9 Ways To Move Beyond The Curse Of Being The Black Sheep Of Your Family.
Being the black sheep is not something you choose intentionally. You never asked to be misunderstood or have your choices questioned. Yet, surprisingly, there is a freedom that comes from being the Black Sheep.
Yet it’s a lonely road to travel. You may carry deep wounds from your family making you doubt whether you’re good enough or whether the path you’re taking is the right one.
It’s a lonely road to travel. You may carry deep wounds from your family making you doubt whether you’re good enough or whether the path you’re taking is the right one.
But there are 9 ways that will help alleviate your pain.
1. Protect your mental health at all costs through super strong boundaries.
Your mental health is paramount here. You need to find a way to create some sort of emotional distance between yourself and your family, especially if it’s incredibly toxic. It’s frustrating and anguishing to deal with people who refuse to understand you or belittle your choices.
2. Seek a therapist
Find someone objective to talk about your pain of rejection. Someone who can help you rebuild your self-confidence and gain clarity on a way forward. Someone who can help you set some strong boundaries.
3. Grieve the loss of your family.
There is an expectation that our family will always be there for us, but you might need to re-look at your expectations around your family. You may need to accept that your family will never come around and think like you do or accept your life choices.
If it’s been a very abusive situation with your family, you can decide to break ties with them altogether. And if you do, know that there are various stages of grief you’ll go through if you haven’t gone through them already. Although not linear, you will probably experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Again, a therapist can help you through these stages.
4. Don’t try to convince anyone of your decisions.
I often found myself trying to justify my choices and “make them see”. This is never a productive road to go down. When people are so entrenched in a specific way of thinking, it’s very difficult to reach them. Don’t waste your energy trying to convince people to understand you. Your time and energy are too important to try to prove yourself to people.
Learn to become aware of when you are seeking external validation — with regard to your choices or anything in your life. This is extremely powerful for you.
5. Find your own soul family.
They say friends are the family we choose for ourselves. This is very true when it comes to toxic families.
In the search for who you are, you will come across people who “vibrate at the same frequency” as you. These are your people, your tribe. Seek support from the people who love and accept you as you are (not as they think you should be).
Invest time and energy in connections that make you feel good about yourself. If you decide to have a family of your own one day, work hard to break the patterns from the past. That can be one of the greatest gifts to the world you can give.
6. Become your biggest cheerleader
Developing a thick skin is essential if you are to forge ahead in the world when your family doesn’t support you.
If you’ve experienced family trauma, your inner child will have been wounded. That idea of not feeling good enough for the family or feelings of worthlessness will be strong if you’ve endured criticism your whole life for your choices.
Trying to live up to the expectations of your birth family also breeds issues of perfectionism and low self-esteem in people. Being rejected by the people who are meant to love you deeply wounds you.
Learn to love yourself like crazy! Learning to love yourself and connecting with that wounded inner child is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself. Working on consistently looking after your needs and being kind to yourself is a life-long task. Your therapist will also be an extremely valuable resource here.
7. Remember, it’s not you, it’s them.
In society and within families, following the status quo is always easier. When you do what’s expected of you, there’s less friction. When you follow the rules, it’s safer for others. They know what to expect from you, it’s familiar for them so they expend less mental energy and you get to play the role that others want you to play.
Except you don’t win. They do.
So if you hear a calling in your heart to follow a different direction to that of your family, know that it’s going to be tough. You will be swimming upstream. You will get tired. But there is nothing wrong with you and how you feel. It’s their issues, not yours. When you realise this, it can be extremely liberating.
8. Try some understanding and compassion.
This may sound counter-intuitive but it works. Pretend you’re a spectator watching this movie play out. When it feels safe for you to do so, pretend you have no emotional ties to this family you’re watching but you’re deeply curious as to why they behaved the way they did. Think about the reasons this family have for rejecting their child. Why would they think this way? What was their upbringing and life journey up to that point? What do you think they could be so deeply unhappy about? What’s below all the pain that could explain the way they’re treating their child?
You’ll usually find it’s all about fear or regret. Fear of what will others think, fear of loss, embarrassment, regret that they never pursued their own dreams or were brave enough to make their own choices.
Over time you may find that they come around to being more accepting or open to discussing your ideas or choices. But this requires a high degree of maturity. It’s safer to assume this may never happen so you don’t build up your hopes that they will change their minds. If it does, wonderful. If not. protect your heart.
When we look at our situation through the lens of deep compassion and love, we can better understand why something happened. We can process our feelings and see that it’s nothing personal. It’s their past hurt and pain. It’s not us. This can be extremely healing and liberating for us.
9. Embrace the gifts of being an outcast.
Once you stop fighting against being the Black Sheep of the Family, you’ll find that it can be extremely freeing.
Being the rebel has its advantages though. You free yourself from being the same as everyone else. You think differently, you’re often more amenable or tolerant of different ideas. You’re more likely to try anything. You’re more compassionate and empathetic because you know how rejection feels.
Remember, it takes real intelligence to become curious enough to seek something out that is different from the rest of the herd. It takes courage too to follow your heart.
You deserve huge congratulations for forging your own path in life. Please always remember how strong, unique and wonderful you are for listening to your inner voice and choosing what’s right for you.
It’s difficult to let go of the hope that things will be different. It’s natural to want to cling to the past and even try to change yourself to fit in with your family’s view of the world. Know that there comes consequences to that too. Your heart won’t be in it and you’ll suppress who you are and you could land up becoming very ill.
Listen to your intuition, give your soul the space to speak up and practice the art of letting go. It will help you. I wish you healing and love on your journey.
x
A fellow Black Sheep.
