I have some input to give you that may shed some light on why some Boomers are the way they are.

I’m a cusp Boomer, old enough to remember what the generations before me said to me and other youngsters when we were young.

We complained about how we were treated by some of the silent generation and their parents. Some friends and I were griping how badly we were being treated, and one of the silent generation snarkily told us that we had to suck it up, that this is how things are and when we get older, we’ll have earned the right to treat the youngsters the same way.

That really hit me wrong. I told the person that just because they treated the young people like crap doesn’t mean it’s right to do that to others. They smiled at us, got patronizing and said “you’ll see!”

I decided that I wasn’t going to live that way. I don’t believe that anyone earns the right to treat others badly. I guess there are other Boomers who feel as I do and others who feel entitled to pass on the crap they endured.

This can also be true of why some parents end up treating their kids the same way they were treated. I know my mother had confessed to me once that the thought of not treating me the way she had been treated felt grossly unfair to herself. She felt that if I didn’t suffer that somehow her own suffering would be in vain. As a child I had tried to explain to her how this seemed to be a strange logic, but in her mind it made absolute sense.

As a young adult I had to wrestle with that. I knew I didn’t want to be like her, in fact I did everything to be her opposite. I saw my father as her opposite, so I did my best to emulate his behavior even though she had broken me and damaged me in ways that I had to make conscious choices to not only become a different person than her, but to learn how to heal and become healthy. Choosing not to follow in the footsteps of our elders and teachers becomes a conscious choice.

Just because we reject their ways of thinking or behaving towards others doesn’t mean we have to reject them entirely. Sometimes it is necessary to go low contact with people we come to see as being unhealthy or toxic, and other times it is shown to us that they willfully choose their behavior, so going no contact is our next option.

In an ideal world the hurt and damaged people who choose to pass it on would see our examples and hear our words, but unfortunately that’s not often the case. People who are hurt and damaged and not seeking healing often encase themselves in hard shells that perpetuate the hurt. They may find a sense of personal retribution when they hurt others, much like those of the Silent Generation felt they had earned the right to hurt others in turn.

We cannot help other heal and grow if they do not wish to. Sometimes their persona becomes so wrapped up in their own unhealed inner pain that they can’t imagine themselves without it. Their own anger and pain stops them from being able to do the inner work, for although their pain came from an exterior force, their healing now requires their own inner work, and that can seem grossly unfair to them. “Why should I have to do all this work when I wasn’t the one who caused it?” was one of my mother’s own laments.

The very fact that we each need to do our own inner work in spite of others having willfully hurt us can be a bitter pill to swallow. Why are we required to do something we never asked for?

The difficult truth is that no one else can do this for us. Yes, therapists and counselors can help us, but they don’t possess magical powers to undo the hurt and pain that was caused to us. This is hard work we each have the personal responsibility for. Many get drawn to different religious groups in the hope that connecting with the Divine will heal them, and for some it might help, but for others it just doesn’t work out that way.

This may land very hard in some people’s hearts. This may seem terribly unfair. This may seem to be impossible.

I’m here as a guide to show you that it is possible. I never say that “if I did it you can too”, for I don’t walk in your shoes. All I can offer is the truth that healing from past pain and learning new living skills is possible, with personal effort.

There were many times I wanted to give up on that work because it was too painful, I felt as though I was being split in half through my core. There were times I felt unworthy of healing. There were many times I told myself I was unworthy. Let me tell you now that you are worthy, each of us is worthy of healing and redemption.

Sending love and blessings to you.

• Accepting blame or responsibility for our actions shouldn’t include keeping score
• Changing ourselves and others
• Choices, Chances, Changes. You must make a Choice to take a Chance or your life will never Change.
• Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?
• Emotions and where they intersect with each other
• Forget the pain but never the lessons you gained.
• God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know… it’s me.
• How people treat you is their karma… How you react is yours…
• Time to Change the Negative Tapes!

• 13 Signs of Serious Anger Issues (you may not think yours are all that bad!)
• 16 Phrases People Use When They’re Angry Inside but Don’t Want to Show It, (and how to move beyond.)
• Angry judgementalism is tearing us all apart!
• Can emotional regulation help prevent crime and addictions?
• Everyday is a new beginning. Take a deep breath, smile, and START AGAIN.
• How DOES anger affect our health?
• How to trigger your Narcissist (not that you should), and what you can do to live a sane and healthy life
• Internet shaming is more than repressed anger; there’s everyday Sadism underlying it.
• “Telling it like it is”, it’s hurting us all…
• The power of stepping away!
• What is the purpose of an Anger Journal, and why you need one!
• Why venting anger just makes us angrier, and ways to deal with it.

• A new you! Is this possible?
• Are you co-dependent and trying to hang on at all costs?
• As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
• Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you now know.
• Be the flawed, QUIRKY, unique, beautiful and MAGICAL person that you are!
• Be the one who lights the darkness for others… with a good deed or kind word!
• By being yourself you put something beautiful into the world that was not there before!
• By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!
• Changing how we see ourselves; moving from dislike when we yearn to be able to go forward into something more positive
• Fall in love with taking care of yourself

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara

I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts Main page divided up into 3 sub-pages: Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain || Healing and Developing Ourselves || Positive thoughts and Affirmations to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts!
https://tamarakulish.com/

My books: Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audiobooks are available for the busy person!

Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:

Removing Inner Blocks ||  Anger Journal || Guided Anxiety Journal  ||  Joy & Mindfulness Journal   ||  My Boundaries Journal  || My Inner Thoughts Journal   

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