A family's black sheep are actually liberators of their family tree.
Family members who don't adapt to family rules or traditions, those who constantly try to revolutionize beliefs.
Those who choose roads contrary to the well-beaten paths of family lines, those who are criticized, judged and even rejected.
These are called to free the family from repetitive patterns that frustrate entire generations.
These so-called ′′ black sheep ", the ones that don't fit, the ones that howl with rebellion, actually repair, detox and create new thriving branches in their family tree.
Countless unreal desires, broken dreams or frustrated talents of our ancestors manifest themselves through this revolt.
For inertia, the family tree will do anything to maintain the neutral and toxic course of its trunk, which will make the rebel's task difficult and conflicting.
Stop doubting and take care of your rarity ′′ like the most precious flower in your tree ".
You are the dream of all your ancestors.~~
~Bert Hellinger

That's the way I like words put together, Don. Thank you. Not surprised you picked out that gem to post.

White is nothing without black. Something has got to stir the pot and challenge the stale, dead, safe sameness that seeps into everything and slowly kills it while claiming to be its savior.

This is very smug of me to say, but sometimes I swear I detect a bit of envy over my life from my TBM-to-the-Max family.

>> "This is very smug of me to say, but sometimes I swear I detect a bit of envy over my life from my TBM-to-the-Max family."

I get the feeling my TBM siblings are a bit confused at how my life has turned out in spite of having no mormonism in it.....and I think they see a freedom I have that they don't, but can't quite figure out how that works. They kept the rules and I didn't....and I have a good life and am happy and appear blessed....how can that be fair? How the heck did that happen??

Out of all my Mormon family who nearly faint at the sight of a coffee, I am the only one who can run and not be weary, walk and not faint as I my gulp my coffee, sip my wine, and revel in the occasional margarita or martini.

Ironic.

On top of that have had a very successful career and not just financially, but accomplishment I am proud of after all these years. Imagine if on top of that I'd paid tithing and had all those extra promised blessings from that! Like they all got from paying a full tithe. Oh, wait . . .

Knock on wood to all of the above of course cuz I know how very fortunate I have been. The point is just that their silly promises of health and blessings don't cut it.

You are the dream of all your ancestors. The non-Mormon ones. Wait, they have been processed by Mormonism.

I fully Agree. I was the last of 6 kids born to mormon converts. My mom said she had a dream/ vision before I was born, of a young man standing at the foot of her bed gazing lovingly at her. She thought it was my oldest brother who would have been about 12, but it wasn't.

When she woke up or the vision ended, she told my dad there was one more child waiting to come. They thought they were done as my mom was petite and pretty worn out after 5 kids.

So, within a year, I arrived. As soon as I was old enough to be told the story of JS and the church (around 6 or 7), I rebelled and continued to rebel throughout my life, except for a few years when I returned and went on a mission at 22 yrs. old, figuring it would be an opportunity to grow up a bit more and just get away for awhile.

I raised my kids out of the church and severed that branch of mormon tree. I always wondered....If her dream/ vision was real or even imagined, to them it was a sign that another faithful mormon seed was on the way....but it turned out totally opposite. How do they know I didn't come to show them the error of their faith? Why didn't they want to listen to anything I had to say about it?

My mom and I always shared a special bond and in the last years of her life, she did listen to me and she did see what I saw in the church because she saw it herself....and empty shell, devoid of love, full of rules and restrictions taking your money and giving nothing in return.

So maybe I did a little pruning on the tree afterall.

My mother had dreams/visions of me dying. I did the same as you, went on a mission at 20 to get away.

Unfortunately my wife and kids are Mormon. But I'm still alive. Maybe their faith is keeping me alive? ;)

When I became an adult and was on my own, my mom had recurring dreams about wanting/ needing to buy me pants.

I think it came from when I was 15 and had been wearing the same clothes for the first two years of high school and they were threadbare and worn out. One day I asked if I could get some new clothes...my 2 pair of jeans both had holes in the butt from sitting in classes for 2 years. She was so absorbed in herself and her church girlfriends that during my teens I was pretty much on my own and ignored. When I asked for some clothes, she looked at me with a puzzled look like "you do? You need clothes?". Money wasn't the issue, dad worked and she inherited well into 6 figures. So I got some clothes, everyone at school noticed and commented. I started working just before 16 and bought my own clothes from then on.

Before she died she told me she was still having the dreams, so I told her that we need to go out and she could buy me some pants to stop the dreams.

I am not kidding. Your story of your mother and the dream is exactly what happened in our family but not to me. The fifth still supposed to come to our family a dozen years after the first four in my mom's dream and then voila she got pregnant in her forties. There was one more after that and she was said to be a bonus because for whatever reason couldn't go to her original destination. Yes, my family thought like yours. They took forever to name this brother because they thought he was destined to be something really special in the church and wanted the right name.

The 5th didn't go on the mission like you but did rebel heavily by 13 years old and continued to be the wild child but dabbling back in the church occasionally.

Interesting....by the time I was 13, they finally let me stop church all together, figuring I'd work through it and come running back...just a phase you know?

Again. My brother refused to go to church and they didn't force it---again, assuming he would come back. How many times did I hear the phrase, "Raise a child up in the way he should go and when he is older he will not stray far from it." OR something like that. They were so sure I would come back.

Straying is the best if you do it right.

I was kicked out of my house for not going to church and partying with friends and not going to school. Church was the big deal. The other things were fuel to that fire.

The family trees can't grow without us, naturally, the roots and branches, the fertilizer, the wilder parts of the cities, and even the tamer parts of the wild country.