Asking The Right Question

The other day, I was chatting it up with some coworkers, and we were all lightheartedly talking about our current irritations as we often did. When one told me, “You should stop living in the past.” Though I understood where they were coming from, I was brought back to various points in my life where things would continue to happen, and the fires I’d fought tooth and nail to put out would reignite themselves, sending my life into a depressive death spiral doused in anxiety and mistrust. Instead of pointedly telling them, “I would if this problem didn’t keep coming up”. My other coworker reminded them that the event had happened again within the last nine months. Retracting their comment, it a sparse “oh,” the conversation abruptly ended. 

Given our relationship, I know my coworker meant well, and I understand how they could have overlooked the recent occurrence given all the others. However, their words stuck with me “You should stop living in the past”. Of all the things we talked about, why is this my takeaway?

Later that day, I got a call from a family member. Amid the conversation, I reiterated, “[they] should stop living in the past”. I was met with an informative, “Yah, but it’s deeper than that”. The family member then went on for about an hour filling me in on all the things happening now that recalled past events that were uncovering graves and snatching skeletons out of the closet.

When I got home, I lay awake drawing connections between the talks and the recurring question, “How do you stop living in the past when outside forces actively make that past your present, and there is no way you can remove yourself from the situation until after it’s run its course?”

I posed this question to my family member, whose life journey is better traveled than mine. They hit me with a hard, “Baby; I couldn’t tell you.” An annoying response, but a valid one, nonetheless. I would rather them be honest with me than fabricate something that may sound good but holds no substance.
Tapping into my roots, I met myself where I was and paused. See, “You should stop living in the past” stuck with me not because my coworker contextually hit the nail on the head. 

Their words stuck with me because I had been quietly struggling with generational trauma relative to the conversation with my family member. Their current situation is a crucial part of a perpetual cycle. Their irrational responses directly affect me, much like the events covered during the conversation with my coworkers. They find me no matter my efforts to distance myself from the matters.

So then, I was met with another question: How can I protect my children and my peace? See, rhetorical questions are beautiful demons. They assume the role of the questions that need to be asked with answers that have yet to be given. In high school, my professors describe rhetorical questions (definition) that don’t require a correct answer. I was told they were questions to create a dramatic effect in college. In life, I use rhetoric to clear my mind. However, this day, it was working against me.

 

By the end of the night, I was emotionally tapped. I typically write to myself to sleep. However, I would need more journaling, writing, or drawing to uncross my wires. It was 1 am, and I was trying to do mental gymnastics, searching for answers to a rhetorical question.

It wasn’t until I acknowledged that my question was rhetorical that I could find a reason to let it all go and relax. See, I was posing a rhetorical question to myself, and I went into the question with the understanding that the question was rhetorical. Thus, I was setting myself up because I was asking myself a question that, at the bare minimum, I wasn’t seriously seeking an answer to.

It wasn’t until I shifted my mindset and saw the question as a literal problem within my life that needed to be solved that I was able to look beyond myself for an answer. So again, I met myself where I was and paused. At that moment, the song that kept coming to me was Scars On My Feet by Stephen Marley ft. Waka Flocka Flame. More specifically, the chorus:

        Look at the scars on my feet, from this road I travel

        But I'm seeing change gradual, I went from an apartment to a castle

        Gravel on my feet, you see I took a lot of losses

        Grindin' no matter what the cause is, I got a vision so flawless

Though I am growing as a person, there are still scars on my feet from the journey. I see the fruits of my labor, but there are still remnants of the journey that resulted in my loss, but I keep steady the course. This was the first year I sat and created a vision board for myself. I’ve posted it around the entire house and look at it every day, multiple times a day. It is an excellent reminder of my vision for my family and life. And I’m not going to allow the doings of others to destroy my peace.

Through all that, I again met myself where I was and paused. Allowing myself to collect my thoughts, I was hit with another, more actionable question. “How do I break these generational curses?”