When I first heard the saying ‘family is more than blood’, it felt like a relief because as much as I love and care for my family there were times when I also met people with whom I felt as close and familiar with and who I loved just as dearly as my own family.
With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true. I always wanted to please my mum especially and play the ‘good’ daughter, so there were many times when I would put aside what I was feeling and do the ‘right’ thing. This of course ended up making me feel exhausted and moody, as I was not honouring of myself in any way.
I was holding this big belief that I had to conform because that was what families do – even when I was quite tired I would push myself to attend family events because of the pressure I put on myself to be there no matter what, and also because I didn’t want to miss out on anything.
Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me and not loving in any way.
I can feel now how holding onto all these beliefs and ideals keep me trapped in some way, and then out of reaction to this it made me act out certain patterns and behaviours in my life to bury what I was truly feeling at these times: for example, I would eat a lot of sugary and comfort foods or would watch a lot of TV or go shopping, all to avoid what I was feeling. The whole way I was living life was in avoidance of myself – a running away from feeling my own strength and power. This is something I felt even more strongly when I became a first-time mother and was bombarded with a load of ‘pictures’ about how to parent instead of trusting that as a woman I have all the innate wisdom and qualities needed within to know how to parent successfully.
Learning to let go of these pictures I adopted that kept me in a spin and further away from being ‘me’ has been a work in progress.
Life for me has become very different as I now embrace people and treat them with the warmth and familiarity I would a dear or close family member. This has become more natural for me as I began to address the relationship with myself first and started to confirm and appreciate all the beautiful qualities that I bring. This was not easy at first as there can be many voices in my head trying to crush my new loving self-talk, but slowly and over time I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.
I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member. I am grateful that I challenged this limiting belief as it has allowed me to see the wider family available to me everywhere I go.
Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart, no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me to see if I can trust them or if I will be accepted: I see them as my equal and equally as loving as myself, even if they are too shy to express their love in that moment.
For many years I used to feel quite hurt and let down by people and so I went into protecting myself from others, but interestingly this shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me. I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past, something that I justified in my own mind but that really held me back from experiencing a deeper and true connection with others.
It took a lot of effort for me to live in this protected way because I had to resist any love that was offered to me: it doesn’t make sense as I was really craving and missing that connection and intimacy with others but I was putting up a huge protective wall that said ‘back off’.
No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.
Having this awareness about myself has supported me to be more understanding when I meet others and to not react to their guard or to judge them in any way. Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me and has allowed the space for another to feel safe to express and to enjoy the connection that is being offered.
By Anna Douglass, International Flight Attendant, Mother, dedicated student of the Ageless Wisdom, Australia
Further Reading:
Family Defined by Quality
Truly Appreciating the People in my Neighbourhood
True Family
Hi Susan, I can relate to this I suddenly had this realisation very recently while driving my car that a member of my family went into a profession because it was what was expected of them by our father. It was something that occurred out of duty to the family tradition rather than asking what it was that they wanted to do with their life. I never considered the impact this may of had on someones life?
Is it possible Jane that in years to come we will look back at the events that led the politicians to instigate the world into lockdown was to keep everyone in the feeling of separation. As united we stand divided we fall in the abyss of ill mental health which has sky rocketed as one of the results of the lockdown. when everyone is out in the community there is a sense of togetherness without a doubt.
It’s a well known fact as there have been countless studies conducted on family life, that informs us all that more abuse goes on in family life behind closed doors than anywhere else, even the most roughest down and out areas in cities do not come any where near close to the violence that occurs within families. In spite of all these research studies no questions are asked to the community why is this happening? It’s all brushed under the carpet of ‘life’. I was talking to a lady just recently, she was telling me she had to take early retirement from Social work that she did because she couldn’t cope with the level of abuse within most family units. Unfortunately due to the lockdowns one of the ladies under her supervision as being vunrable was murdered by her husband and the impact of the shock was clearly felt in her body. Why is it we know what is happening within family life, it is in our face daily but we do nothing about it. We step around the Elephant in the room rather than asking what is it doing there?
Monica we need to bust the myth about families because more abuse takes place within blood families than anywhere else. The whole concept we have built around families is a lie and keeps us all restricted and controlled.
I feel that for many life times I have shut myself away from people because I was holding onto hurts from past lives and this has an effect on every life thereafter until the hurt is dealt with. I kept my self in the hurt so that another couldn’t hurt me as much as I was hurting myself. Looking back it feels that the way to deal with my hurts was to rebuild love and trust within me again, I have done this slowly over many years and it wasn’t until I re read this blog that I realised that when we have a love for ourselves nothing else matters and it is this love that keeps me warm and content so that any hurts I had have melted away revealing a love for humanity that was always there but hidden away under the hurts.
If another is not being love we can either equally not be love or remain in love. The first one critiques and the latter understands.
Living in the fullness of our essences, inner-most/Souls we first start to feel the Joy, then understand Love and Truth, which brings in the wisdom and Harmony then we are starting to live in full with the understanding of True Appreciation.
“I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.” As we deepen our connection to love we realise that we are all family.
Mary I understand what you are sharing as recently I went with some friends to an Ice Rink, I stood on the side of the barrier watching everyone having fun skating round. What I felt within me was a joy to be there with everyone and to feel how we are all one big family, even if we do not know each other there is a deeper connection to be felt. The other thing I noticed was how many people smiled and made contact with me as if they were lowering their personal barriers too. Yes we have our own personal journeys to go through but deeper than that it was palpable that we are all the same.
Holding our-selves in Love is the first step of appreciating who we are, and when we understanding appreciation of our essences this is the starting point of appreciating others and that they have the same inner quality.
Appreciation becomes a lived quality that is a part of the living authority and is confirmation of the true connection we have to our essences and thus deepening our divine purpose when we live with appreciation, authority and confirmation.
Feel deep in our hearts and we truly can not escape the fact we are all one.
Beautifully said Alison. Borders aren’t necessary when we have trust. Maybe a while to get there, as you say, but eminently possible.
We made the borders, to take control over the land and to control the people passing in and out all in the name of commerce. If we were to look down from the European space shuttle back to Earth, we would not see any borders. We have imprisoned ourselves within rules and regulations which we say is for the greater good but this is a complete lie as the people that make up the rules break them, and the mass of people they were designed for are yoked by them so that we do not have the so called ‘freedom’ that we are told we have it’s a huge sham that we have been dripped fed and all accepted over the years.
I just love the photo that accompanies this blog. Says it all.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” And to love others too, regardless of whether that love is returned.
“Family Is More Than Blood” If we acknowledged this truth we would have far less wars on this planet.
All these ideals and beliefs are very draining, how much more loving is it for us to simply honour what our body is saying, ‘With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true.’
Anna, this is really beautiful; ‘ Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me and has allowed the space for another to feel safe to express and to enjoy the connection that is being offered.’ I love that there is understanding and openness to others, how beautiful for people to be met in this way, rather than judged and rejected.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – when we realise the truth of this our whole world opens up.
I 100% agree Anna that ‘shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me.’ The protection we think it affords us is not true and really is not worth pursuing.
I reflect on my life and I have always been open to anyone coming into my family, my family is everyone in truth I get a very real sense of that. We have so many boundaries and false separation in the world, whether blood or not, we are of the same origin and we are here to learn to be together in love.
I can see how this pleasing and wanting to be liked/loved runs through families and other relationships but somehow in families feels more ingrained and more difficult to dig out and totally renounce. Sometimes we might think it doesn’t exist but we are merely reacting to it at a deeper level.
The way we use the word family now is not the true meaning of the word, nowadays the word family means licence to abuse.
We are often far more abusive to our ‘loved’ ones than we are with others – surely this is not what true family is about?
Yes, family is frequently where most abuse takes place! So what is going on with this, why is it ever acceptable to abuse someone, and especially someone you are supposed to love?
This is a very good question to ask ourselves – are we bound by a love that is true, ever-expanding and evolving, or are we bound by the ideals and beliefs that constrict us and make us be a certain way in our relationships with others that confine our expression of such love?
When we live in the ideal and belief of what family seems to be in life we live in a restricted way and thus lesser than we are in essence. The truth of what family is leaves no one lesser but everyone is equally powerful and connected to the truth of who they are and bring.
The more I open up to this that its not just blood that is family the more I find myself really allowing people in, letting myself be just who I am and not feeling like I need to try and be anyone. It feels super loving and respectful and the family is growing more and more and I love it.
When we do finally realise that family is more then blood we will see the demise of war and all the many conflicts that start all over the world thinking we are somehow different from another.
I can very much relate to this process at the moment, Anna – ‘I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.’ When we have love for ourselves and align to that quality in every aspect of our lives, this cannot but have a ripple effect out into every interaction with another.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” so so true Anna, the thing is if we don’t love and accept ourselves first we can not let it in from another. It would be wise to teach self love as a main part of our mainstream education.
Things happen in families that would never take place in friendships. But we often make excuses culminating with ‘ah but it’s family’. It’s hard to halt these old patterns, but by working on one’s self, it allows the possibility for change in others too.
In the end all life is about us re-learning how to live Love, with everyone equally. This makes everyone in this world our closest kin. Wow – will we stop and let this in?
When we are in relationships with anyone we are part of a family – asking more or less in understanding one another is part of the learning process.
That’s exactly true that we all want to be deeply loved and accepted for how we are. Yet when we look at most family’s this is not what we are getting. The level of love that is offered totally comes with conditions and emotions. Once I clocked this and with the support of Universal Medicine I have been connecting the grand love that we are and now I can feel true love is this first and foremost and celebrating that we are all one and the same and a part of a grand universe.
Yes thus this teaching makes so much more sense than that family is in the blood, which never has made sense when you look at our energetic beingness first. We are made of love by origin which is a quality of energy always, how we choose to life is up to us for this might differ: it can be either fire or prana.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” If we came with this knowing first to any new relationship we would be far more open to understanding and accepting of another.
This is a great way of viewing people, and with that a lot less reaction and more understanding and so our relationships really can blossom.
We are all part of one huge family called the human race, whatever we do or how we live, there is one thing certain we all deep down want to love and be loved.
The whole of humanity is our family when we deal with our hurts from our family of origin.
Knowing that we are all part of one family means we need to take far more responsibility for ourselves and others – no wonder so many people deny this truth.
You can have a close working relationship so they can become part of the family and you can treat everyone with the same love that you treat your family with – your love for your family doesn’t become less this way.
Imagine how life would be if we could all let down our guards and treat everyone the same, the same as close family members, nothing held back no race, religion or belief getting in the way. I’m sure it will be like this one day and with people in the world like you Anna making the choices that you do the whole process will be speed up.
I feel the point you raise about how exhausting and effort-full protection is is a very important one that ought not to be brushed over. Especially considering the enormously high rates of exhaustion today and just how closed and guarded from each other.
It is quite incredible how our relationships change and deepen, once we make the commitment to really look at our own relationship with ourselves, and deepen that, first. From there, from making the space to go within, everything else flows from what we’ve connected to, and we blossom outwardly.
The very fact we have fallen for the notion that family is all to do with blood accounts for the many atrosities we see world wide.
With family events there are so many expectations that play out and at times emotional blackmail, to make you conform and toe the line. I know this from my own experience when I refused to go for a late night meal to celebrate a birthday. The event went on without me, and my absence was commented on, but what later transpired was how tired everyone was from going out so late, along with being fraught with complications.
Our family members are free to make their own choices and so are we.
I’ve just returned from visiting my family living overseas and I must admit as much as I loved visiting them I couldn’t help but feel a sense of ‘duty’ I was playing during my visit. There were many things I didn’t engage in whilst I was visiting immediate family members and can honestly say I wasn’t popular at times.
When I was with friends it was so lovely to be with them, no demands, no expectations just happy to be around each other, sharing life events, and truly being open with each other. This is how I am with my Australian family and I was missing being around them.
During my visit all I did was constantly reflected to my blood family the truth and what wasn’t, after that it wasn’t my responsibility in how the family responded – I loved them no less.
“Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me and has allowed the space for another to feel safe to express and to enjoy the connection that is being offered.” I totally agree, Anna. Learning this has also been life changing for me, too.
If we considered that we are all from the same family, and that nothing divided us, it would change the whole way that we all interacted with each other.
We are all connected and as a humanity we are unified by the quality of love the reside within the heart of every human being. This is something that we cannot escape even though we mostly try resist it. When we come back to love it is there that we discover what true family is and the evolution that is always on offer for us to live our true and great divine potential.
I love my bigger and wider family, they represent all colours, gender, past religions and countries. I have meaningful conversations about life and opportunities offered for all to evolve. Sometimes I don’t see them regularly and yet I can feel them around me and in some ways they may not be ‘blood’ relatives, they are still relative as we are from the one source – God.
There is no such thing as family where we come from, the unity, connection and bond is a given not something dependent on blood lines. And so Love too is also totally unconditional this way.
I had made my life about ‘blood family’ protecting my husband and children was my duty as a wife and mother and of course I could hide myself and withdraw to not deal with my hurts. i can say now it was a complete illusion, frustrating and exhausting. I had to build a relationship with myself first and this opened me up for other people. No hiding and no protecting anymore but living with a forever growing love and openess with myself and with others.
I find it remarkable how we can treat our blood family how every we want yet when it comes to friends or other people we would never be like that with them. It really exposes how disregarding and abusive we can be not only to our families but also to ourselves. What has just come to me also is that the ones where we are not doing this they still get that same energy just laced with a false front. Everything is energy and getting to understand this is breaking down everything we have been taught. To treat everyone equally and have the same connections that you do with someone like your butcher to your father or your partner is where it really is at and remaining open to being all that we are with everyone.
This way of being in relationships, the trying, the pleasing, the wanting everyone to ‘get on’ and be friends, is exhausting, because we’re constantly on the alert to how others around us are acting, feeling and responding to us. When we allow ourselves to be who we are, no need for politeness or niceness, it opens the way to a truer and fuller way of being and living in the world – and a stronger reflection for all others around us.
Family is about the people we have around us, and the fact that we may not think we share ‘blood’ but in truth we all share DNA – and are closer than we might assume.
“Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me”. How beautiful to give everyone the space to be themselves without expecting anything at all. This is truly loving.
This is a beautiful article because of how honest you are in nominating all of those pictures that have kept you trapped, and you are also being honest about the freedom you are coming to enjoy, which is inspiring in its beauty because it shows what is possible if we make it so.
That has been a big one just letting people be where they are at and not judging them for what they are choosing. This only really truly started to shift when I stopped having those judgements about myself, and still on occasion I can feel that trying to slip in to try and debase me. Its all about loving everyone for who they truly are and this includes ourselves. Accepting that we are precious powerful beings simply by being naturally who we are.
Loving myself more, and having a deeper connection with myself has enabled me to be more open with others. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of a small group of some nursing friends I met whilst training all those years ago and we all still meet up at least once a year. Back then six of us shared a flat – three to a bedroom – and all on different shifts. We shared heartbreaks and happy times. Despite all of us being very different individuals I consider them as family, as I do many others in my life these days.
Sue what comes across with what you have shared with us all is very beautiful that the bond of love, decency and respect that you all have with and for each can be felt, that you all consider yourselves as family; it doesn’t matter if you are related or not.
Society tells me we have to be subtle, we can’t be too intimate or trusting, but every time I open myself fully to others whether friends or strangers, my whole body feels joy, so which do I listen? My body or society? All answers are within me.
Opening to the true world of family has asked me to open to love all around me, and hold myself in equal adoration as those I call family.
It is deeply humbling to realise and accept that we are an equally potent part of the world and all we live in and with.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – the thing about family and our own understanding, application or regarding of it, is that whatever it is it gets fertilised into every other single relationship in our life. I’ve noticed and noted just how work families are a mirror of “blood” families, with dynamics and excuses made for ill behaviours attitudes and so on of staff. Dysfunction at home is dysfunction in the office too. Is dysfunction in society/community too.
I used to belief family was the most important. Not having many relatives I tried to keep a fragmented family together without discerning the quality of the relationships nor the purpose of it all. It was simply ‘because it was family’ I have come to realise that family is so much more and is defined much more by the quality of the relationships then it could be by blood.
Carolien, I also felt since young that keeping the family together was important and I was the go between in the family to try and keep some sort of harmony because I hated to feel the disharmony that was the dysfunctional family I grew up in. Reading your comment I realised that its time to let go of my blood family let them be, as I have felt that there is a bigger family to know and that is the family of humanity as everyone is struggling and to be able to hold steady in the face of the current upheaval is what matters. I have experienced Universal Medicine and the Benhayon family hold steady which over a period of years has supported me to become steady. This supports others to hold steady so that in the end we are all holding steady and can feel the movement to move in a way that expands our understanding that the sole purpose of this life is not to be here.
When I limited myself to family being my own blood it meant I was constantly missing out on what true family is, it meant that I did not appreciate others but ultimately it meant I would treat different people differently. The more I make life about people about being one big family the grander my life is.
This is a blog to be read by all of how family images has been represented for generations. For many years deep down inside I’ve always knew it wasn’t it.
The family I love is the one where they can be anybody, anywhere and have that open relationship – true family encompasses all.
The word ‘family’ can often be used to excuse a multitude of abuse and hurtful behaviour – true family is love and support, and that means it extends way beyond the bounds of blood.
Wanting to please people to keep the peace I have realised, is so disempowering for one thing it does not actually resolve anything it can make the situation worse and of course we end up feeling resentful because we know that we have gone against what we know to be true in our bodies. I have discovered this is such an old pattern of mine that I am now willing to look at. This is what I absolutely love about Universal Medicine that the modalities support me to look at my life and see the patterns, ideals and beliefs I have taken on over the years that are actually not what I really feel about myself or the world about me and dismantle them. The more I dismantle the more freer I feel within; my body feels as though I am at last allowing myself to just be me; which seems strange perhaps because of course I’m me, but there’s another me there as well and it is this other me I’m setting free at last.
When we hear about some of the horrendous abuse that people have experienced, a majority of them are committed by family members or relatives. Often cases of abuse in families are not reported, we tend to avoid exposing abuse, mainly I feel it is because of the ideas and beliefs we hold around the word ‘family’. My observation is that we tend to be more tolerant of abuse by family members than people outside of our family circle. Why is this and what is it about the ideals and beliefs we have around family that allows this to happen?
‘I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.’ True Anna, I feel the more I connect to the stillness within, to allow my delicateness to come out, it is without ‘doing’ anything that relationships change.
I remind myself that I have total autonomy in choosing my reality. It’s true in unawareness and a lack of purpose I can be led by an energy not of my choice but in that that is a choice too. How I want my life and reality to be, I can choose to be that first. In the times when reversing a movement feels very difficult, I just feel into that difficulty, let it be, continue my life and return to feeling my truth, and repeat again.
Adele what you are sharing with us is very wise, because we can be held by an energy that we haven’t discerned that can keep us locked in choices that are abusive to ourselves and others. Finding these pockets of disharmonious energy is great for our health and well being as when we are able to heal them we feel freer in our bodies and can repeat the process over again until our bodies are clear of the impositions we have imposed on it.
With the current war going on in Syria and all the devastation that comes with it we would best to remember and live these words “Family is more then Blood”
When we truly understand the meaning of family, then it would be very difficult and almost impossible to go to war. The word family has been distorted and used in a way to seperate people. Separation is the seed of all forms of conflict in our lives and on a global scale.
Sam, I recently read an article about the war in Syria. What the journalist should have been asking is what has been gained from this war or for that matter any war? Thousands of people have died or been misplaced, thousands of people are living in appalling conditions with little shelter and Winter is coming, there is systematic killings of certain tribes because they are considered to be unworthy of life. Who has the right to make these decisions? Why is it not possible for people to live together? It’s as though there is an unseen hand behind these wars that stirs up the conflict just to keep everyone living in fear and uncertainty as when people live in this way they are easily manipulated and controlled.
Opening ourselves up to the family that humanity offers us, actually expands the love we live with and for those who we share our everydays with.
That family is more than blood is a common phrase that is easy to throw around and boast with but what you describe here is very tangible and gives an understanding of what this truly means.
I cannot agree more that “family is more than blood” as I have many people in my life I consider to be family who are not biologically related to me. One is a 95 woman who has no blood family to watch over her and to support her in this last stage of her life. Over the last 15 years she has become part of my family and it has been a joy to been able to support her during this time. Her presence in my family has added a whole new dimension to our lives.
Very beautiful Ingrid. What you’ve shared gives us an understanding of true family, it is not bound by blood but connected and held by love. When we understand and see that everyone is our family, this will change the way we live, express and relate to each other.
“With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true.” How many of us can relate to this I wonder? I know I spent much of my younger life ‘pleasing’ my family rather than doing what felt right for me only to end up feeling resentful. But when we see everyone as family, and live in a way that is open and true to us, life becomes simple and easy, we deepen our relationships with each other, leaving no room for ill feelings.
Currently away in another county I can really feel how we are all family, I am in a place where there are many many different nationalities and we all look different yet underneath all the many languages and dress wear there is no question for me we are all family.
‘ I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.’ Yes Anna it must start with us or we are looking outside of ourselves and creating untrue, idealistic pictures and building relationships on that – what we think that we want and desire.
‘ I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life.’ Yes Anna it must start with us or we are looking outside of ourselves and creating untrue, idealistic pictures and building relationships on that – what we think that we want.
“Learning to let go of these pictures I adopted that kept me in a spin and further away from being ‘me’ has been a work in progress.”
In re-building a deeper and more honouring relationship with me and my body, I have come to appreciate and value my innate sense of what feels true and in this allow the untrue pictures to drop away and realise that I already am all of that which i am!
It all starts with self-love.
I have loved letting go of the blood family ideal and exploring how people come into our lives who feel like family – based on the relationship we have with them. As is shared here – it breaks the confines of needing to be a certain way or make allowances because someone is related – and opens it up to an equality based on love and support
A young child once proclaimed to me “The whole world is family” and then asked if I wanted to know why. I said yes. He said “Because we’ve all had so many past lives all over the place that we’ve all been family at one time or another”. Great explanation 🙂
Letting down the barriers of our past hurts allows us to appreciate others in a way that before may have seemed unimaginable and consequently our relationships become deeper and more true. It is in this way that we start to understand, appreciate and honour our relationsips, and in that, that true fmaily runs deeper than any blood line ever has done and ever will.
“I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member”. This is what we all miss out on when we reserve our love for the ‘special people in our family’. I now realise that selective or conditional love isn’t really love anyway, so we sell ourselves and our family short when we ‘love’ in this way.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” this point shows us that no matter what is going on in the world, where different people are with different things, what we say or don’t say we do and don’t want – it all comes down to love.
Thanks, Anna. Holding onto hurts and thereby living in protection is the greatest shame of all, because there is so much joy to be shared when we let people in. I have definitely had a measured approach to relationships for most of my life, but now feel the barricades are coming down and every interaction offers a fresh opportunity to open my heart with an ever deepening love.
Very beautiful and inspiring, Janet. I get a sense in these moments of how the richness of an interaction with one person enhances all my relationships.
‘The whole way I was living life was in avoidance of myself – a running away from feeling my own strength and power.’ Those more or less invisible rules, unspoken expectations which we make expectations on ourselves, before we even know it, keep us where we are and only when we are open to feel the true impact of this chain we can make us free and choose to live in full our own life.
When family becomes more than being about blood only, we begin to realise the total corruption of family and within a family that holds this bloodline fallacy as its masquerading truth. Family is not resigned to blood alone. In truth it is assigned only ever to equal love. The love of all, is the love of the all we are all a part of to mean that under love’s vastness we are all part of one vast family.
When it comes down to true relationships, it makes no sense that we should treat anyone differently from anyone else, whether they are blood family or not.
The concept of family we live is like looking at a vast field of flowers and making it all about 1 leaf. We reduce down the vastness we are all from for a lie that gives us an apparent security and feel good high.
