493: A Breakthrough - 30 days of Blogging - Day 27

I arrived home last night after my ten day vacation with family. It was a fulfilling trip in that I spent most of the time with family, and friends, which was the purpose of course.

One thing I was looking forward to was feedback for myself.. to see who I was/am with family. Family has been proven to be one of the most difficult triggers for me when it comes to facing myself/my mind/my reactions. And of course it would - family is closest to what we are, as our nature, so to come face to face with that can be challenging as you are face to face with who you really are, yet to be self-honest about what you see, and take responsibility for that can be hard. Often what is normal is just the conflict within family... the fights, or irritation, or annoyances, and frustrations. We often brush off the behavior of our family, and accept it the way it is, because our family is us, and what we accept and allow within ourselves, we accept and allow within another. 

For me though this trip was a point of reflection. Last time I was there in the spring, I noticed a lot of conflict within myself in relation to my family, and I didn't feel as effective in directing myself within those conflicts. Though this time around I noticed much more stability within myself... much more awareness of my reactions that did come up, and a lot more patience. I even noticed moments of correction in real time, where rather than jumping into a reaction towards someone, slowing down, breathing and keeping that my focus. Within such an application I was able to change the direction of how I was speaking and interacting with others.

I noticed each family member represented different reactions for me - mirroring different facets of my own mind, and behavior that I can better understand, and change. With family, I have noticed that often it's harder to give specific words to what I experience, like they are undefined. To me this represents deeper, layered programming that have been existing since I was a child. Which makes sense because we are surrounded by family growing up, that is the one point that is most influential in our development, and shaping of the way we live and interact with our world. And if we develop certain traits before we've established vocabulary for ourselves, defining what our experiences are (from the beginning of our life) can be difficult.

One day in particular I noticed an experience while hanging out with a specific family member. It was constant the whole time, and it was different than the other days where I had not spent time with this family member. So I could see a change within me. It was subtle, but obvious - a constant state of being that, once I no longer was with this person, completely vanished.

Grateful for the two hour car ride home from the airport, as my partner and I were able to discuss many things. As I was telling him about my experiences, and this one specifically mentioned above, I came to see more words to define the experience I had with this person. And what I could see, and what I realized was such a breakthrough.

For all my life I have experienced this point of inferiority, not being good enough, something is wrong with me type of experience. It would be more extreme in some cases than others, but generally I would say there was this deep rooted experience of being less then/inferior/diminished/weakling. And while I was speaking to my partner about this particular experience during that day with my family member, I realized that was exactly how I experienced myself when I was with them.

Always cautious, nervous, not wanting to say or do the wrong thing. Always feeling judged, and invalidated, and diminished. Always feeling like I'm never good enough, or can never do anything right, and feeling inferior for my perspective and how I think. Then I realized this is how I experienced myself around my family member since I was a child... majority of my memories of them or being with them when I was little of was them telling me I wasn't doing something right, or that I needed to improve something; always being questioned about who I am, or how I look, or what I say as if saying that who I was, what I look like, or what I say wasn't good enough, or something was wrong with it.

What I find most interesting about this is for majority of my life where I've been discovering different parts of myself, my nature, my mind... and working on changing, I never felt any progress with this particular experience of inferiority/not good enough/something wrong with me. I had worked with it many times throughout the years with writing, and self forgiveness, but it never seemed to move, meaning - it never really changed. I was quite sure it was in relation to another family member - based on how our past played out, it seemed the most logical to me that the reason I experienced this was based on this particular relationship with another family member.

But it's not. It was with one that I never thought it had anything to do with. Yet once I saw it, and the memories within it, it was like an ah-ha moment. It made so much sense. And clarified why I now experienced myself the way I do when around this person. It took many visits, and me walking my process of writing, self-forgiveness, self-commitments, real time corrections, removing layer by layer my self definitions, and establishing my self-awareness to get to this point of seeing/understanding. And I'm glad I did.

I am grateful for this insight into me, and how I came to construct certain self-beliefs, and definitions. Having specific memories to work with, and vocabulary to re-define, I think I will finally have some movement/change within this weakling-experience. That is the gift of family, as messed up as we think they are, or how frustrated we may get towards them... family is the core programming for everyone. We are copies of our parents, and siblings, and aunts, and uncles, and cousins. They show us exactly who we are as the very nature of our minds/personalities/beliefs/ideas/opinions/behavior/patterns... and to embrace what we see, and experience in relation to them, rather than fighting with them/it, is much more empowering, and self-revealing.

So do yourself a favor... practice patience with your family, and bring back to yourself what you see within them. The good, the bad, the ugly... how are you living what you see within them? To be able to take responsibility for them, and change that, is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself, and in the end, will support with a much more effective and substantial relationship with your family. As it's no more about 'them', but it's about you, who you are, and how you direct yourself to live your utmost potential. 

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