Family Relationships

Family relationships. What could be more important? And family is anyone you care about deeply, blood or not.

What happens when those relationships get damaged? What is your life like when you know you’re the cause and you could’ve done better?

We’ve all been there. Nothing is harder to get right with any consistency and on any large scale, than maintaining a healthy and happy coexistence with your family.

If your immediate family is peachy-keen then extend your thinking outward to others who mean the world to you. Go through your past. You probably won’t have to dig deep to find glaring examples of areas needing improvement; of moments where you could have dealt with a bad situation better than you did.

Or, on the flip side. maybe you really do handle yourself pretty well but other members of the family? Not so much. It’s still up to you to somehow manage the other folk’s “interesting” qualities in order for you to not seethe with rage at their presence or climb the walls in frustration when dealing with someone you love so much.

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Amazingly enough (tongue in cheek time) it’s not the other people who are at fault or who need to adjust their viewpoints in order for the family to find harmony. You can’t fix them. But you can fix you.

And by fix, we don’t mean you’re broken. The better word would be “adjust”. We all know there are some people who just won’t budge. Their ability to shine in the worst of ways does not mean you have to develop a saint-like quality of being able to shrug it all off when they hurt you.

That can be part of it but in those really hard core cases, it’s not even about being “the bigger person”. It’s about you being able to handle their qualities in a way that doesn’t damage your calm. Let them be them. You don’t even have to like it. That’s not the point. But you can get to a place where you no longer need a Tums after the visit.

To take this to another level, you’ll also become the person who can make what may seem to be a painful change if someone close to you really does need a “sit down talk” about the garbage they’ve been pulling.

You’ll be able to have that talk in a productive fashion so that feelings don’t get hurt any worse than they must or any more fuel gets added to the fire. But you preserve your sanity by setting them straight, gracefully.

Getting it right with family is not always about taking it on the chin for the good of all

It’s about coming to some sort of conclusion as to how you might best handle what could very well be a crappy situation.

You manage yourself better. That makes you a special member of the Tree. You can become the Rock or the grounding force the rest of the family relies upon.

If that’s not to be or not wanted or necessary, then you’ll just be someone who can be part of a family in the healthiest of fashions. You’ll be able to enjoy everyone else’ presence – or not – in a way that brings you no further distress.

Your being this way has an elevating effect on the mood of the rest of your family. Your loved-ones will always feel better when you’re around or check their habitual negativities at the door until you’ve gone, resulting in that harmony so necessary for any group to survive.

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