Have you noticed the older you get the more you recognize traits in yourself like those in your mom or dad? Those idiosyncrasies you swore you would never repeat, that are now naturally in your lifestyle and routines? The words, actions, habits, attitudes—they all show up without your permission!
We carry with us traits and beliefs we unconsciously learned by example. It is important to examine them to see if they should be perpetuated or extinguished. Many of these are spiritual struggles that require God’s power to recognize, cease, and replace with something new.
Your heritage habits, even those you swore you’d never repeat, will continue without your consent until you look into them deliberately and conscientiously. It’s okay to live out your heritage habits and hang-ups if you do it consciously and by your decision rather than by default.
What are the obvious behaviors you inherited from your family? (These can be personal attributes like having a sharp tongue or self-consciousness, perfectionism or attitudes toward food, work, death, etc.)
As you try to discern some of your heritage habits, it can help to look at your family’s core values. The goal is to understand where you came from and how that still influences you today. What were your family’s core values? What was the most important to them?
What behaviors, people, or accomplishments were celebrated when you were a child?
What behavior were you disciplined for when you were a child?
What was mocked when you were a child?
What was talked about when other people were discussed? (Successes, failures, rebellion, dress, actions, etc.)
Was there affection shown in your family? How (words, touch, etc.)?
How was money management taught?
Which emotions were allowed (tears, fears, struggles)? Or were emotions squelched and not allowed?
How was anger displayed in your home?
Was yelling or physical violence acceptable in disagreements?
Which adults helped you recognize and express your feelings? How?
Did adults discourage you from noticing and expressing your feelings? How?
Children absorb the emotional climate in their homes. Looking back today, with adult eyes, think about yourself as a child.
Describe the climate of your childhood home in one, two, or three words (loving, rigid, silly, angry, scary, safe, etc.).
______ ______ ______
How were the topics listed below viewed in your household? Were they open for discussion, closed, not taught, strictly taught, very important, not honored, or something else? In the blanks below, write a word or two that describes how each issue was viewed in your family. How do you view them now?
Write down a memory or anecdote from your childhood that reflects one of the heritage traits you identified.
In what ways do you see the heritage habits (traditions, attitudes, beliefs, etc.) that are positive and life-giving reflected in your own household today?
In what ways do you see the heritage habits (traditions, attitudes, beliefs, etc) that are not positive, reflected in your household today?
Return to chapter 6 and look at the circles you drew to indicate self-sabotage. Are any of these heritage habits? This is not to blame or shame anyone, but simply to help you detach from those attitudes and attributes that need to cease.
Describe how your heritage impacted your self-sabotaging habits:
God created us to model after our parents, and then our children after us. It works beautifully when we have perfect parents. However, none of us had perfect parents, and we aren’t perfect parents either. So something has to be done to stop the heritage habits that are not God honoring or beneficial to anyone. In fact, they hurt us. For the most part, we are blind to them. It will take the Holy Spirit and your determination to rid your life and your children’s lives of the negative influences you had and may be recreating with your children now. But you can end unhealthy practices and change your heritage and legacy. It can be done and done well through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Those who were never hugged can learn to hug. Those who were not shown how to deal with anger can learn to resolve problems without violence. The attitudes we were taught can change when we recognize them and we adopt better ways. Your legacy does not have a hold on you; you have a hold on it, and you can let it go.
We search to understand our heritage not to blame our parents or shame ourselves. Chances are, your parents did the best they could with the knowledge and resources they had. I know mine did, and I know my former husband and I did. Yet it is our responsibility to deal with what we have been given and to determine where we have to heal and what traits we have to deal with and not perpetuate. You are unbound from heritage habits when you are in Christ. Claim this truth, and ask God to show you what needs to be redeemed from your past and what you need to adapt and change to move forward to your future. I assure you it will take awareness and a willingness to do this. But the freedom and future blessing it brings is well worth it.
God redeems completely. In Christ, we are a new creation. That means we are born again, without the marks of the past. No one is born with scars. We are not born again with them either.
What heritage habits from your family of origin have you intentionally changed in your family as an adult? For example: let’s say alcoholism was a central influence and power in your family. You decide not to allow alcohol to be a part of your heritage, so you ban all alcohol in your home and around your children. This would be changing your legacy by stopping the heritage. Another example may be honesty about money, and you decide to be upfront and truthful about all your income.
God knows your childhood—the joys, pains, and injustices you experienced. If you comprehend your long-held misbeliefs and recognize the inner dialogue that echoes from your past, you can totally change the trajectory of your life journey. Only God is able to make something beautiful from these experiences. However, it takes a consciousness of what is there that needs to be dealt with and a willingness to surrender so you can rid it from yourself, your heritage to your children, and your world.
The best news is God wants you to end the influence of this hurtful past. As Christ said, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32). That truth is you belong to Him with a perfect heritage. So discover how you think, search for the misbeliefs, and hear the inner dialogue so you can change the messages and alter the behaviors. Some people carry some heavy loads in their heritage. But God doesn’t want us to carry it. As Joyce Meyer said in her book Beauty for Ashes, “God wants you to be delivered from what you have done and from what has been done to you—both are equally important to Him.”5
Are there parts of yourself that must be surrendered to a new heritage or a stronger, more definitive heritage?
To help you change those unhealthy patterns, look again at the network of people you associate with. Do they help you become stronger than your heritage, or do they keep you bound to an old life?
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
—2 Corinthians 9:8