Mimicking Our Parents
As we grow up we learn to mimic as a way of survival. All animals and beings do this. Mimicking our parents was necessary for survival. They taught us the basics, how to walk how to feed ourselves how to survive in this world.
We also learn to mimic their shadows, their doubts, fears and pain. We learn this because it's a necessary way to survive. It is also an easy way to gain approval. There are many times our parents, or society rewards us for mimicking them.
When I was a child my mom had a lot of emotional burden. She was in an unhappy marriage, and felt stuck. My father was not a sympathetic man when it came to his family and would say very unkind words to my mom. One of my first memories was mimicking my dads words or rather a song that he was singing to my mom. I was only around 3 at this time and I remember being very confused. My father was happy that I was mimicking him and my mother crying over the sink as she was doing dishes.
I learned at that moment that mimicking my dad brought my mom pain, and later learned mimicking my mother also brought my father pain. Although I could not put that into words or content at that time.
Mimicking helps us and it also destroys part of who we are. Me mimicking either parent in these ways is not natural to who I am. It is a mechanism that I learned to survive. When we talk about our shadows and our fears a lot of it has to do with what we learned to survive. What we needed to do when we were young to keep us or others from being hurt. As well as creating the smoothest road for ourselves which turns into people pleasing.
A few years ago my mother actually brought this up to me and is still carrying the hurt of that scene. Me as an adult understanding that it is not my fault and having already forgiven myself for the role that I have played. It was a beautiful opportunity to explain this to my mother, that as we learn and grow as children these burdens are not ours to carry. I apologized that there was pain, pain for all of us at that moment. That she doesn’t not need to carry this pain if she doesn’t want to. Instead she can forgive and allow the energy to become something else instead. To no longer stay stuck in our mind and bodies. If my mom chose in that moment to stay in a place of pain with this then that is her choice and she has the tools to change if she chooses.
Mimicking has its place as we can learn to mimic those that are more confident or better at something we want to improve. Such as learning from others how to run faster, how to be a better chef. Mimicking is part of learning, it's part of playing with who we are and what works best for us. Helping us to be the best version of who we are while staying true to ourselves.
Animals mimic in nature for survival as well they can mimic the calls or voice of their prey to bring them closer. The wild cats margays (pictured above) mimic the sound of monkeys to draw them to prey upon them. Butterflies can mimic the flight pattern or movement of others that are poison so predators will not eat them.
We cannot blame ourselves or even our parents for the mimicking that we did to survive and that they did to survive. As we grow and evolve we let go of these ways of mimicking that we once needed but no longer do.
I invite you to look at your life and where you have mimicked others from your childhood, from your coworkers etc.
Where did people help you by mimicking them?
Is there a pattern that you are still doing that is no longer serving you that you once needed to survive?
