Family, a precious gift or a horror for life?
Family, sometimes you wonder who came up with that idea!
If you look around, siblings who get along really well are far outnumbered by the ones who don’t.
Some of us really get along with our parents, if we see or know them at all.
Many of us have small or big issues, coming from our relationship with our parents. Issues we deal with on a daily basis.
It isn’t much like the wonderful picture we all get presented about family.
“Family, the group of people who live harmony from the day the parents met, to the day we all pass over in peace”
For most of us it is a lot more complicated than that. So if you are the exception, enjoy it!!
So how can we make sense of all the complex relationships, issues and scars that come with family?
Depending on the culture you live in or come from, family is the core, a big or small group , a tight knit or widely dispersed group.But in all cultures family is important, even the ones where children are raised by the community, where the community is family.
Family, whether your own and/or your adopted one, is the base where you learn about life.It is where you learn to trust or mistrust, feel safe and confident or threatened and incompetent.Whether we like it or not, that also counts for our parents.They come with their own luggage into that relationship that makes them into your parents.
It is amazing how much responsibility nature has given to inexperienced young people: Raise our children! One of the most complex tasks we can have in life. And we’re thrown into it knowing little about what to expect, how to avoid old mistakes. About how to actually create harmony and a place where young ones learn to trust, love and feel confident.It is a recipe for repeating patterns, either good ones or dysfunctional ones.
So what happens?We leave our family life with a diploma in the crash course of life, presented by inexperienced teachers with their own issues, our parents.
Can you avoid, change, overcome the deep roots, the issues of the family you are embedded in?
Yes you can.
We have many teachers in life. Our family members are only part of a small group.We can give them more credit, more power, more influence than others.
Or we can decide not to.
It is your choice.
In everything you do, your past plays a part. The more aware you are of that, the easier it becomes to change it. You can choose to make your parent’s, your sibling’s comments, ideas important or not.You can choose to do as before or change.
How can you do that?1. Pick one thing you would like to change. 2. Think about how you would like it to be. Feel how you would feel if that worked well.3. Practice with how you would like it to be. First in your head, then with others you feel comfortable with, then with the people who challenge you most.4. Be kind and loving to yourself as you fall and get up: it is a process, not an event. It is a lot easier to fall back into old ways than to create new ones.5. When you feel judgment about yourself, by others or yourself, re-focus on how you want it to be. Just remember that you don’t have to do it in any way others tell you. It is your life, your responsibility.6. Declare yourself a student in life, determined to learn to achieve your goal. 7. Celebrate your successes and pick a new one to tackle!
Family, it can be a great teaching ground for life.Become a loving, caring student of life and you will increase the chance that you will create a better home for your children too.
So we create more homes that are now the exception, homes where children grow up learning to trust, feeling safe and confident.
I know you can. It is up to you to choose to do it.
Wouter