Overcome Adversity: Love Family

In this part, you will understand that you will love all your family members, whether you want to or not. So, not being able to choose means you will need to learn how to still love a family member when disliking them. This talk is designed for you to strive to have the most healthy family relationships possible.

Transcript

You cannot choose your family.

You also cannot choose whether you love them or not.

You do love them.

You're connected to them in a way that neither you nor I can ever fully understand or explain.

No matter if you like or dislike your family,

Accepting and embracing the love you inevitably have for them will bring you peace and stability.

Now are you able to love unconditionally?

So today we're looking at how to accept the birth-given love that you have for all your family members.

We will understand how embracing your love instead of avoiding it will make your life easier.

Our goal today is to start taking the right steps to establish the most healthy family relationships that are possible to achieve for you.

Lisa Weed said,

Being a family means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.

Let's see how you can embrace and enjoy this love.

First of all,

I want to talk about family members that you don't necessarily like,

Because those ones are obviously the ones hardest to accept love for.

Nevertheless,

I would argue that all your family members are in your heart.

It does not matter whether you like or dislike them,

Or whether they're annoying,

You still love them.

I'm not saying you need to spend a lot of time with all your family members necessarily,

But what I am saying is that you should not fight against the inherent love you have for them.

So why is accepting the love for family members you dislike so powerful?

Because if you try not to love someone who you have inherent love for,

Then you're trying to increase negative emotions towards someone.

These negative emotions are experienced by you and nobody else.

And experiencing negative emotions doesn't only make you unhappy,

It also diminishes your potential for personal growth.

Denying family love will cause you grief and it will make you bitter.

Furthermore,

These negative emotions also don't help you untangle yourself from a family relationship.

The energetic connection with your family is undeniable.

It exists whether you want it or not.

Your love for them would still exist even if you choose never to see a family member ever again.

Using negative emotions in order to try and free yourself from your family only increases the confusion inside of you.

You will not be able to stop loving them,

No matter how much hate you pour on.

So how can you deal with unlikable family members then?

The easiest and most obvious option is to manage the amount of time you spend with them.

I highly recommend only spending an amount of time that does not exhaust you.

Do not overextend yourself.

Healthy boundaries are fundamental to having any type of relationship in the first place.

Another way is to adopt the mindset of seeing difficult family members as a spiritual practice.

This might sound outlandish to you,

But what I mean here is merely the approach towards them.

You can practice a mindset of patience and love,

Even though your reactive mind wants to get triggered,

Fight or run away.

As mentioned earlier,

You cannot fully disconnect.

But what you can do is choose your mindset,

Your approach.

And the approach of not letting your monkey mind be reactive,

Angry and confrontational is a spiritual practice.

Next,

Let us talk about increasing the quality of communication with your family.

As so often,

How you say things is just as important as what you say.

For example,

You can choose to say,

Your lifestyle is fucking unhealthy.

Or you can say,

Are you sure your lifestyle is optimal?

The goal is for you to have mature and high-quality conversations that serve you and hopefully also your family members.

Now,

In order to experience quality conversations,

You need to accept that your family might communicate back to you in a less mature way.

Do not expect the same quality of communication from your family,

No matter if they're younger or older.

You're not in control of others.

But even if they get agitated,

Do not give up on them.

They might not be able to express themselves to anyone else.

Remember to see these conversations as a spiritual practice.

This will allow for a lot more patience.

By the way,

Arguing with people who have different ideologies is always valuable,

Because it immediately challenges your worldviews.

And checking in with your subjective way of how you experience this world is great,

Because it increases your awareness.

Remember,

You are not perfect.

You can always grow.

Next,

I would like to invite you to see how proactive you can be and how conscious you can be of how you start a conversation.

There is an insane amount of potential for beauty and catastrophe with families at any given moment.

And how you initiate conversations has a huge effect on their first reaction.

So as much as you can,

Initiate conversations with positive dialogue,

Appreciation and attention.

Now,

While listening to me,

You might get the feeling that I'm talking about faking things,

Not being yourself,

Or pretending.

Of course,

That is not what I want you to do.

Being authentic is fundamental,

Don't lie.

But choosing what to talk about and how to act around certain family members does not mean you're not yourself.

It means you're a mature adult.

Don't lie,

Don't be fake,

But choose wisely.

Be your authentic self,

But also be in control and choose what words,

Actions,

Reactions and conversations serve you.

Next,

Being inclusive of all your family members is another cornerstone in being able to have healthy and happy family relations.

When all family members feel included and feel loved,

Then the difficult ones feel immediately more at ease.

They're not nervous and they don't feel weird to be there in the first place.

This is important because relaxed people are a lot less likely to get triggered,

Even when you disagree with them.

So in any gathering or discussion,

Make sure you don't give the feeling of wanting to exclude someone from your family.

Now I would like to talk a bit more about why it is so important to embrace family members,

No matter how crazy their views are.

Actually,

Especially when they are crazy,

Or addicts,

Or racists,

Embrace them.

They will benefit from your listening to them and making them feel included.

A difficult family member actually needs the feeling of belonging the most.

Because if they don't have the feeling they belong to your family,

Then they will join another group of people where they will receive that feeling of belonging.

And that group will potentially make your family member even more unhealthy,

Distant and extreme.

So embrace your family members.

Never make them have the feeling that they do not belong to your tribe.

Lastly,

Take a moment to appreciate your family.

Most likely there is no one who has your back like your family.

No one is as likely as them to help you in need.

I understand that your situation is unique and I might be wrong about your family.

But for most of us it is beneficial to appreciate how much your family would do for you.

Chances are likely that some of your family members would literally die for you.

Even after the worst fight,

Your family would still try and help you at all costs.

Family bonds are usually the strongest bonds you have.

They can't be denied.

So embrace them as much as you can.