The Grasshopper left this on my doorstep this morning: “Don’t apologize for having blue eyes.”

I had to wipe the sleep out of my eyes before it started to make sense.

Chances are you resemble one of your parents or both. By and large, we are usually in denial about this for the first half of our life. The implication being: If I look like them, I must be like them.

In many instances, we are just like them. They’re who we learned from. Some of their qualities (good or bad) stay with us for life, and other behaviors we learned from them, we outgrow.

As with any behavior, the key to outgrowing it is recognition. If you don’t know you have it, it’s difficult to do anything about it.

Looking like them is nothing you’ll ever have to apologize for. Short of plastic surgery, there’s nothing you can do about it; it happened without your permission.

Your behavior is an eye of a different color.

Yes, you may have unwittingly sucked in their preferences, prejudices and attitudes before you even knew what those words meant, but they’re your behaviors now. That means that you can’t blame your parents any more. You own these behaviors now. They are yours to apologize for.

Once we get over the shock of being like our parents in ways we never dreamed of, it’s time for a look in the mirror.

What behaviors do you own that you are/were critical of them for having? If you said, “None,” you are in denial.

The physical recognition, if it exists, dawns on most about midlife. The operative phrase that escapes from your mouth, without pre-thought, goes something like this: “Oh my God, I look just like my mother/father.”

That’s the point where you want to go deeper and discover the behaviors that correspond to the resemblance.

If you inherited their big heart and sense of fairness, celebrate it!

If you got something that gets you admonishment, it’s time to own it and outgrow it.

Recognition is the wedge that goes between stimulus and response. It’s in that moment of suspension of your automatic behavior that you glimpse your free will – the will to be free of your inheritance.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
I LOVE MY BODY
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES
FEEL FOREVER YOUNG
VIRTUAL MASSAGE