that venom? Emotional unavailability. The lack of healthy communication skills, just the lack of being available in general, just not having your kids grow up and know that they have worth and value. Because how do kids know that they have worth and value? Based on the amount of time that you spend with them. When your kids are telling you 'Hey, come and see my room,' or 'Dad, check out this thing that I just did.' You know what they're really looking for? They're looking for your validation. That's really them saying to you, 'Hey, spend time with me. Show me that you love me. Show me that I matter.' Are you going to be the one that metabolizes the venom of the emotional neglect the lack of healthy coping skills, the poor stress management. Will you be the one, or will you leave that job for somebody else to do in the future because you didn't do it?
