What Starts with Me - What Ends with Me.

“You inherit your ancestor’s wounds. You pass on your own if you’re not careful.”

– African proverb

Every man carries a torch.

The question is: Did you light it - or did someone else?

Most of us are walking around carrying generational burdens we didn’t ask for.
Patterns. Beliefs. Addictions. Silences. Rage. Guilt. Absence.
Some of it was taught.
Some of it was shown.
Most of it was absorbed long before we could name it.

We carry our father’s shadows in our posture.
We carry our grandfather’s ghosts in our dreams.
We live out choices made by men who never had choices themselves.

And unless we stop and ask the hard question - What starts with me, and what ends with me? - we’ll pass it all down, just like they did.

Unexamined.
Unbroken.
Unconscious.

The Quiet Inheritance

Maybe your father never said he loved you.
Maybe he said it too much, to make up for everything else.
Maybe he never came home. Or always came home angry. Or taught you how to win - but never how to feel.

You didn’t choose it.
But now it’s yours.

Because that’s how legacy works.
Not just in assets - but in absence.
Not just in land - but in language.
Not just in surnames - but in shame.

And the deeper truth?

You’ve probably already started handing it on.

In how you flinch.
In how you speak to your partner.
In what you allow.
In what you avoid.

This isn’t about blame. This is about breaking chains.

Patterns Are Not Curses - Until We Stop Noticing

Let’s be honest.
Most men know there’s something off. A tangle in the gut. A silence in the room.
But we don’t always know what it is. So we blame the stress. The job. The relationship. The politics. The news.

But the pattern?
It’s personal. It’s old. It’s yours now.

And until you sit with it - face it, feel it, name it - you’ll think it’s just life.
It’s not.
It’s a program.

And the only way to rewrite a program is to interrupt it.

That means becoming the man who dares to ask:
What ends with me?

The Turning Point: Lineage Is Choice

You don’t just inherit lineage - you create it.

Every time you catch the pattern and choose something different -
Every time you hold the rage without spreading it -
Every time you speak the words your father swallowed - 

You build a new line.

You become the ancestor worth becoming.

This is what real legacy work looks like.
Not money. Not empire. Not reputation.

A cleaner bloodstream. A clearer name. A freer future.

We’re not just here to build businesses. We’re here to break curses.

And it starts the moment you stop saying, “That’s just how I am,” and start saying:

“That stops with me.”

The Task: Interrupt the Pattern

You don’t need a therapist. You need attention and courage.
Here’s your mission for the week:

Real-World Task

1. Identify the Inheritance

• Write down 3 behaviours you know aren’t serving you.

• Now write down where you think they came from.
  Not ideas - people. Faces. Moments.
  

2. Pick One Pattern to End
   Choose just one to consciously interrupt this week.

• If it’s criticism, choose praise.

• If it’s withdrawal, choose presence.

• If it’s yelling, choose silence - or softness.
  

3. Tell One Person
   Confess your mission to someone you trust. A friend. A brother. Your partner.
   Say:
   “This stops with me. If you see me slipping, call me forward - not out.”
   
   

This is not about shame. It’s about practice. You’re rewiring a nervous system that’s been in survival for decades.

Reflective Exercise

Every night this week, ask yourself:

“What did I pass on today - and what did I break?”

Be honest.
Some nights you’ll win.
Some nights you’ll lose.
But every night you’ll become more aware - and that awareness is the first blow to the wall.

Reading List

1. It Didn’t Start With You – Mark Wolynn
   A profound look into inherited trauma and emotional DNA.
   

2. Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
   Legacy through suffering and choice.
   

3. The Body Keeps the Score – Bessel van der Kolk
   Understanding how the past lives in the body - and how to set it free.
   

4. Wild at Heart – John Eldredge
   Flawed but honest exploration of the masculine soul and wounding.
   

5. My Grandmother’s Hands – Resmaa Menakem
   A grounded guide to healing trauma through the body and lineage.

You don’t get to choose where you come from.

But you do get to choose where it ends.

You get to be the man who walks into the forest of his father’s silence and walks out with a voice.

The man who holds the rage, doesn’t let it spill, and still moves with power.

The man who plants something cleaner, clearer, deeper - for the ones who come next.

Because someone has to go first.

Let it be us.