‘Cows can become aggressive and charge, especially when calves are present and walkers are accompanied by dogs, said the National Farmers Union (NFU).’
The current spate of attacks by cows began on the Pennine Hills on June 21, when Liz Crowsley, a veterinary surgeon from Warrington, was crushed against a wall and then trampled underfoot while out walking with her two dogs.
Cow-charging incidents received extended coverage when former Home Secretary David Blunkett was attacked by one in June as his guide dog led him across a field in England's Peak District.
Blunkett broke a rib and was heavily bruised but survived.”
How many times have your normally docile memories of the “good old days” turned and trampled you when you have caught yourself sounding or acting just like one of your parents? Whether we like it or not, as we marry and create our own families, the power of modeling constantly dogs us to become our parents. It is so intense many of us unwittingly charge on anyone who moves. Sadly, we stampede directly into the dysfunctional patterns of our parents and leave our children and spouses broken, heavily bruised and bleeding.
This leads me to ask-
How can we stop the stampede to become our parents?
A. Cut them out of our lives.
B. Enter long-term therapy to deconstruct our childhoods.
C. Through a combination of education and commitment.
D. Forget about it and live for today.
If you answered-
A. This is absolutely the worst emotional response you could choose. It represents such a high degree of reactivity that, unless you process and learn from it, you are bound to recreate the very dysfunction you abhor in your parents. Cutting off from a relationship is an extreme measure and should be reserved for only the most glaring cases of abuse.
B. While therapy is usually a good choice, if you are proactive and locate the right resources, freeing yourself from the pull to blindly follow your parent’s level of emotional functioning doesn’t require long-term therapy as was once thought. (Not exactly the answer you expected from a therapist…was it?)
C. Correct. Judith Viorst, author or the bestseller Necessary Losses, articulates the power of insight and education in healing old patterns. She writes- “For yes, it is true that as long as we live we may keep repeating the patterns established in childhood. It is true that the present is powerfully shaped by the past. But it also is true that the circumstances of every stage of development can shake up and revise the old arrangements. And it’s true that insight at any age can free us from singing the same old songs again.”
I have found the most productive strategies to “grab the bull by the horns” are:
1. Education- By seeking resources that will help you to understand the patterns that were modeled by your parents, you are taking the first step toward “calling off the dogs” of instinct to become them. Take time to find out what is healthy and works well in your relationships.
2. Make a commitment to health- Establishing a routine of committed effort to responsibly “catch yourself” when accidentally reenacting a pattern modeled by one or both of your parents is one of the most powerful signs that your are on your way to creating a new paradigm of healthy functioning.
D. Living in the moment isn’t really living if the skeletons in your closet are rattling their bones so loudly that they are frustrating your spouse and frightening your kids. Have you ever heard the term “Bull in a china closet”?
Are the old family patterns trampling your ability to maintain a happy family? It is time to grab the angry bull of dysfunction by the horns corral it with the two-fisted strength of education and commitment.
“The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.”
(Alfred North Whitehead, Harvard mathematician and philosopher)
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