How to Break an Inherited Inter-Generational Cycle of Cruelty Using Kindness As a Cure

The very insightful School of Life explains how to break an inherited cycle of cruelty, passed on for generations, by using kindness as a cure.

Discover how meanness, bullying, and indifference are passed down through generations—a repetition compulsion rooted in unacknowledged trauma. Learn how to break the chain, use suffering to generate kindness, and stop the painful cycle with you.

The first step is to understand what has happened to the people in the family, how they were treated, and if there was abuse involved. These types of trauma often lead to strong “offense as defense” approaches, which can lead to bullying, cynicism, and often the need to punch down at those who are seen as others.

We may never have the particulars of the fathers  who beat them or the mothers who sidelined them, the homes that brought them no comfort and the nights that ended without consolation. But once  we know the underlying structure, the logic will at least be clear.We can know, from the extent of the fighting, the wars, the alcoholism, the pettiness, that humans have been gifting each other these  parcels of hatred for a very long time indeed.

Treating others with kindness can be difficult at first, but it can change history for the better.

We appreciate, with new strength, what an extraordinary achievement it is whenever a person who has been the recipient of cruelty is able, through imagination and moral discipline, not to hand on the agony on to anyone else. …We can appreciate anew what true alchemy it is to turn meanness into kindness.