Anna its amazing how we limit ourselves to see family as something that is blood and then perhaps allow adoptions into that mix but often always excludes everyone else, how much greater would life be if we truly embrace one family with everyone. What if we saw all relationships with equal quality and potential and not simply force ourselves to be a certain way with the immediate blood family?
” No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted”.
How beautiful this is to realise as we become more open in our hearts we open to everyone and begin to feel we are all one big family through this ever deepening relationship we build within ourselves.
Our identity as a person is often created by our experiences growing up. If our experience is different to others, which of course it has to be, then we can allow this to hold us separate from others and see them as a different family. But if we focus on our essence as people, knowing that our essence is equal to others, this burns through any differences that we have and allows us to open to and appreciate others for who they truly are. We can then embrace true family, which in truth is all of us.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – agree, and when I think about family these days, I think only about love .. and love being that basis to form a family whether that’s at home or at work in an office for example. So there are many families that become communities, and communities that become families whenever there is the presence of love.
Blood family relationships can be so toxic as we tend to put up with a lot more abuse than we would if it wasn’t blood family and it so much harder to walk away from.
I agree Kev; I see the toxicity every day in my Caring job. Because we are there every day, there is no holding back, and often we are witness to full-blown arguments.
Believing blood is a family is the same as believing there is only one river that fills the sea. The cycle of water is proof of the fallacy.
“Deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” Opening up our hearts to a wider family goes a long way in feeling loved and accepted.
“Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me and not loving in any way.”
Wow lets think how draining it is on society to hold on to this ill belief.
“The whole way I was living life was in avoidance of myself – a running away from feeling my own strength and power.” I have been noticing this myself too and how much energy it actually takes to not be in that power and strength because it is actually our natural way of being.
‘Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me and not loving in any way.’ ideals and beliefs around family are strong and in releasing these the difference we feel in our relationships is amazing.
A beautiful reminder of appreciating what our feelings are and what we know to be true. True family, true love, true connection and true brotherhood and truth. It is showing us that what we feel is the most important over any ideal, belief or expectation. It always comes back to this knowing place inside you, one we should give voice to as much as we can.
I am with you Anna, it is very heart opening to hear and know that family is not bound to our blood family but that in fact we all are one family, that every person counts and is equal, that there is no less or more. And we will always find that when we are open to truly meet and see someone, we are deep down all the same.
It is exhausting fitting ourselves into what our families want and expect and going against our truth. Then if we do break away from the mould, we can then feel guilty.
Gorgeous Ariana and a great simple reminder Family = Humanity, Our Children = All Children.
Anna I love what you have shared here “Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart, no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me to see if I can trust them or if I will be accepted: I see them as my equal and equally as loving as myself, even if they are too shy to express their love in that moment.” This is so inspiring and I have also started walk through life this way.
We have reduced the meaning of family and community to a blood line and geographical location without considering our basic humanity where we are all equal in essence.
“Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me and not loving in any way”
This could be one of the reasons why many in humanity are so exhausted because we are actually fighting the fact we are ALL family.
A construct that actually works and functions through control and expectations towards each other, cannot be called ” family”.
I’ve just been pondering the expression “blood family”. And it feels to me like this expression is implying that there are certain people for whom we should be prepared to shed blood? And that is exactly what happens; sometimes literally, but more frequently, metaphorically. Why is it that for some we are prepared to actually harm ourselves; to do things, accept things and tolerate stuff that actually causes us to ‘bleed’? And then why is it that we do this for one small special group, then ignore the rest of humanity? When you really start to dig into this whole notion of how ‘family’ dictates so many of our moves, the true toxicity of the belief system is starkly exposed.
I was just talking with a friend last night about how it doesn’t matter that I’m in a different country from all my blood relatives, there is someone at work, up the street, an acquaintance that reflects all my family members that I need to bring more acceptance and understanding to these relationships.
Family is far bigger and deeper than blood lines and genealogy; family is an everyday connection and opportunity to meet and connect with many people, with the rest of humanity.
Beautifully expressed and the gateway back to the truth brotherhood from whence we came.
Getting rid of the picture that we only have one family, which is the bloodfamily, people will feel how we are all one. By choosing this it would get revealed how much we all live in separation on this planet and how painful that actually constantly is for every single one of us.
This is beautiful what you share Gabriele, a great way to see every opportunity to meet and connect with people.
There is a danger in fulfilling the roles in a family – Dad, Son, Brother… they all have labels and could be costumes I wear… but the reality is its always one human being with another, always equal, always learning, never perfect, and with a giant capacity for love in each and every one of them.
When I didn’t see the idea of family around me, I decided to go out there and live my version. I treated everyone as my family strangers or friends alike, I started opening up to ask for help with anyone on the street—I asked them to help take a photo for me, whether I can borrow a phone charger, if they could help me untangle a necklace, if I could share their umbrella on a rainy day. I didn’t hold back myself I needed support, and 9 out of 10 Times the Support flooded in was instant and welcoming, yes sometimes a bit surprised, but mostly very instant as it touched upon the truth within us—the naturalness of love and brotherhood.
A beautiful understanding of true family and the ideals and beliefs that are huge and we are all tied up with creating confusion and allowing abuse of our very being ness and void or the true love we all are in our one ness and part of the universe.There is so much more to life than what we often want to see and our divineness and magnificence is part of us all.
“Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me and not loving in any way” – me too Anna, the moment i started to question the meaning and purpose of “family” i started to understand what loving myself [self-love] actually meant and also too the times when love was not present. Truly understanding family and being willing to see the actual quality of one i grew up in, helped me understand myself, true love and life.
I express my love to my closest and sometimes they are even shy to receive so I do the same with strangers and get on with it. I can’t really shut down myself in expressing love but I can’t expect others to receive what is being expressed either, but I can deepen my own love and not take this personally, continue to live lightly and just keep being loving.
All we can do is express openly and allow others to feel the expression.
True family is unifying.
When we stop categorising our relationships and see them as all the one relationship in truth, so much comes up for us to explore and let go of with others, in the understanding that, if we are this way with one we are this way with everyone.
When we let go of our expectations of others to meet our needs we can let go of the disappointment when they don’t meet our expectations.
The cycle of abiding by the invisible rules (in this case allegiance to blood family) and the resentment that builds is really detrimental to our health and relationships. It is fascinating and important to explore beyond the set piece we see and make clear and true choices for ourselves.
Calling them invisible is very important. There are many rules in life (laws, school rules, work rules etc..) that are visible. We can choose to obey them or not – but, because they are visible we always know what we are choosing and what we are not choosing – thus we can track any consequences that arise from those choices. BUT – the invisible ones are the ones that can really hurt us; because of the ‘invisibility, it can take a long time and much discernment for us to get to the root of why we are choosing what we are choosing. This is the evil of these constructs – they invisibly chain us.
“For many years I used to feel quite hurt and let down by people and so I went into protecting myself from others, but interestingly this shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me.” . . . it is interesting that we often think this which is true we are hurting ourselves more than another could by shutting down and yet we never stop to consider how we are actually also hurting the other by shutting down after our often unexpressed expectations of how another should be are not met. As any expectation of another is a projection and therefore a rejection of who they are and is felt deeply.
With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true. True love and true family go hand in hand , being together with the purpose of love makes all the difference no matter who we are.
There are a multitude of ideals and beliefs that abound around the word ‘family’ that stop us from truly and deeply connecting to that which is on offer from all people around us, and at the same time these same ideals and beliefs also place us in position that allows behaviours that we would not normally accept if it was not from a family member – this gives us much to ponder on when it comes to the meaning of family for each and every one of us! How much of this is a construct which does not support us, and what is the true meaning of family?
My relationships with non-blood-family very often reflect issues that still need dealing with in my blood-family relationships. This has been a real blessing for me to see and the more equality that I bring across those types of relationships, the truer they then feel. My non-blood-family relationships have been a gigantic service to me in deepening my blood-family relationships.
Yes, and this shows that we are all connected and bring something to each other, that every relationship we have contributes to any other relationship we have. There is no more or less value in one person or the other but simply an offering to see more and learn more.
So true Anna, deep down we all want to be loved and accepted and this love and acceptance has to start within ourselves and grown. As it grows we begin to realise that we no longer need to huddle to so called family groups for our fix of comfort and security that is never satisfied, particularly if we are a whole lot of hurt people all looking for love outside of themselves. As our heart begins to open from the inside we then realise we can stop looking on the outside we can then allow others in and our love to shine out and our neediness leaves us.
True family means not measuring our love according to our blood lines, cultural or national groups.
Could family actually be a quality of energy or relationship rather than blood lines and groups we are born into?
There is only one family we are really born into and that is the human being family.
I Love my family….and my family stretches across the globe, inside I know that if I offer less to one person and more to another, we create disharmony. We are all equally divine, I know we are brothers in our essence. I have always felt the injustice of people being clicky and having ‘special’ relationships. I am not idealistic about this, I have a blood family, I have a husband and children, and friends, but I would never exclude others from the Love and Care I offer them on a day to day basis. This happens much too often, we so often exclude other people because we think they are not deserving of equal Love. I disagree, we are one humanity, one family and what happens in Syria, Alberta or China impacts on what is happening in Britain, Spain or America. The ebb and flow and ripples of our choices continuously track across the globe, on a micro and macro basis.
Even though as a family this is not discussed as it is blasphemy to not put your blood family first in our culture, my parents have many mentees who are like their children and similarly I have many friends who feel like family to me, our body knows Truth and will live that accordingly.
Some cultures are clannish, protectionist, emphasising their ‘specialness’ above all others. Families or groups such as these build protective walls around themselves, with a clear dividing line between those who are in and out. Some cultures are clannish, protectionist, emphasising their ‘specialness’ above all others. Families or groups such as these build protective walls around themselves, with clear dividing line between in and out. To openly embrace true family and all others equally evolves us as human beings.
One nursery school in London was vilified in the media because it encouraged children to not become attached to a ‘best’ friend, but befriend everyone equally.
‘No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.’ – and it starts with our selves first. The level of love and acceptance that we hold our selves in is what we are then able to bring to and share with everyone else.
Beautifully said Alison – the budding of any relationship begins within our own hearts.
I work as a massage therapist and sometimes I get a booking and the person calling to make the booking tells me it is for a VIP or famous actor and I really need to look after them. I always find this funny because to me, I wouldn’t treat the famous person any different than I would my family, my friends or any of my clients, to me we are all VP’s. Very precious!
This is very lovely to read Rosie. It’s funny how society have labeled people and separated them in different classes when in fact we are all one, regardless of our monetary status or whatever. Treating everyone with the same level of care and love breaks all the rules of an old game that never worked and unified us as the fellow brothers and sisters we all are.
Gorgeous, Rosie, yes we are all equally special and to be treasured with the same grace and love.
I like that Rosie that we can treat everyone we meet as the precious, special, very important and vital beings that we all are on the planet. I wonder if the fact that we have extra special levels of care, attention and respect for some people actually exposes how disregarding and disrespectful our normal accepted way of being with each other really is?
Beautiful Anna. Everyone wants to be met and loved for who they are. I enjoyed reading about the way you Have drawn on your own experience to see through the protective devices that people use to keep love out.
Opening up the definition and lines of family is quite liberating. It lets a whole lot of people and love in.
“With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true.” Breaking free of those ideals and beliefs has been a liberation which has enabled me to established relationships that have the qualities of true family and at the same time my relationships with my blood family increasingly deepen, becoming more truthful and loving.
“Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart, no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me to see if I can trust them or if I will be accepted”. My world has opened up immeasurably as my connection with others around the world has grown, it’s not that I ‘know more people’, it is the fact that the connection born of that trust you describe Anna, runs deep, there is love and a sense of purpose in these relationships that matters not if they are on the other side of the world or in the next town.
As we are all from the same divine source then true family is indeed more than blood, it is our very nature that relates us all as one.
Yeap I agree, we are from the same source.
Family are those we are aligned to from our original impulse.
I shall be reading this again Anna as there is a lot of wisdom in what you share about family and protecting yourself from being hurt.
