❣ I was a happy child in an unhappy childhood 💌
That’s how I described it to an old friend recently when we compared our difficult upbringings. My parent’s had descended to bitter regret and frustration long before I, the youngest, had come along. This overshadowed the relationship with my siblings as we had never had good role models in how to be loving and supportive of each other. This is one of the only happy pictures I have with my two sisters (I’m the one climbing off the see saw). One of my sisters couldn’t communicate and yet we were very close, the other in the later years wouldn’t communicate and we drifted apart. They are both in spirit now and I look back with some sadness that things were not easier between us.
We cannot choose our family, nor can we choose how our relationship with them will develop over time. In a recent coaching conversation, my client wanted to set some goals about how a sibling will make more effort to invest in family time. ‘That’s just not possible.’ I said. We can only set goals around our behaviour, our actions and our intended outcomes. We can show love, forgive sleights, and stay open to the possibility of a relationship, but we cannot do anything to dictate terms on someone else’s behaviour, no matter how invested we might feel.
I think my biggest life lesson has been acceptance. I might have wished for a different start in life, or a more peaceful childhood, or closer family bonds, but in the end, I got what I got: a fragmented and dysfunctional family unit.
I was never a child to dwell on what I did not have. I think that was my saving grace and allowed me to find happiness, regardless of what battles were being fought at home. I allowed myself to key into my own happiness and set out on a path that would lead to love. It was not always easy, but in the end, our life is about making positive choices to address our own happiness, not trying to conform to someone else’s.
If at this time of year you are experiencing some pain around broken or fraught relationships in your life, go inward. Look to what you can accept and where you can find happiness on your own terms. Allow life to show you a path that will lead you to a more fulfilled life.
If you’d like a free confidential chat to talk through anything this might have triggered, message me and I’ll be happy to offer whatever assistance I can.