Family

Consider yourself blessed if you have a family that loves you and supports you.  It is the absolute best start and foundation for creating a good life.  If you have a family that you feel didn’t give you that foundation, no matter the reasons or circumstance, then you simply must create a circle of people in your life who will become your family.  I am sure you have heard it said that people do the best they can with what they know.  If their experience was based on lack rather than abundance of love and nurturing, the limitations may seem endless.  Learn how to deal with people who push your buttons, especially if they are family, and you will create an essential skill to break free and live your life, your way.

The first step is to identify your own buttons.  Take the time to honestly assess each of your relationships, and decide if they serve your best self.  When someone pushes your buttons, it presents you with an opportunity to know yourself better.   Anytime someone ‘pushes your buttons’, a phrase that means someone has provoked you into a response or strong feeling, it gives you an opportunity to look inside yourself and understand why you are reacting and how to resolve that conflict within.  Most often these conflicting reactions that encourage arguments and more conflict come from a place of fear, insecurity, and or a lack of self-esteem or self-worth.  When you feel these strong reactions to what others say or do, consider them as signals or reminders for your own internal assessment and renewal.  This is where success in relationships and solving problems begins.  How can you assess another’s influence in your life if you don’t know your own issues and resistance, your own fears and challenges?   You can learn to be gracious in your response to conflict with family and friends, or at least be calm and quiet.  We can assess who honestly supports us, gives us good advice and doesn’t demand from us what we cannot give.  We simply must learn who to walk away from and who to walk towards.  Family can be the solid foundation from which you build a life encouraged with love and support.  Family can also assert a hold over you and possibly guilt you into your loyalty and obligations to them.  In generations past (and still in many countries around the word), obligation to family was essential to survival.  Just living through a season together took a team effort.  As with the wolf pack each relied on the other for survival.

When people tell you who they are, believe them.   When someone shows you who they are believe them.  Stop making excuses for others or for yourself.  Pay attention to the red flags in relationships that people too often ignore or convince themselves the other person will change or worse yet that you will fix them.

The human family in all its eccentricities can be a wondrous and creative endeavor.  We all know the brilliance that comes to each of us when we witness a crisis.  Most of us willingly engage in helping those in need and give of ourselves, our homes and our resources in an emergency.  This same reserve of generosity and care must infiltrate your daily life. With the knowledge that we can rise up and give of ourselves we can make our daily relationships better.  Now is what matters. Our lives are a collection of the moments we have right now.  Each new moment is guided by our behavior, thoughts and actions.

The U.S. Census Bureau still defines “family” as consisting of two or more people related by birth, marriage, or adoption residing in the same housing unit.  A new definition of family is simply a close-knit unit of individuals joined together without distinction of race, ethnicity, biology, sexual orientation, age, generation, or presence in households, cemented through bonds of love and respect.

‘The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom’ written by Don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering.  Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform your life to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.  The four agreements are simply; be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions and always do your best.

The concept of family has changed rapidly in the past few decades and with that in mind build a family of your own wherever you find yourself whether for the short term or the long term.  Be true to yourself and be true to them and you will find support and love on your journey.