Sometimes when we are more love with ourselves, the foundation of our family can be rocked in ways that are all good but may feel destabilising at the time. Remembering that love is everything, what we all want, and part of our evolution back to truth, brings purpose to bringing what is true for us all within families.
‘I see them as my equal and equally as loving as myself, even if they are too shy to express their love in that moment.’ – how very beautiful, holding everyone in the love that you are, meeting them for the love that they are – like the sun shining on a closed flower bud, inviting it to open.
‘I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member.’ – and by doing so we deepen all our relationships, enriching the level of intimacy and connection that we share with everyone, including our partner/special person in our lives.
Waiting for others to show their love first has become a thing of the past and for me as I began to allow more self love into my life there was so much more to share with others equally. It feels so very warm and lovely to share our love with others and spread that feeling out into the world.
If we all wait for another to go first, we’ll be here a very long time living out lovelessness.
I love what has been shared here. Waiting and longing rather than living and being!
So true Nikki, many of us have wasted many years doing this, it’s time to make a change.
I don’t think there would be anyone who would not agree with these words: “deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted”, but it seems that not a lot of people actually feel that they have this love and acceptance from those they are in relationship with. I was one who didn’t and spent a lot of time looking for a relationship that would give me this, but that didn’t happen until I began to build a relationship with myself. And from this beautiful relationship have grown many other beautiful relationships with people who I now accept as my true family.
The process of refining how we live and are in relationships is so important because there is so much out there to make us ‘settle’ for a comfortable level of respect, ‘getting along’ or tolerance but not true love, true care and community.
‘I have been building a deeper connection with myself and this has been key to transforming all the relationships in my life’. So true Anna, opening our hearts to humanity and letting ourselves be seen for who we truly are.
When I was young I felt like I wasn’t really allowed to completely love someone else that wasn’t in the family. I felt family members react when I would become close to friends and their families. Now my world is very different, I have wonderful ‘family’ connections all over the world that I love and adore just as I do the family I was born into. This change came about by Serge Benhayon reflecting what true family is and letting people in.
Yes, we can mask that hurt by then behaving hurtfully ourselves and the reactions from others will allow us to look away from what we did initially.
Yes, family is connection and that can be instant and need not be permanent.
We hang on to droplets of what we call Love when infact we’re all living in an ocean of joy. It’s crazy the way we try to reduce down the beauty of God that’s all around. Thanks Anna for making my morning Universal again.
‘We hang on to droplets of what we call Love when in fact we’re all living in an ocean of joy’ this is a great point to carry into my day too Joseph.
Dive in to that ocean I say!
Being open to love means being open to people and we find that which is universal to us all.
When we start to let go of the pictures we have held around family, it’s basically just letting more love in which highlights the truth of that relationship, and can bring a huge change for everyone.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – family is true love alone.
“Having this awareness about myself has supported me to be more understanding when I meet others and to not react to their guard or to judge them in any way.” Anna, one of the things I’ve put into practice is first looking at myself before others, it’s a complete u-turn to how I viewed people before being involved in Universal Medicine, and what an amazing difference it’s had on my life.
Family is who we make it – it is about embracing another into your life, but at the same time just allowing yourself to be you with the other – not imposing nor being imposed upon…What a blessing!
I find the more connected I am to my body and the stillness of my presence the more I am able to observe and feel everything around me without reaction and or judgement leaving me a greater space to feel the interconnected nature of the world and how much more there is to appreciate and understand about the all too. We are all one and the same.
While we may think we are hurt by others but maybe the hurt that we feel is more so from us having parted from the love we already are.
Words of Gold Nico! Thank you!
Interestingly enough this is what I found when I looked up the origins of the word family in the dictionary . . . “The word family came into English in the fifteenth century. Its root lies in the Latin word famulus, “servant”. The first meaning in English was close to our modern word “household” — a group of individuals living under one roof that included blood relations and servants.”
Very inspiring to practise treating everyone who comes into our homes with the same respect and reverence… a process back to living true equality.
I love it too, feels like the truth of what it should mean and not what we have made it to mean in todays society.
‘With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true.’ – so true, Anna. There can be very entrenched energetic patterns within families, which can be very hard to escape from. Family ‘get togethers’ can come laced with the burden of expectation and an assumption that everyone will ‘play’ their part. However, that’s exactly what we are doing, playing. There is nothing real about being with each other in this way, it’s fake, imposing, harmful and by playing along we are giving in to the harmful energy that’s playing us all.
What a real understanding of true family and love and the ideals and beliefs we hold on these that allows so much control and abuse in our lives when it is all about love and nothing else.
I fully agree Ariana. When we knock down the self created walls of seeing our family being limited to a small number of people, we open up to a vastness of love we would otherwise not know to be possible. When we keep people out, separate from us and our so-called kin, we shut down the immense love our bodies are naturally designed to express.
I have also noticed that when we live in a way that goes against what we feel is true then this creates a tension in us that can become very uncomfortable so then we seek to quell this tension with other behaviours which can distract or numb us for a while but the tension never goes away unless we start to live more true to what we know and sense to be true.
Hi Andrew, actually you say that tension is a good thing as it reminds us that something in us is not okay and that this tension is solely there to support us in becoming more truthful to ourselves.
Family is to be confirmed and celebrated, pulled up when it’s needed, given an honest reflection and held with love.
Having recently moved into a flat with 3 others almost immediately I felt a sense of family. A sense that we are all here to support each other to bring more of the love we are to the world. Calling things out which do not feel loving and also deeply appreciating what we each bring – which is what true family is all about – supporting us to return back to the love we are and not settling for us being any less but also giving us space to learn what is there before us to learn.
Family is defined by Love.
It is as simple as that – beautifully expressed.
I am really appreciating spotting the number of times that I do lay a preconceived idea on someone when I meet them, judging and categorising in the first instance on the basis of my ingrained beliefs. It is in the spotting of this that I get to see these beliefs, understand their origins and dispense with them.
I’ve come across people and families that have taken me in as if I were their own, truly demolishing the concept that family is confined to blood.
The saying ‘you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family’ is an interesting one – while you are born into one family that is related by blood, for me family should be defined by love. So much abuse occurs and goes unchallenged under the guise of family relationships, and so even if we are related by blood, more important should be that we are honest and open and loving with each other.
I agree, Anna. There are so many people in my life who I could turn to for support and know that they would be with me at the drop of a hat, and none of these people are ‘related’ to me.
We can have such great relationships in our immediate blood family, but it is very limiting if we get caught up in the whole blood is thicker than water thing and don’t realise the potential for us all to be just one big joyous family.
Family can tie you up in ideals and beliefs. The biggest one being that you should love one person or group of people more than any other. This belief is the same as what currently rules culture, religion, nationalism and has caused more separation and fighting than anything else. We are one, we are all the same and having felt that many times now, it is a matter of shedding any of those beliefs that get in the way of me feeling that at any time.
Great awareness around family Anna. I am still finding places where I am holding a ‘family consciousness’, but am loving the feeling and the freedom as I uncover every aspect, more and more.
We are one world, one family, we are all equal and can be open to all, greet everyone with warmth and trust. Maybe trust is still an issue for many of us.
‘No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.’ this sentence Anna is so true and is a great reminder for our understanding of others. Peoples behaviours all have a reason behind them and under behaviours is the love we are and the love we want.
“Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart,” I am sure many of the worlds problems including war and genocide are because we have this family thing so wrong.
Everyone is family and the fact we have forgotten this means we live a life in a mess much less then when we are united in knowing that we are in fact one big massive family.
What if we considered ourselves to be part of the ‘people family’ with no divisions.
Family can often be sold the ideals of truth and the safety net that we fall upon when we feel that others have hurt us- but what if the levels of hurts are far greater amongst the family home walls that we feel but block due to the truths we have been sold?
I would say that what you say here is spot on.
We keep each other in configurations of lies, promote superficiality and arrangements. But the beautiful thing is as you delicately show Anna is it only takes one of us to say no, to cut the cord with this unhealthy dynamics. We don’t stop loving others, in fact we start to grow.
This is very true Joseph and although this can be confronting for others at first with living consistently it offers a true platform for all to make new choices from.
And support others to grow.
Yes Gill this picture says a lot. I happen to have a connection with one of the women in this photo. Despite living on the other side of the earth I felt the instant warmth emanating from her voice, writing, and smile. What a joy to know that our family is made up of a few billion souls.
It is great to reassess our relationship with this word. The concept of family can be used to keep us insular and separate from the world by focusing on a handful of people in our circle. Yet what a gorgeous expansion is offered here were the word has the potential to open our heart to the world and our family starts to expand to the whole humanity.
Anna, it feels like something has changed for me recently in the relationship I have with myself and with others. We can truly enjoy life when we accept others without judgement or having pictures of how we want something to be. The more I can start to let go of the picture I hold the more I am able to be in the flow of life without expectation of how I want it to be.
There’s something a bit odd about families to me, it’s as though there’s an expectation of ownership, that something is expected of me and also I get a feeling that there is a debt owing because you are within this family unit. It feels like being in a secret sect there are all these secret rules but no one tells you the rules you just have to work them out as you go along together. So as you say Anna we do what we feel is expected of us, rather than acting on what we feel to be true.
“Thank goodness I began to question these tightly held beliefs and ideals I had around family, because it was very draining on me…” – agree Anna. And for myself, it wasn’t until i really looked at my family and what ‘family’ truly meant that i understood myself, and started to understand life too.
Family is about quality first and foremost and not limited by blood or surname.
So true Michael. When we unite the words ‘family’ and ‘quality’, then we are given the opportunity to re-imprint our understanding of family and what it means to really love and respect each other beyond our usual surname and genetic connections. A necessary upgrade of our understanding and approach to living as a family in line with the 21st century.
I agree. Simply yet clearly said
The quality that you share here Michael Brown exposes the “playing happy families’ approach that is marketed to others but is far from the truth.
It feels quite arrogant to expect if not demand love from another yet still keep the protective wall up that is keeping them out in the first place.
We have conditions and expectations that we demand before we love first, which is nothing more than control and it doesn’t work.
“Blood is thicker than water” was a proverb my grandma used, to stress the importance of family, suggesting that you can only rely on blood relatives when it comes to the point. Interestingly enough this is something I feel a lot of humanity have never experienced, but hold on to the idea hoping for it to make a change in how we feel in the world, to fill the emptiness and ease, the loneliness, giving a sense of connection and belonging. For me it never felt true as it was not my experience with family nor what i saw around me in other families. We had some discussion on the issue of love not being more or less with blood relatives or friends or even strangers. I experienced it anyway in the way me, my brothers and friends behaved with each other and strangers. It is important that people get to see that love and family are not limited but all-encompassing; it will change the world.
Hear hear. There is no boundaries to love. Limiting our focus on blood or any other factor is short changing us on the joy that we could be experiencing with everyone.
This consciousness around blood family needs to be removed as, it is very limiting for all. Love is for everyone not a selected .
Being caught up with blood family is really holding you back, as you open to everyone there is more connection to make
Bulls-eye! Words of gold Anna, a human condition so simply revealed here – “For many years I used to feel quite hurt and let down by people and so I went into protecting myself from others, but interestingly this shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me. I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past, something that I justified in my own mind but that really held me back from experiencing a deeper and true connection with others.”
Yes I too have spend so much time being disgruntled with people and wanting to change others. Yet when we stop keeping people away because of our past hurts, when we “walk through life with an open and loving heart, no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me to see if I can trust them” and when we hold every person “as my equal and equally as loving as myself” it all starts to feel very different.
If we stick to the created belief that blood family are more important, this literally locks us into measuring our love and only giving to family, and alienating all others, which means we never get to feel the truth of love and how expansive and all encompassing it naturally is.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” – This is the key to understanding why we behave the way we do at times…a big revelation for us to sit with and ponder on and observe how and where that plays out in our lives!
