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Power blindness confuses toxic family for... A convenient narrative (Alex Hormozi example)
An interesting video from Alex Hormozi.
He says he doens't go back home because he "grew apart" from his family and old friends.
He grew, and his friends and family didn't.
And I thought:
I could make the exact same case of growing apart for taking very different paths, but I love my friends and I'm always so happy to meet family
Then, he started describing what happens with his family and friends:
Alex: they didn't grow, I grew... (...) my father would tell me I have the shortest fuse ever (...) my uncle would tell me that I'm always lose with the alcohool
(...) And it's constant, it's unending, it's incessant (<--- describes a super toxic reality of a nasty family). They're constantly try to put me back in a box that makes sense to them (<---- misreads it in a far more benignant way than what's actually true)
Nah man, it's NOT that you grew apart.
And it's not that they're trying to relive the old Alex, either.
It's that he's from a (semi)toxic family of turkey and power mover (potentially worse, too).
I'm even thinking that his family may be so nasty and manipulative that they PURPOSEFULLY picked something not (anymore) true about him and that he cares about, just to piss him off the most and drive him away.
I'm thinking whether this may be a case of blissful ignorance though.
May be it's better to not even know that some elements in your family are truly nasty... (?)
Hello Lucio,
I agree with everything except the last part. I think your question mark has its place. I think there are benefits to knowing that family members are toxic. In my example it helped me to recognize toxic behaviors in me that I picked up from imitation probably. This helped me to work on getting rid of them. Same for the self esteem issue I talked about. Had I not know my family had toxic elements I would have more trouble spotting these issues within myself.
I think it also helps to see when they’re projecting negative stuff on you. If you know they have a problem, it helps to detach from this and know you are not the problem. If one think his family is normal when it’s not one has the tendency to take in their false negative image of oneself and their negativity at face value. So we would absorb more toxicity instead of pushing it away.
Thank you John!
More than a statement, it was a "think out loud" and actually hoping for some opinions.
So thank you for sharing that, and you also convinced me: it's not an exception to the general rule of "it's better to see things as they are".
Hi Guys,
it’s a very interesting thread.
I believe that being able to consciously realize and accept the “toxicity” (and possibly the malevolence) of one’s family members (if existent) is a necessary prerequisite to both:
- being able to rid oneself of learned power moves, and
- being able to accurately read and assess the toxic nature (and malevolence if any) in other people.
If one is not able to see one’s close family members as toxic (or possibly malevolent) in their behaviors, then by definition one will confuse the same behavior by other unrelated people as unwitting or benevolent.
The mind will interpret similar toxic or malevolent behaviors as non-toxic or benevolent or unwitting, to avoid possibly rupturing the family bond.
It’s not a coincidence that Alex, in another video, shared his difficulty to recognize malevolence in close business ties.
Conversely, accepting family as what it is, while sometimes very painful, allows greater effectiveness in life and better reading of other people’s behavior. It causes people to grow more adult.
BOOM!
Great points, Bel.
Makes a lot of sense and even connected some dots that I was missing.
