Dear wanderers, if your relationship with your family (immediate or extended) is not something that is healthy at this time, that is okay, still listen. You should know that family is important despite your current struggles. Family can be blood or bond related. I have family of both origins. I find one of the most emotionally difficult relationships in life is with the family you were raised with. There are unspoken or spoken expectations, which you may or may not feel the burden of. You feel pressure to fit in to a mold that matches those expectations, or the opposite… Your run from it. They often feel like strangers because the relationship is not as purposeful.
So today I speak to not only how your family affects you, but how you affect them.
If you meet a new friend at the local coffee shop, would you expect them to fit your mold? What if you find out that they are completely different from you? Despite this, you enjoy each other’s company with respect and tolerance. Right? I know I have friends who are nothing like me, but we enjoy our friendship anyway. They don’t force me to play video games or eat vegetarian. I don’t force them to smoke or sing karaoke. Often they become my family by bond.
The pressure you feel from family’s to fit their mold is in both you and them. Family’s should give unconditional love, no matter who you are as a person. This stops happening when the different people cannot see outside the box they choose to live in. Each person chooses how they live, and what is right for them. Then they fail to allow others to choose differently. Sometimes it is because they think their way is the only right way, or it is the most successful way. Other times is because they are just too busy in life to learn and accept differences.
Often family members use less tact, gossip more, are more blunt, and are not easy to walk away from or ignore. They don’t respect your wishes of privacy because they don’t understand. They fail to truly listen. They offer support in so many ways that sometimes come with strings attached.
I personally grew up idolizing many of my extended family members, and so as a young adult kept trying to achieve their approval. I stood up to my parents more easily than the remainder of my family. This often left me in tears of frustration, feeling because I felt differently, believed differently that I was a failure. I started distancing myself, limiting conversations, trying to figure out me, not who they wanted me to be, but who I wanted to be. This looked a lot like a rebellious teenager. Doing things in my life to spite the wishes of others. Half the time they never knew, because I was simultaneously trying to live to their standard. Oh, how I feel so false looking back, but it was all I knew how to do and survive.
If your family does not live a positive life and enables you to do things that are not in your best interest it is okay to walk away. Maybe once you have found yourself, away from those negative influences and changed to be confident in yourself, you can return and attempt a relationship. I have seen this to be a better method than continuing to put up with it.
I’ve been lucky with my family, they always mean well (sometimes in their own twisted way), but it hasn’t always fit. They care so much that they want the others to know, so they share info that wasn’t theirs to share. I don’t think any of them have ever intentionally set out to hurt me (which I know does happen sometimes in other families). I still found myself needing to distance from them, which solved very little because I still did not understand some very important things in life. Specifically, how to deal with other people.
The same philosophy applies to family and to anyone else who attempts to influence your life. IT IS YOUR CHOICE HOW THEY AFFECT YOU. It just sometimes seems harder with families. This is really difficult to do, so often you hear from friends after you tell them about a trouble you have, “don’t let it bother you”. You respond, yeah, you’re right. Then it keeps bothering you. Maybe you wonder why you can’t just let it go.
It is in this moment I ask people, do you love yourself? Do you have confidence in the way you are living your life? If not, why are you living it that way? It takes practice to love yourself and not allow others affect the way you are, unless you want them to. You are allowing them to affect you, but then again, we were raised to respect our elders, to listen to their wisdom. They have wisdom, but it does not always apply to everyone they share it with. Sometimes they share something profound that makes your want to follow that lead, and that is great.
You cannot change how other people act our what they say, but you can learn to respond with tolerance, respect, and distance if need be. My family is crazy overbearing sometimes. They have hurt my feelings, and left me confused at times. This was an issue in my life. Now that I am journeying to find my true happiness in life, I am also finding confidence, learning to love myself, and care for myself. Today with my extended family I was more at ease, but also found that I didn’t need to speak as much.
The less I talk these days, the less I receive hurtful responses, whether intended or not. I am part of the family, but I choose not to take an active role in every conversation. I soak when I feel I have something positive and important to put in. I find this is where I am happy with my family. Helping my Papa get his food, listening to stories, and playing with the kids. I don’t share info that solicits response, because I desire no advice. I offer input about respect tolerance and love, because that us what I desire and what I desire for others.
Through everything my family had always been willing to help me out, and I live them for it. The truth about a wanderers family… Let them love you. If you are being you, and love you, which is part of the point of wandering, then you can be grateful that crazy opinionated people love you, care for you, but do not control your happiness.
I was glad I made my family reunion today. It was an important step in my journey, to make my relationship with them a priority. I hope of you have felt your family relationship is a rocky one that you can find peace, understanding, and love with them. With time scars fade and can be replaced by something better. You choose how you react.
Signing off Commerce City, CO