Henrietta, we are for sure constantly looking for love and acceptance outside of our self, rather than knowing and claiming we have it all within us
Yes, it is through the knowing that we get to understand life and ourselves then our own behaviours and the behaviours of others start to make sense. We gain understanding, let go of judgement and allow others to simply be.
Thank you Anna for this beautiful blog that so many of us can relate to with the hurts that we hold and then allowing them to affect how we see ourselves and those around us in relation to family or not family – knowing deep down that family is everyone, and is not bound by skin colour, background nor birth relationships.
This article and comments that follow are inviting us to live the unity and interconnectedness we all feel with each other all of the time. Stuff to get out of the way, yes, but the foundation remains the same.
I guess we can relate to anyone as being a member of our family. It would be sad to miss out on that for anyone. Imagine everyone being related to as him or her being a family member, that would be very awesome.
I know well the way of holding back from expressing my love, waiting for the other to go first. “I’ll be love when you are love”- This is what we are saying when we do this. It’s conditional, and basically what we are saying is “I don’t trust you. You have to prove yourself worthy of my love.” It’s a debilitating and completely unnatural way to live.
Yes, Anna, it is always important to remember that each and every one of us is looking for love, in spite of the most barricaded layers of protection.
‘No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.’ – once we realize that all our demeanour, protection and acting out is actually proof of our sensitivity, deep knowing of love and intimacy and that we just need to find a way to heal our hurts and the resulting reactions we are empowered to restore our relationships with self and others and make it the loving connection and union we long for and know ourselves to be part of.
We all are looking to be loved and to love, this lack of love in our lives causes us to look everywhere outside of ourselves, when it is within. When we are accepted and loved by another without any expectations this reflection can open the door to our own hearts where our love can be found, we are all one big human family deeply connected by our equal love.
I love how busting the myths about ‘blood family’ opens us up to the potential in all our relationships; there are no boundaries or limits to the tenderness, intimacy and closeness we can feel with anyone.
Yes, Matilda, it is so very freeing to love another as a sister or a brother even when we have just met, because there is no ‘better’ or ‘different than’ for the soul.
If we hold back the love for certain people or certain groups, because we distinguish between family and no family, it will never get reflected, that we all belong together. In effect, what gets communicated is that it is ok, to hold back the expression of love, us, when it comes to people we don´t know so well or are not part of our blood family. That highlights for me the responsibility we all carry- it is about reflecting a different way.
Looking at the picture on top of the blog, it is not only visual obvious but we can feel that family is nothing about blood. It is the connection and openness between us, that defines family. Beautifully captured in a photo.
Connection and openness… two things we totally have at our fingertips in the way we choose to be with people, whatever their responses or behaviour might be. Like a child or a puppy, we can simply keep turning up… open hearted and transparently reflecting love.
I have found that giving others space and taking the first step by being open and not expecting anything back from them has been a huge learning process for me. Thanks Anna, there were many little gems in your blog which rang bells for me.
Something keeps drawing me back to this article again and again. It is the joy that is available if we open our hearts to everyone, not just a chosen familiar few. The freedom in this is so gorgeous, and the pull towards this is great. It is our natural way.
Our problem is that we only see ourselves as physical beings, hence our erroneous belief that family is limited to being connected by blood. We look out from our eyes and see other people’s bodies, we note their hair colour, the way that they dress, whether or not we find them attractive etc but if we returned to our clairsentient ways (actively feeling energy) then we would feel from our bodies that we are all One United Whole, no separation whatsoever. Now that is true family!
It is quite an experience to notice that love and family are associated but really completely separate items, that can come together or can come separately.
Being openly living with everyone you meet transforms our understanding of what love truly is.
We limit ourselves so much when stuck in the old ideals and beliefs of what family should be whether it be blood, a team or a gang or group of friends. Being open to everyone as family will be the gradual way we can make it happen.
I love this exploration of our beliefs around ‘blood family’ and am touched and inspired by the feeling of your open arms, equality, understanding and embracing of others. Super cool. Thank you, Anna.
This is music to my heart: “I see them as my equal and equally as loving as myself.” It makes such a big difference when we choose to remember this.
We put ourselves under pressure to attend family events because we don’t want to deal with the reaction if we don’t go. I remember one Christmas trekking around the UK with two small children, presents, nappies and all the paraphernalia that goes with a family Christmas and it was awful – after that I vowed to always stay home with just our family, which we did for years. Now divorced and in a new relationship on the other side of the planet, my own immediate family is broken up and I am in a new family which consists of my partners blood family but also many friends who share the same interests as me – they are also my ‘family’.
“For many years I used to feel quite hurt and let down by people and so I went into protecting myself from others, but interestingly this shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me. ” This is uncomfortably familiar to me too Anna. The crazy thing is when we do choose to open ourselves up to others, the love is there instantaneously, we relax, allow ourselves to be appreciated and as we let down our guard of protection the love comes pouring in. It is then we can ask ourselves why do we choose to put ourselves through such drama, when it is basically a drain on everyones time and energy and leaves us feeling exhausted.
I work with a group of teenage boys and it is super powerful just to be completely open and loving with them, as young men get such a bad rap sometimes.
When we are being true to ourselves it is impossible to treat another or situation differently whether they are family or not because when I am living from heaven everything is the same and equal – there is only love. Of course I am going to be presented with people and situations very often within my blood family that press my buttons or I give more to a particular person because of an investment I have with them but these moments occur to support me and others to evolve… there is only love when I am being true and with myself.
I understand this: “It took a lot of effort for me to live in this protected way because I had to resist any love that was offered to me.” We so often get offered love but it does not always come in the package that we would choose, or look a certain way, or we may just be unwilling to feel what is being shared. I had this moment with someone recently when they looked at me, I have know them for a long time and I felt adored, absolutely adored and it is what I had been looking for all my life and thinking I was not getting it and yet there it has been right by my side for over 15 years,and waiting until I was willing to see it. The willingness comes from within.
The ideals and beliefs that surround the concept of family as lived by the society in general are some the greatest influences there are that keep humanity from being what it truly is – one family living and expressing love in brotherhood.
Yesterday in the train I was observing people and different thoughts came up depending on their physical appearance. Then I remembered this blog and the absolute fact that we all brothers and sisters. I changed a bit my posture, I closed my eyes and breathed gently and came back to me. When I opened my eyes again I felt more in my body and more aware about the energy there. It felt dense and the majority of the glances were dull and shutdown but instead of judging them I made the choice of holding all the people there in love, just by being with me and observing the lovable, all knowing and very sacred human beings that actually were travelling with me.
This blog invites me to open up my heart, starting with myself by letting go of the beliefs and self-critical thoughts that sometimes subtly run in my mind. It inspires me to be the best friend that I could ever have because just when I love me I can do the same with others equally.
Honouring ourselves alongside realising that this relationship founds all others; the greater our love and respect for ourselves the more of the same we have to share with others… how cute and simple is that.
The words written here are a calling to connect deeper with our body, to the undeniable fact that we all are one.
Our idea of what family represents is based solely on who we believe ourselves to be.
“I can feel now how holding onto all these beliefs and ideals keep me trapped in some way” I completely agree my entire life was filled with these ideals over family and its only been by letting them know that I have started to really have true family.
It’s so touching when people i’ve never met before treat me like their own family. Just shows that we are all capable of it but let our judgements and ideals get in the way sometimes.
And we can treat anybody that way and it actually works.
We have many terms and definitions that offer an ‘us and them’, a focus on some and exclusion of some others, the term family is one such example although we use a whole load of other us & them categories too. Our world would be very different if we held everyone in love and related to each person with an open heart.
It feels key to a life worth living, to ‘walk with an open heart and not wait for others to open up first’. It’s a win for everyone when this happens and opens doors that would otherwise remain closed, or only open to special people or family.
Being opening to understanding that family is more than blood opens the door to the people of the world being family – how wonderful and joyful is that?
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” So true Anna. I find that the more I love and accept myself the less I need to look for this from others. But in this I have more to give.
I have found the same Rebecca. What I have noticed is it also takes away the yucky needy feeling and wanting others to be a certain way. The more we are all simply ourselves the more we deepen our connection with everybody else.
I just love looking at this picture, as there is such a natural sense of love and togetherness with these three lovely ladies.
Yes, I totally agree. There is such joy and love expressed here that only truly come from being connected by love, from being ‘in family’, and as they are not ‘blood sisters’ the photograph is a beautiful reflection that ‘family is more than blood’.
This came from my blood family, true family I have found do not impose on me, ‘With family I got tied up in so many ideals and beliefs that I remember always feeling like I was doing what was expected of me rather than acting on what I felt was true. ‘
We really do limit ourselves when we see only blood family as family… every person on the planet has so much to offer and we miss out on this wisdom and richness of life when we only focus on one group.
I agree we each have so much to offer. One thing about blood being family that never made sense is the parents not being blood related! So it always raised a question with me about how that could be true.
To consider that as a humanity we are one big family transforms how we are with every person we meet and or interact with,
Yes, we all do crave love and acceptance… and yet it is ironic that we will put so much time and energy into putting up walls of protection to keep it out!
It sounds as crazy as it is Paula. But how wonderful being aware of these walls to let them go and connect deeper with each other.
Learning to love who i am has brought a real and deep love of others too… where in that discovery of love i can feel the vastness of the one family we’re all from.
When we make family about the people we were born into it diminishes what true family is all about.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” Absolutely Anna! This says it all.
The joy of true friendship and family is so beautiful to feel in the picture here and the reality of it brings much appreciation to us all. a beautiful sharing and understanding of family and the ideals ,beliefs and acceptances we live with but can choose differently. I love the bit “‘ so true
For me is a true family member someone that says yes to evolution.
As a girl growing through puberty I suddenly found that I began to attract male attention, I was very critical of myself and felt quite ashamed by this unwanted attention. I remember a family friend once telling me that I had “take me to bed eyes”, I remember thinking that I must be flirting and giving people the wrong impression, so steadily I began to calculate how to dress, how to look away and protect myself from this kind of attention.
Through the continued support of Universal Medicine, working on my stuff, learning to appreciate and nurture myself and chip away at the self survival modes that I have adopted, I recently had this bowl over moment where I realised that I can again look right into the eyes of all the men in my life, shamelessly hold their gaze and make no apology for how gorgeous and beautiful I feel, the games are over and I am free to be me.
My mission for today is to go out and treat every new person I meet equally and as the long lost family I have forsaken for so long.
By attending the Universal Medicine events I’ve been able to connect with people from all over the world. People from different countries, ages, occupations, but equally gorgeous and loving. I’ve always received a warm hug which felt very supportive at that moment from someone who I met for the very first time, a deep and joyful glance that brought me up, an evolving conversation where I could express how I was truly feeling; all of this made me realize that there is not an ounce of difference between us, that we are here, united in purpose for the evolution. There is no greater plan and it’s in this way that our living together on Earth makes sense.
Agree if we narrow our main focus to our blood family then we miss out on the richness and beauty that is there to be given to and received from our wider family-humanity.
I too have experienced that holding onto certain ideals and beliefs around family then leads you to play out certain patterns and behaviours. For example holding onto a picture of my daughters doing the work with me led me to not being able to appreciate my self even though I was going super well, as the picture I was holding onto did not come into fruition.
Awesome reminder Deborah that we are all really one big family.
We forget this at our own detriment for if we really were to live this truth there would be no chance of war or conflict.
Zofia, I love the analogy of clinging onto an old jacket when it’s no longer needed and way too hot! I remember when I was young, watch an adult create a hurt and vow to keep the jacket on, so to speak, for as long as they could remember to do so. They’d been very sympathetic to what they believed was a child who had a serious illness but found out was a young woman with no physical ailments but a mental health issue. The adult with a jacket vowed to never trust anyone again and said to them that there may be someone who may need their help and this person who had lied probably needed help in a different way than how they were asking.
‘…even when I was quite tired I would push myself to attend family events because of the pressure I put on myself to be there no matter what, and also because I didn’t want to miss out on anything.’ I’ve definitely done this, not wanting to be the one that gets left out and excluded. I know I can look at my part to play in wanting to be the one who is really there for a family member – and the guilt when I do honour how I feel and don’t take tiring journeys when I need to rest. And my parents are great about this- perhaps because they’ve seen what a state I can turn up in when I’m exhausted!!!
