Misconceptions

Everyone is born into a family, or tribal system that raises them. Your family raises you to the best of their ability, which includes what they believe is best for you, and emerges you in their value/belief systems before you even know how to talk. This includes superstitions, misconceptions, and expectations that many people don't question if they even agree with before they go about living their lives by these rules and in many cases passing them onto their children as well.

Your first chakra and how you live your life is effected by this, so it's a good idea to take a look at what misconceptions you were brought up with. You may be spending a lot of time stressing over something that you don't believe to be true, yet you were raised this way and it may even be causing you a great deal of anxiety, possibly limiting your potential.

As far as superstitions go for me, I can't really think of any right now that I would like to work on. I remember I used to not step on cracks sometimes on the way to the bus stop when I was younger, but it was more of a hopping game than a "my mom's back might break" game.I do, however, have plenty of misconceptions to work out.

• I always used to think I should be married by the time I was a certain age (this age started out as 25, then was 28 or so, then was 30) or I was going to be alone forever. This fear made me depressed sometimes, and also kept me from being single most of the time. I don't regret any of the relationships I was in and feel like I learned a lot from them, however, I think it would have been a great learning experience for me to be single for more than a month sometime between the ages of 17 and 27. I've learned a lot about myself from being single the majority of the past year, and I don't feel the same way about marriage(or a life partnership) anymore. Sometimes I do feel like I would really love to settle down now and move into a different experience as far as living with someone goes, and I do think I'm ready to do that at the moment, but I don't have a timeline in the back of my head like I did before. It is something I need to continue to work on, however.
• Having kids- I think my thoughts on having kids are healthy, so I don't need to work on that at the moment, but they weren't always like this & I think it's interesting. I grew up thinking, "when I have kids, blahblahblah," because that's just what you do. You grow up, you get married, you have kids-horray! It wasn't until I went to my yoga teacher training that I really thought about why I wanted to have kids. There are so many unhealthy reasons why people have kids: -Because that's what you do, you get married and have kids -Our marriage kinda sucks, so kids will bring us closer together -We're bored -I really need to take care of something so I can feel good about myself -I really hate how that person over there is raising their child and I can do it better -All my friends have kids, and cool stories to tell about them and pictures (they sure are cute!) -I wasn't good at sports but my child will be -I really need to be remembered -It's my responsibility to pass the family genes along -I need someone that will have to love me back, and if they don't at least they're dependent on me -etc. I just find it really interesting that I didn't even question myself until this point was brought up in class. I did start out with the "of course I'll have kids, that's what everyone does" mentality when I was younger and didn't really comprehend what all that entailed. When I figured out what all it entailed, I still didn't consciously question it, which is a great example of how I wasn't aware that how I was raised could have easily dictated whether I had kids or not, without me thinking much about it at all! (don't worry-I'm never getting these stick figure car decals)
• I'm terrified of getting divorced, this comes from a combination of how I was brought up (meaning, you just don't get divorced, once you're married you're married and that's it-which did also effect my fear of settling for someone in a relationship), and then my parents actually getting divorced. One of the things my dad said when he told me he was divorcing my mom was that when he met her he knew that they would get married, she was the one and they would be together for the rest of their lives. I don't really remember the rest of that conversation full of all the "reasons" he was divorcing my mom, because that line really scared me (especially since to me, never hearing my parents fight, he just all the sudden without warning up and left to be with someone else). I've been working on this one for awhile now, and I know it's effected my relationships. I do have a much healthier perspective of marriage/divorce/my parent's situation now and I'm definitely not effected by it now how I was before, but still something to work on.
• How much money I need to make and always having to accomplish something are also good learning experiences for me. I was brought up with the very realistic idea that I needed to make $200,000 per year (that number came from my head sometime in elementary school, not someone else's, but the idea that I needed to make a whole whole lot of money came from my Dad and the culture I was brought up in). I was around money a lot and raised to believe that if you're not accomplishing something (money/success oriented) you were completely lazy and you need to work harder. So, what I did with that was a mixture of following my passions/having fun and trying to make a whole lot of money at the same time, without breaking any of my core values. Therefore, for the past 10 years or so I've been the hardest working least paid person I know, totally burning out my adrenal glands, not taking care of myself. I think part of this is really great. I love the work ethic that I was brought up with, but somehow it didn't work out in a healthy way. I love that I was working really hard and doing things that I loved, but it was really bad to not know what to do with myself if I had an extra hour in the day and I didn't have to eat my food and change my clothes in the car while driving on the way to my next job. I definitely have a perfectionist complex when it comes to work, and at times I've felt really guilty for having an afternoon when I wasn't working. I'm of course working on this (moving to Portland and doing more things for my health and myself have helped a lot) and I think this may be one of the more difficult ones for me to get over...
• I also have a misconception about what I should look like, physically, but I've already addressed that & am working on it.
• My grandparents from both sides of the family are a little racist, not terribly so, and they're getting better at not saying things around the grandchildren along those lines because they know we don't like it. I had a huge fight with them (and a couple of them leading up to the huge one) when I was dating Bryan & I actually think that helped a lot. So, I don't think I'm extremely influenced by that (my parents don't hold the same views as my grandparents, which helped in that not influencing me). I do have some generalizations/misconceptions about certain groups though: I don't like New Jersey, Florida, or Texas very much, when people say they're from one of these states sometimes I'm like "eh." I obviously don't say that out loud and I don't use it against them or refuse to talk to them, sometimes I'll think "wow, this person is pretty cool for being from New Jersey" but it is a thought that goes through my head sometimes. The stereotype for NJ and FL comes from experiences I've had there, and for Texas, just from the super conservative stereotype (which is silly because Austin is extremely liberal). I also get stereotypical thoughts in mind with people who say they're super conservative. I went around saying I was conservative for a little while and people didn't stereotype me, and so I'm a super hypocrite (besides the fact that I'm not educated enough in all the political issues and I get along with most people regardless of what their political standpoint is). I have the generalization that vegans aren't very healthy, but they could actually be eating the food that makes them feel the best, in which case I should be using some of them as healthy examples. There are many more generalizations that I have, and I've been really focusing on trying not to generalize, because it's a really crappy thing to do. Being present is actually one of the best ways I've found to deal with this, because you're always focusing on the person and not up in your head-which is how interactions with people always should be regardless.
• Religious beliefs are a major influence on you when you're growing up. I was brought up Catholic. My spiritual beliefs don't seem to come from Catholicism, however, if I wasn't brought up Catholic, who knows if I would have questioned my beliefs so much and figured out where I stand?
  

I'm sure there are many more things that I'll discover and add to this list in the future. It's impossible to not be influenced by your tribe, and their influence is huge. Looking into what you have to work with is a great learning experience, and really interesting to change (if you want to change parts of it of course) because it changes your life completely.