Desperately Wanting Change: Uncharted Territories

I speak of the past often—not because I am tethered to it, not because I live there, and certainly not because it defines me. I return to it because the past is a mirror, a map, a whisper from generations before me, revealing the origins of patterns I once thought were simply "who I am."

Many people carry this belief that awareness alone is enough—“I just won’t do it again.” And sometimes, that works. But more often than not, the roots remain. The behavior is just the symptom. What was it covering up? What need was it meeting?

When I began unraveling my own patterns, I had to trace them back—not just to my experiences, but to the ones before me. My anger had a lineage. My longing had a lineage. And like so many stories, mine began with my mother.

I examined the thought loops that kept me spinning in the same cycles—the hunger for male approval, the deep sense of unworthiness, and yet, the paradox of using men as placeholders for something I had no name for. I looked at my mother’s life and saw a mirror. Where did she learn this? And who did she learn it from?

My grandmother.

A woman who left my grandfather after repeated affairs, only to remain caught in a cycle of anger, verbal attacks on men, and an existence marked by the contradictions of resentment and longing. My grandfather, absent and emotionally detached, left my mother grappling with the same push and pull that later shaped my own relationships. Desperate for approval yet unable to form deep, nourishing connections.

But it didn't stop there.

My grandmother was the youngest of twelve children, raised on a farm by parents who had immigrated from Czechoslovakia to the barren landscapes of rural Wisconsin. I have only heard stories, but I can imagine the weight of a life where survival was the only priority.

There was no space for emotions—they were a liability, a distraction, a weakness that could cost you everything. During wartime, feelings didn’t keep you alive; resilience did. The world was built on endurance, not tenderness. Love was expressed through labor, through duty, through simply keeping the family fed and clothed.

The American Dream wasn’t about fulfillment; it was about escaping poverty. Marriage, children, and sex weren’t about romance—they were about survival, about tethering oneself to a tribe for protection.

When I saw this clearly, I started to understand.

I started to see how generational patterns weren’t born from malice but from necessity. I traced the lineage of silenced emotions, of shame, of stigmas attached to things like alcoholism, divorce, affairs, financial struggle—things that, in their time, were unspeakable, things that made my family an outcast in the eyes of their world.

And as I traced these patterns, something began to shift.

I saw my grandmother as a little girl, lost in the shuffle of siblings and farm work, never receiving attention from her mother but finding love through her sisters. I saw my mother as a little girl, desperate to be loved by her brother, aching for her mother to see her as more than just another burden. And then, I saw myself—another little girl in a long line of women, carrying wounds we never asked for, shaped by a history that never taught us how to meet our own needs.

So no—I don’t look to the past to dwell. I look because it frees me. Because it frees them. Because it untangles what was never mine to carry in the first place.

Healing is not about bypassing history—it’s about seeing it, acknowledging it, and choosing differently.

It’s not about blame. It’s not about shame.

It’s about knowing we are not "broken."

It’s about understanding how we got here so we can finally step beyond it.

This work takes time.

It is not easy.

And it is something your ancestors will thank you for.

And something your future self will live in the fullness of.

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If this reflection resonates with you—if you find yourself tracing patterns, questioning inherited beliefs, and longing to step beyond the cycles of the past—Blueprint to the Heart: A Sovereign Healing Journey was written for you.

This book is an invitation to explore the depths of your story with compassion, to uncover the origins of your wounds, and to step into a space of self-awareness and transformation. Through guided reflections, personal insights, and practical tools, you'll discover a path back to yourself—one that honors where you've been while empowering where you're going.

Your healing doesn’t begin with erasing the past. It begins with understanding it.

Explore the journey here: https://www.heartactivation.net/book