As I was reading this, I was thinking that the world is our family and then I saw your occupation as an International Flight Attendant and had abig smile across my face. With your new discovery that everyone is family, you can get to travel the world meeting all of your family!
Great spot Sarah, what a playground for exploring the power of the universal family.
We as humans do hold on to hurts and can hold grudges with people that go on from generation to generation, some dating back hundreds of years. All we really do need is love and moving on from the past is a good way to kick start us back into a global family.
Good point Kevin. Look at the nations that hold on to grudges against other nations due to war in previous generations. This is a collective hurt that people choose to not let go of. This leads to more hurt through the separation that this creates. Very sad and very painful. Imagine the love that is available if we were to collectively let go of these hurts and open to each other on a grand scale. Phenomenal.
It is a hugely significant realisation that as you have been building a deeper connection with yourself, the quality of other relationships have also deepened for you. “I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member.” This is huge and shows that the reason many of us do not experience the whole world as our family is staring at us right in the face – our own relationship with ourselves.
What a shame if someone is actually hiding in “family” or in relationship to not show themselves to the all. Do the others not deserve the beauty that everyone carries inside? Exactly, how much do we recognise our beauty so that we want only but to share it with everybody…
‘The whole way I was living life was in avoidance of myself – a running away from feeling my own strength and power.’ This applies to many people and the joy of living with a wider family is the support we have to feel and express who we truly are without recrimination.
Man it feels gorgeous to feel that others are just as close and as caring and loving as your own family. Whilst not always the case it can certainly be future if we open our hearts to each other and do not hold back our love.
When we let go of the perception that blood family is everything and that we have to keep others out, we feel like we are related to every single person on the planet and energetically we are.
When true love is not part of the picture there is no way we are going to know that holding back love from another because they are not blood family is not the right thing to do as far as morals go. It’s like all of these ideals and beliefs around getting too touchy feely with someone who is not your family is wrong. The thing that blows that all out of the water is when there is a natural disaster, then everyone naturally wants to help and be of service to all.
A beautiful blog Anna, your openness, love and acceptance streams through it.
“I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past, something that I justified in my own mind but that really held me back from experiencing a deeper and true connection with others” – that’s so true Anna, if you lace or hold to ransom one person with a hurt, and let’s say for example the hurt is symbolised by an item of clothing like a jacket.. then you wear that same jacket when meeting the next person who’s done you no harm. And it would make no sense to keep “your jacket” on when it’s boiling hot weather either ; ) In other words it makes no sense to wear something [a hurt] that’s not actually needed.
A hurt is never needed, it is a dysfunctional and disruptive adjunct to life. Something we have fabricated in order to put a spanner in our own works.
Hi Anna, I have only met you a few times but I have been touched on each occasion by your open-heartedness and how you treated me like an old friend you had not seen for a while, so your words here are truly lived.
I have family all over the world who would look after me as if I were their own son or brother, and this is only because of the quality of connection we’ve chosen.
How wonderful would be if we all walk and live with our heart open, showing our natural transparency and innocence, treating people from the equalness we are. This world certainly would be different, any form of abuse wouldn’t take place for sure.
“I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past”,
This is a great learning , its amazing how if one person hurts us, we go into protection against everyone, how silly is that.
Indeed very silly. We do not allow for new and beautiful connections because we are choosing to hold on to past experiences that have been hurtful. We cannot tar everyone with the same brush. We miss out. And others miss out on us.
There was a time when I thought that my family was exclusively the people with who I lived with. Like you Anna I compromised myself till the exhaustion in order to be the ‘good’ daughter to my mother and to get the acceptance from others. It was not until I made friends with some inspiring women that I started to live and feel what it means being truly embraced, cared and loved for who I am for the very first time. Even though I came from a different sort of life and I could not fully open up to them in the beginning, they always treated me like an equal, with no ounce of judgment, which allowed me to open up my heart again to discover the infinite love that actually lives within me. I also received the support that I needed at that time to connect deeper with my body and to let go the restrictive beliefs that I held for so long about myself. Today our relationship is ever evolving, not perfect or more special than others but I feel blessed for having them in my life as they inspire me to live my life with more joy than ever, from the knowing that each one of us is equally important in this big family that Humanity is.
A huge belief system to break down. When we treat everyone we meet with mutual respect and care, as true family should, life is truly enriched.
Love the women in this picture. There is a natural connection between them that inspires me so much. It feels pure and not exclusive to them but accessible for all. The more I see it the more my protective ways of being with others melt down. Letting in in my heart the tenderness, joy and simplicity that they reflect is medicine for me at this moment.
Anna amazing realization you had about what true family is about. It feels very refreshing to read the fact that we are all equal, made from the same love, thank you
I love how much bigger and full of love my family is because it is not bound by blood or surname – I have many people I have connected deeply with and opened up to and have become a dear, trusted and loved member of my family
Rebecca, I love how you have expressed this. My family has also grown because I now do not define ‘family’ by blood or surname either. There are so many people in my life who I would describe as family even though we are not related because of the quality of relationship I have with them.
I love the photograph that accompanies this article – the three beautiful Spanish ladies are not related but you can feel their sisterhood, their innate connection and the joy they have in each other’s company – for me that is true family.
I am now much open to the fact that I have experienced regularly, that we are all in truth are family. Whenever we connect with some one beyond the superficial pleasantries and feel who they truly are and who we truly are, the truth is we are connected because we have a lot more in common than is different and we all know Love and Love is not owned by one person, it is felt. It can be in small gesture, the look in someone’s eyes, something said, an action, family is a way of being.
I love the photo at the top of this article. So much joy! If we open our hearts to others in this way whether blood family or not we open ourselves to this level of joy. Why would we want to restrict ourselves to loving just blood family?
It is only when we consciously recognise and admit that we are living in avoidance of ourselves that we can start to address such fundamental beliefs and ideals that have lead us to those behaviours.
In my experience what I discover that if we do not Love ourselves in full, family or not family we will be in protection, calibrating not to be hurt.
I agree Victoria. And If we don’t love ourselves in full we can’t truly love others. Such a freeing experience in being honest and recognising when we are in protection as we can let this pattern go and connect with the open, loving and beauty-full beings we all are.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – if we were to understand and to live this universal fact, that family is about love uniting one person with another person irrespective of anything… then we understand how come the state of the world we live in, is how it is today. And that with love there would and could be no war. If there is no war there is no prior separation or division but inclusion leading to harmony. When there is harmony there is collaboration and where there is collaboration there is progress and evolution.
Yes, Anna, it does not make sense to live in protection and resist love when it is the one thing we long for the most. As we address our hurts and let go of our ideals, the walls start crumbling down and our natural openness to others re-emerges.
We are so much more connected with one another then we think we are and it is for sure not only our blood family we are connected to through our genes and blood. We then limit our connection only to the physics of the body. But there is more to us, an energetic being that is naturally connected with the all as this is the essence of our being. And through this all we are connected as one, how can you then speak of family?
‘Learning to let go of these pictures I adopted that kept me in a spin and further away from being ‘me’ has been a work in progress.’ I’m sure this is a journey we may walk our whole lives – letting go of pictures. I tend to find that the more I become aware of my connection and the pictures I’ve held falsely then so does my awareness expand to show me finer details of pictures and expectations etc that I still falsely hold. But feeling and seeing them from being in the connection with myself, my heart then it’s easily to see they don’t belong with who I truly am and thus easier to let go of. Also seeing how they affect the whole, also is something that shows the cause and effect of our choices to hold on to such false pictures.
to bury what I was truly feeling at these times: for example, I would eat a lot of sugary and comfort foods or would watch a lot of TV or go shopping,‘ awesome sharing. Now, I know if I want foods that are not truly supportive to my body that it is a big sign that I have not been in the flow of listening to myself and my body and being in life according to my rythms. Coming back to honouring me is the antidote never beating myself up or trying to fix or using will from the head to not do the behaviour of seeking unsupportive foods. The true healing comes in the self care and self honouring then I can always feel that those types of foods don’t actually belong with my inner yumminess. ‘
‘so there were many times when I would put aside what I was feeling and do the ‘right’ thing.’ how often do we put ourselves aside and override ourselves in life for others at the expense of ourselves? It makes far more sense to love and care for ourselves deeply so that is the quality we then share and bring to everyone around us. We seem to have fallen for a mistruth as a society of ‘doing the right’ thing and not ‘being true’. Life is completely different when we live it from doing the true thing.
So cool Ariana when we look at it like this and put a number to it! It brings a deeper perspective to what family is and shows that we are all equally loving beings no matter what we may look like, where we are from or who we are etc..
I can so relate to all you have shared Anna, it’s an evil trick we allow ourselves to run in when we think protection is a way to love ourselves. One thing I am learning is when protection is felt evolution is on offer.
When we stop and consider the ingrained beliefs that blood family is, that most of the world live by, it is so easy to see that it is one of the most separative beliefs that we have accepted. It keeps anyone, other than family (and even family if there are dynamics at play) at arms length. A sure fire way to keep humanity separated and in a constant unease. In this it is easy to understand how we find our world so full of conflict. This belief has to be challenged and the falseness iof it exposed so we can all again open our hearts to all, if we want to live with the harmony that is the true foundation of humanity. Thank you Anna for beginning this conversation.
This just goes to show how holding on to ill ideals and beliefs (that many times we do not even now that we have got and picked them up or taken them on as true subconsciously) harm the body ‘When I first heard the saying ‘family is more than blood’, it felt like a relief’. Also how little we give ourself the space and time to explore what ideals and beliefs we are holding onto and often only discover this when something is mentioned or reflected to us like you found here.
You may have played the ‘good’ daughter I have played the ‘good’ mother, being a certain way in life and doing things for my daughters so that they would want to be a part of the picture that I had created about how we should all be with each other.
We all play ‘good’ roles and it’s awesome to identify these and let them go as they are not who we truly are. Although the various ‘good’ roles are different they are actually the same energy of not living true.
Yes, Mary-Louise, and that picture we then call family. But the way you described it already makes very clear that this is a false picture of what family is because it is based on conditions and not on love which a family should be based on.
I have to say that I have really only just dipped my toes when it comes to treating everyone as family and not calibrating how I am with everyone I meet. When I can let go of the old protection and treat everyone the same I find there is nothing to be afraid of, so it is a matter of getting that consistency happening and figuring out why I needed the protection in the first place.
To put aside what we are feeling and do the right thing is a killer. It leaves us totally bereft and tired and uncomfortable with ourselves and everyone else, moody is a good word to describe how out of sorts we can be. . This ‘right thing’ can attach itself to all sorts of scenarios that the mind conjures up. Coming back to our body and letting that inform our choices, allowing ourselves space for our feelings and honouring them, sometimes accepting that we just know what to do and not being swayed by others opinions allows for this right and wrong thing to give way to what is true, clear and absolute.
It’s a beautiful feeling to love someone so dearly who isn’t related to you, or in my case haven’t even met in person before!
It sure is Michael. And to be loved and held by another for no reason other than for being yourself is a real blessing.
Loving just breaks down so many barriers, especially loving those who are not related to us dearly. We are all part of the one source which is far greater than any blood line.
When we truly connect to this truth, we can break through all the barriers that keep us segregrated.
It has been a working progress for me to, letting go of all the protection and being open with every single person I met, still I feel moments of uncertainty and the protection trys to slip in. But more and more I love myself and accept how truly gorgeous I am for the feeling and quality from within I am starting not want to leave this and take this to each person and not waver from that. Here it is where the love for all equally is confirmed as being the only way.
Whatever the colour of our skin, the size or shape of the body etc or where we live in the world, we are basically all the same – blood, bones, hair, teeth, organs, cells and varying degrees of emotions. We use this as a measure to remain in separation and champion the differences of individualism, which are rife in family units and in societies.
