Family ties - from past bondage to your bond to life and the world

How do you see your family of origin?

How do you relate to your mother? To your father? Or siblings?

How much do you feel connected?

How much do you feel suffocated?

How much are you trying to find your freedom and detach from them?

And how much are you searching for connection and acceptance?

No matter what was the quality of the relationships have we had with our family members, we are connected to them. Not only are they a part of our DNA but we share a connection that cannot be completely torn or erased (even if we do not want to cultivate an actual relationship with all, or some of them, which at times may be very needed and healthy).

Our family was the path way or the door way for us into the world.

The amount of love and true acceptance they shared with us, determined our experience of self, the ability we had to truly express who we were and connect to people without fear or mistrust.

I know that many of us have not experienced a well-functioning family. Not so few of us were exposed to abuse or rejection. And all of us were submitted to the burden of some unresolved trauma our parents carry.

Many of our struggles to feel secure within ourselves and in the world, to experience trust and simply the freedom to be and love, are the result of the too narrow pathway we had to move through. One that was blocked by the inability of our family to love and let us be.

There were many boulders left for us to stumble upon. More often than not, those unseen but felt boulders, were ignored by our family or we may have been even blamed for their existence, instead of being acknowledged and moved by the adults that at the end of the day, had the responsibility to move them away.

Some of us may be feeling suffocated by a sense of guilt towards our family or are ridden with a sense of over commitment that does not allow much breath and wildness in being. We are held in an unseen tight leash that keeps us “too close to home”, and is most bothersome at times when we want to travel far, exploring our dreams and wishes.

But the bond we have will always stay. It’s existence does not contradict the conscious healing and the undoing of the structures that shaped us in our family when we are looking for and finding our freedom and true self.

When we dare to feel this bond we can even accelerate our expansion, our healing and blossoming into the wonders of our existence.

Without ignoring the hurt, the lack or any other wound you may be carrying, today I want to offer you a place where you can accept and find inner peace with the connection you have to your family. No matter what you have received or suffered with/through them, today I want to invite you to feel this connection. To gain back an important piece of yourself that may be forever lost if you will not let yourself feel this bond.

It may provoke resistance with in you and the fear of being bound to what you want to let go of, may mix into everything. I mean who of us does not want to make sure he or she is not like their parents?

But I plead you to try and stay with feeling of this bond. It has no demand for action. This bond in its purest form, does not ask you for anything. Try to remember that. The people may have asked you, but the bond did not.

By doing so, you will actually free yourself from a sense of inner rejection, a dim sense of lack or an incapability nagging in the background and it will allow you to better connect and experience love with others in your life today.

This courageous move, can bring lightness into your relationships, deeper intimacy, truth and trust. It may give you as well a sense of being complete, held and truly accepted and wanted in this world. You will be free to be who you are. What you have to give and contribute will flow with more ease, satisfaction and magnificence.

This is the first in the series of posts and exploration of connection.

Today we are going to do focus on your family as a unite and the next ones we will go to the individuals in it.

Take a moment to breath and let go of your shoulders.

Try as much as you can to soften your chest and let your belly and bladder relax.

Melt the effort in your jaw while you take couple of deeper softer breathes.

Let the pressure in your ears drop and direct your attention to listen to the space rather than to the comments in your head.

Feel a flowing sensation trickling down your legs as they stop the effort of holding and allowing you to be aware of the space around you from below, above, the left, the right and to your front that embraces you and inviting you to expand into it.

Now take another breath and remember your family.

Try to keep on breathing no matter what immediate reaction is triggered in your body.

The more intense it is the deeper you should breath.

Allow your muscles and skin to relax and soften.

And just say: we are in it together.

Breath and repeat this sentence in your head or out loud few times while keeping your breath deep and expanded, making space to all the experiences that may arise.

Do that until you feel no amped up emotions, resistance or discomfort.

And then just relax within it for a moment.

Feel the equality among all of you. The shift in the power dynamics you were trapped in.

What has changed in you?

What clarity did you gain? what could you let go of?

What kind of softness did you experience and towards whom?

Think of the option of doing that with the members of your chosen family, your friends and colleagues. See what kind of bond will it allow you to have and what strength, clarity, chosen commitment as well as freedom to express yourself, will it bring you?

You are welcome to listen to the guided meditation and dive deeper into this experience to reach to a more stable state of your inner freedom and sense of natural bond top the world.

Yours,

Anna

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash