I’m celebrating the release of my book, Tame Your Inner Critic Find Peace & Contentment to Live Your Life On Purpose by sharing some excerpts with you. I’ve particularly chosen excerpts that focus on relationships –the relationships we have with ourselves, and the relationships we have with our closest family members.
The graduate-level curriculum in energy awareness surely resides in the relationships we have with our family members, specifically our parents and our siblings. When dealing with family-of-origin dynamics, it’s so easy to lose our space, to become ungrounded, to forget to put on our protection bubble. Our family members are in our life to push our buttons, to call us out on our behavior, allowing us to experience deeper levels of growth and knowingness.
The wounds may be deep on both sides of the relationship, but it is possible to make headway, at least on your own end of the equation. Remember that the significant people in your life are acting as your mirrors, reflecting back to you some of the not-so-pleasant parts of your personality so that you may come to know yourself at a deeper, wiser level. Do not be in judgment of this part of you. We all have areas we’re not proud of, but you now have tools to remove some of their judgments and criticisms from your space.
Once you understand that what you put out you get back, you’ll become aware of your reactions as you relate to your mirrors. The objective is to deal with these relationships from a space of openness, not hostility and fearfulness.
Let’s say that you and your father are in a tumultuous relationship. You may not be speaking to each other, and there is an undercurrent of drama during holiday dinners. You each feel hurt and invalidated. You both want to blame the other for the lack of affinity between you. Your father is your mirror, and you are his. Remember that you can’t change your father, you can only change your own attitude about how you relate to your father. You set the tone of how you think and feel. You may not be able to affect the way your father feels about you just yet, but let’s say that you are ready to change how you feel about him.
Use your tools. Remember that you have a choice in how you react. In that nanosecond between stimulus and response, you get to choose. You could elect to relate from the space of the five year old who is hurt, broken, and judged to be not good enough. Or, you could decide to react from the space of now—the person you are in the present moment.
Energy flows between family members, even if they are separated by a great distance. You can be miles apart, but the energy—the vibration—you send out will be felt by the other person. Whether he or she chooses to accept your newfound state of beingness is up to them. You cannot change the other person. You cannot force him or her into harmony with your own perspective. However, you can stand in your own truth—with your thoughts and feelings vibrating in love, compassion, openness, and peace. Your family member may feel that vibration and choose to accept it, or he or she might still be in the middle of drama, needing to be right, needing to be validated, and unconsciously choose not to match your vibration. No matter, send some gentle kindness their way. You do not need to talk with them, just send them compassion and allow them to be the way they are.
If you find that you need an extra-heavy-duty protection bubble to catch all the energy whacks your family sends your way, then live in a heavily protected aura for a while. Be in command of your own space and the energy that flows through your aura and your body. You do not have to be in resistance to the energy of your family; in fact it’s best if you just let judgments and criticisms pass without comment. What you resist persists, so simply allow your loved ones to be who they are. Concentrate on yourself, on your reaction, on the thoughts and feelings that you’re sending out into the world. Concentrate on understanding the “whys” of some of your major life lessons.
Remember: you get to choose. Every moment of every day.
If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt from the book, I hope you will consider adding it to your must-read list. And I hope you will share this post with a friend or two! Many blessings to you – from my heart to yours.
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