Energetically – When we choose to remember that we are all from One Divine Source, there is nothing other than true brotherhood for all – ONE true family
“I always wanted to please my mum especially and play the ‘good’ daughter, so there were many times when I would put aside what I was feeling and do the ‘right’ thing. This of course ended up making me feel exhausted and moody, as I was not honouring of myself in any way.” So when we get the irritable, moody child (or for that matter any aged family member) we can see that there is much more at play in the family dynamics than we may care to look at.
How common is it to feel moody because we don’t do or honour what we feel and go into pleasing mode to please another…. I think it is more common than we like to admit.
Yes resentment and moodiness builds up when we go against our flow and don’t honour ourselves – this is harming to ourselves and the others we think we are ‘doing the good or right thing for’, as it all gets done with that hidden moodiness or resentment.
Yes…sadly it is. Pleasing others is a form of abuse to ourselves that keep us separated from our natural flow and true sense. I’m realizing that when I’m in this pattern I’m not offering anything true, but just my need to get accepted, approved and the resentment that comes with it.
I was holding onto the picture of family and not quite having what I saw other families (real and from Tv) had and so settled for what I thought was love but was nowhere near it. That was an ouch moment for me at the time. It’s so beautiful now to have the understanding and awareness of true family and have felt this in my body from those that are choosing to make this true family way, their way.
We have condensed and mangled the meaning of ‘family’ down to a paltry and unrecognisable version of it’s true meaning and in so doing have capped our experience of what ‘family’ truly is, to such a degree that the word no longer resembles what it was originally designed to reflect.
It feels so natural to embrace people outside our blood family as family because there is an openness, warmth and uniting quality to the fact that the whole of humanity is ultimately one huge family. Dropping the barriers and opening our hearts is what always feels deeply natural and loving.
Family for me has been a word that brings different ideas and feelings, predominately it is now something I feel is about our family, humanity, we are all linked and these separative ways of behaving does none of us any favours. The idea of blood and not blood again is fraudulent, we did not get here in isolation; a harmonious future is only going be resolved by coming together.
So true Elizabeth, like cyber abuse, abuse can come at us from many quarters and the sooner it is all exposed “for what it truly is” the more that True Love will be able to be expressed!
I agree Greg and Elizabeth, I have found that often the abuse we tolerate in our homes is absurd when we consider that we would never treat others like we do or have done to those closest to us. For me it has generally played out in the form of revenge wanting to get them back rather than just being the love that I am.
and not repressed as it currently is.
I so relate to what you have shared Anna and may I add that as a Student of my-self the thing that gets in my way the most is me being the ‘good’ student! “The whole way I was living life was in avoidance of myself – a running away from feeling my own strength and power.” Finding the true questions to ask my-self about reconnecting to my essence and not hiding in just being a ‘good’ student has been exemplified by reading your blog. When looking for answers in the most-True-way with service to divinity as our back-drop, allows the answer to be liberated from our deepest areas that has hiding our “hurts,” then we start to return to our ‘Sacredness.’ Sacred because it is that tender, fragile, sensitive and precious essence that we can reconnect to and start to live from there again.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” this reminds me to be aware that no matter how people act, or what we may do we are all the same, all equal.
It comes back to the old wise saying that we must love each other as thy self, we can’t really go wrong with this one, if we get the loving ourselves right the whole world is our family.
True Kev. This highlights the importance of loving ourselves, for if we can’t do that then we are not able to open in love to anyone else, and we miss out on true connection with others.
So true Kevin – This is where the work begins – with us first.
The “must or should” of the old saying it does not sound right to me. We can not love others more than we love ourselves. We can give more attention but not love. If it is real Love we have to experience ourselves at the same time we are expressing Love to others. It is just One Love that includes all of us at the same time.This love is universal and it can not be reduced to someone. Love is or it is not . Nothing to do with the willingness to love someone. When we Love ourselves, we are in the the energy of Love and this is what we emanate to the whole.
“I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past, something that I justified in my own mind but that really held me back from experiencing a deeper and true connection with others.” Yes I can recognise this very well Anna and when you see it as clearly as this, it seems really silly to do this and then miss the connection we deeply know is possible.
I love that Ariana… we are all family. We all share the same home – Earth.
There is so much to feel and know from another in a simple holding connection.
I find it appeasing to go very still and understand on a deeper level – it is there to feel and it is loving to hold yourself steady while being with another. I like the challenge of expressing all that is needed to be expressed in as little exchanges as needed – go big and meaningful than the off repeated small-talk. This way every conversation is guaranteed to be unique.
Without consciously trying to, when we entertain these ideals about family coming first then other people may get a lesser quality of care and may not get to experience the full ‘YOU’ with full transparency and affection… thus we can be a reduced version of ourselves in relationships that are not ‘blood’.
I love this Ariana ¬– In an instant there is no ‘only child’ syndrome and no person on this earth who is truly without family. Once this is known and accepted energetically, there is only one great big family, greater than can ever be imagined.
I really love your expression, Stephanie. So liberating…
Anna – This is a powerful and deeply inspiring statement, that I too have discovered to be true as I have let go of the protective walls previously held around my heart like a fortress anticipating an invasion!
“Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart, no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me to see if I can trust them or if I will be accepted: I see them as my equal and equally as loving as myself, even if they are too shy to express their love in that moment”.
‘but interestingly this shutting myself off from others hurt far more than how another could have hurt me.’ Yes the isolation from the one family we all are deeply hurts, protection separates us from each other.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – i can honestly say that over the years with the developing and deepening of the love for myself, and how that’s opened the door to truly (not emotionally) loving others too, that in receipt i enjoy and feel loved by so many people who are not blood related and how I feel more part of a family today than i did as a child. Love alone is all that founds and binds true family and the sense of it.
Being open and trusting that everything will be ok may seem to an adult to be quite childlike and it takes some practice but, it does free us up from all the beliefs of how we have to protect ourselves. It also feels more honouring of ourselves and to those we are talking to.
That is a really good point Julie in how some may see being open and trusting as childlike and so not adult! I have never thought of it like that! I guess that brings more of a reason to stress how important it is and to look at and heal our hurts, anger, bitterness, frustration, resentment etc. we have picked up or accumulated in life to stop us being open and trusting.
Anna, I really love this; ‘I have learnt to walk through life with an open and loving heart’, I will take this into my day today; not waiting for love first, not judging others and instead holding people in love and understanding is very beautiful.
The picture of this boy is a testimony to parenting. Such tenderness, sweetness, innocence and divinity emanating from his being.
When we have pictures, ideals and beliefs around family we cannot embrace our true family – all of humanity, in full. We need to keep exposing and renouncing these beliefs so we can truly open our hearts and let all of humanity in.
Yes the key is to keep exposing and although this may feel uncomfortable it is a timely reminder of what we have been fooled by.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted”, when we love and accept ourselves in full then there is no desire to feel loved and accepted by another.
We are all free to go as deeply into love as we choose.
This is very inspiring Elizabeth. To understand that the whole human race is our family allows an opportunity to open up to everyone in the same way and is in fact very liberating. To keep ourselves seperate from each other is also really exhausting.
I love this Gill, and this way of relating to people and connecting is what feels so natural and true.
In the past, when I felt someone was in protection or guarded, I tend to react and then join them in protection. But now, I am more aware of when I do this and I am learning to stay open and be loving no matter who it is I meet, a family member, friends or a stranger. I am constantly blown away by how people respond when I stay open, be myself and treat everyone I meet as family.
When you mentioned this about Anna’s job and flying I can just feel the family on her flights. It’s something I have felt on trains and planes especially when there’s been a delay and we all get to feel we’re in this together. I’ve had such fun on delayed flights etc. when people come together. Feeling this and knowing what true family is, there is no reason I cannot bring this aspect to whatever situation work or otherwise I am in.
‘…When I first heard the saying ‘family is more than blood’, it felt like a relief because as much as I love and care for my family there were times when I also met people with whom I felt as close and familiar with and who I loved just as dearly as my own family.’
How lovely to not to put limits on love. My blood family with whom I have close relations is getting smaller as I grow older. This used to worry me as older members were getting older and that I would be left ‘all alone’. But then I appreciate the friends I have who feel just like family and it’ll only ever be me that gets in the way of this by not letting their love in or hiding away.
I love hearing how many people talk about their ‘work’ family, the people they work with and also share so much of what is going on in their lives with. This feels like a step towards opening up to and realizing that actually we are all one big family living on planet earth. We have to work together to make it work.
It is interesting that we hold one relationship as extra special… when in truth all relationships are equally important – relationships with people, relationships with our cars and homes, with nature – it’s not just people but our relationship with all of life is significant in every way.
Letting go of the ideal of our blood family being the most important thing in the world is massive. What if family members are abusive or what if you simply don’t get along? We put ourselves under so much pressure to be a certain way and we go against our natural instincts so that we’re seen to be doing the right thing which ultimately doesn’t serve us, and we likely carry on the tradition of being bitter and resentful as we get older. When we’re open to having family outside of our blood family, it becomes so much easier to accept and understand everyone as it becomes more about our connection with each other and less about our roles.
When we consider family to be more than blood it opens up the way we treat every other person, growing up to me family was blood and yet today I feel family is everyone. It has taken some time to really appreciate that and its also raised the question of how do we treat family and how do we treat everyone.
Such a glorious, joyful picture emanating connection and love between people, true family!
Blood family is such a strange term. As if our blood determines the fact that we are different to others. The very fact that we can give blood to anyone else of the same blood type, whether our direct family or not, shows us that we are of one species and one family. There can be no exclusion.
Being open to sharing ourselves in all the relationships we have, dissolves the walls of protection and explodes the myth that family is ever about arbitrary constraints like blood or marriage. We are all part of the family of humanity and in the acceptance of this we then have so many opportunities to connect with others with a loving heart.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted” – totally Anna. I recall a few years back reflecting on the joy in somebody knowing my every look, glance, eye move, body movement, literally everything about me being known by them, was what i wanted in a partnership – that inside-out upside-down sense where you feel accepted by someone because you feel they understand you. An observance I knew that could only be present when i began that very inside-out detailed process in seeing myself as I am. Knowing me, to know them, to know me. One big circle of knowing, the same as love and acceptance.
More and more abuse is playing out within families, and this is another reason why it’s so important to understand that family is not who we’re tied down to, and that actually we are blessed with having a worldwide community full of people who do love us and we can also love ourselves…. We don’t have to receive this love exclusively from family members in order to feel worthy.
A great sharing Anna. I would have to agree with you on families being more than blood relatives .If we all come from the one source (God) how can it be any other way?
It is time the ideals and beliefs surrounding blood family were exposed and that without true love the word family isn’t worth a carrot.
‘I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member’, Anna reading this i can feel how we can miss out on so many potential connections and intimate relationships with people when we have the idea that we can only be close to those blood related or our partners or husbands. Like you Anna, I now see everyone as family and treat people with the same love and respect I do my own family, this is a very lovely way to live and allows me to see the beauty and quality and potential for close, loving relationships with so many more people.
“Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me . . . ” For me as well Anna as this had opened the door to my heart again so that I can do now what my natural thing is to do and that is to love myself and others equally.
Yes, in truth how can we love our blood family more than anyone else? There are people in my life that are not related to me but I love them dearly. When it comes to love, that is true love there is no separation in loving one more than another… a beautiful marker in the body of the true connection to ourselves and to everyone and everything.
“No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.” nailed it, no matter what this is what we are all looking for and therefore forget the blood lines as family is between all of us who are open to being love and therefore can be between everyone.
Thank you Anna – this reflects what the truth of family is, deeper than blood and about the relationships, we have first. What is beautiful is that you have observed the tangle and conformity that we can sometimes get caught in with ‘blood family’ and how we feel obliged to do something because they are blood-related – when in fact this feeds the separation of family and not family.
Yes, we tend to ‘protect’ ourselves by waiting to see how other people are before we decide we can trust them. How lovely then, that you are able to open your heart and see everyone as your family.
I love the photo that accompanies this blog. Through them I can feel what true family is which is a wonderful way of knowing this in my life and living it also, being a part of true family too.
