My Habit

I have a bad habit of screaming at my kids when I am upset. It has gotten so bad that when I talk to them with my normal tone of voice, they think I'm angry at them. I come from a family of screamers. Let me back track for a little bit: My maternal grandmother was from Spain. My paternal grandmother was from Portugal. They both married Filipinos from the Philippines. Both my grandmothers were fiesty people and their spouses came from a lineage of tribal warriors in the 1500's. So, whenever they spoke to each other, not that they like speaking to each other, they sounded like they were fighting. That conversation style was brought down to the next generations.
One day I brought a friend home and introduced her to my mom. She thought my mother and my uncle were fighting after she heard them talking to each other. Because I didn't want to have to explain to her the history of our family, I assured her that they were just talking and that was how they spoke to each other in their own loving tone of voices.
So now, here I am inheriting my family's tone of voice. I want to break that habit because sometimes I don't realize I offend people. I recorded myself, one day, and heard myself speaking so harshly with no gentle and calm tone on my voice. I sounded like one of Hitler's sidekicks, so demanding and bossy. I felt so embarrassed that that tone of voice spoke to a million people in my lifetime that I had to ask favors from. No wonder, some of them frowned at me. Now, I try to slow down whem I'm speaking and remind myself to taper down my tone of voice and remember how uncaring my voice sounded over the recorder, or maybe not speak at all whem I'm upset. It's not easy because I grew up with a family of fiesty people and that blood of tribal warriors is in me. I am still working on trying to speak in a melodious voice so as not to sound too harsh.