Breaking the Chain

The first chapter in Bethenny Frankel's book is all about breaking the chain. What chain do you ask?

It's all about childhood. You read the whole first chapter and just feel so sorry for her. She tells about her relationships with her mother, father, and step-father, how each of them treated her, made her feel, and how now that she is a mother, breaking the chain of how she "could have been" is so important to her.

I'll be honest, I had a great childhood. My parents were so wonderful at creating memories for us and with us. We took trips every summer to different places all over the country, they were at every game we cheered at, every recital, every volleyball game. My mom took us Wet 'n Wild so many times over the course of my life I can't even count. We never had to worry about being clothed, feed, or un-loved. We were surrounded by grandparents and an aunt that adored us and would do anything for us. My parents did a great job and still to this day do a great job creating memories.

I'm not going to say everything was perfect all the time, nothing is. We did things to push their buttons and make them mad or disappointed, we made poor choices I'm sure made them so upset and heart broken. But, as I read about her life, I look back on mine and feel so grateful. She took so many of her childhood issues into future relationships with her as an adult, which caused much heart ache and dismay.

What I took from Break the Chain, according to Bethenny, is simply your past hurts, failures, disappointments, do not have to affect your future. It's about coming from 'A Place of Yes' and controlling how you want to re-act in situations, treat your children, husband, friends, etc. It's about deciding who you want to be and breaking the chain of who you think you should be.

"Break the chain means recognizing the patterns you are carrying forward in your life, patterns that belonged to your past, and choosing to go a different way when those patterns are destructive."

-Bethenny Frankel-