Letting go of the ideals and beliefs of what family is has opened up a whole new level of appreciation and healing for me. When things come up around my immediate family, I am less likely to feel hurt and I am more able to understand and see things clearly without reactions.
These days when people ask me about my family I include my family of origin, my friends, my colleagues etc. The days of family being just about Mum, Dad and the kids are limited as we all belong to the bigger family of humanity.
What a beautiful holding and loving quality this has: “even if they are too shy to express their love in that moment.” I know I’ve said and done things because of awkwardness and shyness that hasn’t be a true offering of what I was feeling inside. Any opportunity for graciousness when someone is shy is a moment for them to feel safe enough to drop what shyness is protecting.
“Life for me has become very different as I now embrace people and treat them with the warmth and familiarity I would a dear or close family member.” I can very much relate to this Anna. It is very freeing to realise that we are all the same and that there is no reason to treat some more lovingly than others and to step by step letting go of the many protections I hold.
It is amazing to think what people put up with in the name of ‘family’ – we can tolerate behaviour from blood family and relatives that we would otherwise never put up with from anyone else. So to view life from the simplicity that every act that anyone does is either love or not love means that true family for me is people united in being loving and has nothing to do with blood relations.
Thank you Anna, I really enjoyed your blog. There are many gems of wisdom here but for me this was something I could relate to “I would put aside what I was feeling and do the ‘right’ thing.” I don’t feel I have truly explored this for myself in family life but it certainly explains the exhaustion, tension and moodiness that doing “the right thing” can cause by placing unnecessary pressure on ourselves. Doing what feels loving and true is a much better option.
“Family for me now has a very different meaning as I have learned to walk through life with an open and loving heart.” I love this line. For me my definition of family has changed greatly over the last few years and is no longer bound by blood and marriage. As my definition changed I realised that having such a limited definition of family never sat well and felt false. Anyone can be part of my family and vice versa, it’s a quality of connection.
Whenever pictures, ideals and beliefs come in the truth (and thus love) leaves. We all come from the same source and are all united. Everything I do has an impact on someone and everyone somewhere in the world. I don’t always want to feel this because it exposes my, from time to time, irresponsibility.
It’s so important to apply the understanding to other people but also ourselves that the ‘exterior’ can look and feel so different to the ‘interior’, and why there is this gap.
This is a beautiful offering, if we simply remember that we are all craving love and acceptance, then we are able to understand that the other guards, protections, masks, exteriors and false bravadoes that we all use and put up, are actually just a cover for us wanting to be loved. When we strip things back and see people, I almost feel like everyone is my family, I get so close to people so quickly and the love is as strong as those that I share blood with, so I have to whole heartily agree, that family can be many things but blood, is not one that defines it when it comes to my mind.
Great Blog Anna, it really does take effort to stay shut off from others and hold them out so to speak, which has already done far greater damage to ourselves by doing so.
“Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back …” Thank you Anna. The real gift of love that offers everything and needs nothing in return. Being met with such love, it leaves a lasting impression on everyone, however fleeting, somewhere deep inside we all recognise the gift.
What a beautiful piece of love and holding of the true values of family and how this is not restricted to blood and is far more in every way. Brotherhood and oneness says it all and does not allow for the abuse allowed under many so called family beliefs and ways of being.
It is beautiful to feel how your expanding relationship with yourself impacted all your relationships and widened the pool of people that you regarded as ‘family’. So often we place narrow limitations on those we define as family and thus shut ourselves and others off from the possibility of going deeper in our relationship with them however fleeting.
That is the key isn’t it – deep down inside we all want to be loved. We can be as tough as we want on the outside but inside we are all the same.
It’s only when you can detach yourself from the blood family enough to see the ideals and beliefs popping up all of the time; which at times can be quite challenging to do because it pushes all of those buttons that we want to avoid. Now and again I find myself deciding to join in while also feeling how untrue it is for me and my body.
I know this to be true ‘family is more than blood’ When my siblings started to get married obviously they brought into the family non family members and even though there was a divorce many years ago now; what society would call my ex sister-in-law has become just like a sister to me. Some of my clients I call my family as I have known them for years and they are a huge part of my life. The ladies at the checkout at my local supermarket I consider to be part of my family. I have got to know some of them very well and again they are a part of my life. Even meeting people as I go on my way in life, just saying hello or making eye contact are my family because I can feel to my very bones that we are all one big family.
Reading this I came to the conclusion that no one can hurt us. Our separation from our essence, that power and beauty is what truly hurts. But as I or another separates that provides others the space to be the same (separate from their essence) that they can choose to enjoin with. Saying another has hurt me is a huge irresponsibility. Yes they may have created a space of and for separation from our amazingness but it’s me that choses to align to that separation or stay within that connection to my essence.
Gorgeous picture Ladies – so much joy, connection, lightness and love .
Yes I agree Jacqueline true family has all of these qualities.
Deep down we all want to feel loved and accepted… self acceptance is so powerful, that is when we accept that we are more than our human bodies, that we are divine beings here to return to the Way of our Soul which means not working in isolation but all working together supporting each other.
Some cultures have extended family groupings of blood and non-blood relationships. Extended families are sometimes considered to be the ideal because of this and more open than ‘nuclear’ families. What matters is not the family group structure but quality of relationships within them. True family is universal, not bound by race, culture, religion, colour. Its quality is brotherhood and love.
Blood family groups especially those defined by ethnicity and culture can be clannish, exclusive and closed. You’re either in or out and to be out is to be considered less than. True family is our connection to God, love is inclusive, not separate and everyone equal.
The blood family dynamic can be such an interesting thing to observe for it can be something that can keep us very separated, but when we can see the traps of ideals and beliefs it is then time to see the truth that we are just all one big huge family.
Anna this is such a beautiful post on Family, and so much more too … we see that family with oneself through the love of oneself is then the love of others too that offers, brings and inspires – true family to be.
There are so many pictures, ideals and beliefs that we take on around family and parenting is just one area that I have found confronting… there is always something to look at and address within me as my children enter each phase of their lives.
When we realise we are all members of the family of humanity we can meet everyone with an equal love and connection.
Anna, this is a very beautiful way to be with people; ‘Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me and has allowed the space for another to feel safe to express and to enjoy the connection that is being offered.’ Reading your article I can feel that often we wait for someone to be open with us first and then we will be loving and open back, it is very lovely how you are now loving with everyone – treating everyone as equal and as family, this allows you to be consistent in your love and not change depending on who you are with and allows others the inspiration to open up and be their loving selves too.
This is very true. Your insight also allows us to treat our physical family members with love, perhaps even more love than previously.
Staying open to people even if they have done something that you were hurt by is challenging but is totally worth it in the end. I can feel how exhausted I have been every time I have shut down to someone who I had an issue with based on a past hurt or cruel, harsh thing they may have said. But when I have chosen to read the whole situation with an understanding of why they may have behaved in that way without taking it personal, it seems to just roll of my back and I don’t take on their issue as mine as much anymore.
Opening up and seeing everyone as family removes the separation of there being only a select few we hold as dear and love. I was shown growing up that family could be as abusive as they liked but they were family and that was that… you never spoke about what happened in the family to anyone outside. I know now I can love someone in an instant and talk with them intimately. And it happens constantly.
When you have an understanding and feel of how you have held onto the blood family belief thing, the contrast that you feel seeing everyone as family equally is huge and just feels natural to be this way with everyone.
Interesting that we equate families with loving relationships when most abuse and murder happens within families and behind closed doors.
Very true Nicola. It seems that the word family can be an excuse for any kind of abuse that is usually experienced in the home. In this case, why do we idealise blood family?
True, there is so much violence and abuse going on behind closed doors, it does not make sense we have idealised the concept of blood family being special. Only special in the sense that we tolerate behaviour we would never tolerate from so called strangers.
We have all been birthed from the same source and in love we are all deeply connected and one.
I love reading this sentence Nicola. It feels so true within me, and the more I read it, the more it expands from within to beyond, like an awakening echoe
I used to think I was the odd-one out in my family, finding it hard to fit in, but what I am discovering is that every single one of us was trying to live up to an image of family each of us held and no one was actually being genuinely and truthfully loving and caring towards each other, we were either putting it on as best as we could thinking that was love and that was what a family does or reacting to it. It was quite shocking when a family member passed a few years ago to realise how little we knew about them and how disconnected we were as a family. But we all actually do want the same thing. As I deepen my own connection with myself, I am getting know myself more intimately, and this is helping me to become understanding of the others as well, and family not being bound by a surname or blood feels more truer to me.
Such a wonderful blog. ‘No matter how we are in life or what our demenour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted. Having this awareness about myself has supported me to be more understanding when I meet others and to not react to their guard or to judge them in any way.’
I am always clocking how I walk – is it in protection or am I communicating love and transparency? I notice the times when I automatically curve my shoulders inwards in protection especially around men because of old reactions. I readjust my posture from feeling the situation from my body. Rather than be on constant alert, this body awareness is much more accurate in feeling for any real threats and responsive.
Reading your blog I realised and could feel something and that is ideals and beliefs I still hold around the family I was born into. I didn’t think I had any more of these but clearly there are still some there. I agree family is not just the family we are born into but instead can be everyone we meet. This is what feels true to me.
Identifying a group of people as more important or friendly than others, sets us up to feel distant and apart. Because the truth is we are all one at heart. Thank you Anna for sharing this.
I love connecting to people by looking in their eyes I not only see how we are all one big family but also I see and feel the essence and depth they hold. It also gives me a moment to feel my body and appreciate my movements more and more too.
‘I was holding certain people I didn’t know, or trust, accountable for the way in which others had treated me in the past, something that I justified in my own mind but that really held me back from experiencing a deeper and true connection with others.’ This is a great point – we often don’t even question our own behaviours and ways of reacting to life, because we assume that’s just who we are or how we like to be – but what if so many of our behaviours are actually reactions against life, against the fear of being hurt, and what if we learned to look at those, without judgment? Just noticing that we act in a certain way gives us an opening to see if that behaviour is really supporting us and our relationships, and if not, to explore if there’s a different way, one with less protection and more connection. And the more we love and connect to ourselves, the more naturally this happens with others.
Playing roles does indeed make us moody and exhausted, because we’re going against everything in our body that knows exactly who we are. There is no substitute for being ourselves, expressing all of who we are – and when we allow that, allow ourselves to say what we really feel and think about things, without reaction, it’s actually energising.
Truly being self-loving allows us to love others equally, without exclusions, with harmony and joy. Our family and friends can expose our needs, ideals and beliefs that contract us and prevent us from being all the love we are which separates us from everyone.
Thank you Anna for this heart-felt piece. The way that you write about your journey with love and with letting people in is so very simple, you bring the tussle of life between protection and openness out in to the open, giving us all a gentle and tender space to have a look, if we so wish it, at our tendency to pull away and to seek shelter from intimacy and true connection with eachother.
what a beautiful and strong connecting blog. It confirms all the truth we once felt and still know to be true from when we were young. Family is not blood related. It is by connection to God’s Love — our Will to open up and be that whole son of God. No blood related.
Reading this I had the most gorgeous image of a flower blooming and blossoming, sharing with the world exactly who it is, no holding back. And sharing it equally for all, not just for those the select few.
Yes, not putting a screen between itself and the world.
Great to have these discussions as I know I have meet many people that only have instantly become ‘family’. We talk about it a lot of the time and say things like “I feel like I have known them for ages” etc etc. There is a quality to family that goes well beyond any of the current borders we place around the word. In this quality things are felt and by that feeling we are all defined. Family has always been greater then the box we create and in that the only way out of the box is to walk and so for us to redefine something like family we all need to live to what it is in feeling.
I like what you are saying here Anna about the ideals and beliefs that are everywhere in society telling us how we should be and behave and when we live our lives according to these instead of our inner knowing it does create a lot of tension – no wonder then that there are so many methods that humans use to distract and numb themselves from feeling what is really going on.
Yes we can impose unrealistic expectations on ourselves or they can come from family members. Either way they are not true if we leave ourselves to fit into a ