The black sheep of the family is often seen as the problem “problem child”. The Black sheep of the family is the person or child that does not fit into the norm or the expectations of the family.
The black sheep is labeled such for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the black sheep is deemed so because the person wants to be an artist in a family of money hungry academics. Sometimes the black sheep is the child who’s sexual orientation goes against the family’s religious beliefs. The black sheep could also be the child who is always getting in trouble at school or with the law, who is doing drugs and failing at living up to what the norm considers success. I was in a yoga class once and the yoga instructor shared a beautiful quote about the black sheep in a family. I don’t remember it verbatim but i will try and share the gist of it with you. He said : “ The black sheep of the family is the one that sees the disfunction, the anger, the lies that the family sweeps under the rug. The black sheep of the family is the awakened one, the one meant to break cycles passed on through generations. The black sheep of the family would rather do heroin to find god than sit with a father that does not speak”.
If you are considered the black sheep of the family from you own sense of feeling different or you have deemed so by your family and community, then I am here to tell you that you are exactly as you are meant to be.
As I have mentioned before, I see clients from all ages, cultures, walks of life. Throughout this book I make reference to my experiences with them and the common threads that I have witnessed as I do my work and I can tell you that most people, if they chose to be honest about who they are, what they dream, what they struggle with, and had the courage to be authentic and feel their emotions, and express their ideas, and dream their dreams, would be considered the black sheep. Those that are deemed “normal” are those who have chosen the bliss of ignorance. They have chosen the suppression of parts of themselves and truths around them so they can contour into what is expected of them. If msot people were happy this way, we would nto have an etire global economy thriving off the incessant consumption of medication, food, alcohol, tv., medications, etc. If we were truly happy abiding by what is deemed “normal” capitalism would fail, we would be happy, we would love ourselves, we would have communities that brought wellbeing and joy, we would have families that allowed us to grow up into who we were meant to be and not into what the system expects of them.
Through the centuries, parenting has gone from adults teaching children how to explore their gifts and their human experience within a planet that provides us with everything we need to live and enjoy this human journey as well as the opportunity to grow through pain, and how to use the pain to transmute it into wisdom and light. I will go into more detail about this in another chapter. Now parenting have become about molding human beings and souls into people who can survive and “succeed” into an insane system that breaks us down and dimms our lights, perpetuates self hate and disconnection, and one that turns the wonder of being alive on this planet into a prison of labour and rat race and consumption that makes us sick and lost and unhappy for which we buy more garbage to try and medicate…parents now don’t see the human being in their children..they dehumanize them into expectations, roles, performance, financial gain. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that ALL parents do this…but for certain the majority.
The black sheep of the family is born AWAKE into a family that is asleep and programmed by their religion, their media, their culture, their government, ETC. The black sheep sees what others have chosen, long ago,not to see. The black sheep feels what others have chosen, long ago, not to feel. The black appears to those asleep as a tortured soul, as a problem child, as a rebel who refuses to conform. What is not understood, is what is happening within the heart, mind, and soul of this child. It is hard to understand that experience of one who is awake int his world by those who choose to sleep. The idea that conformity is systematic of wellness and rightness and goodness has been programmed into us through tactics of fear and violence and manipulation for so long that it has become part of our unquestionable narrative.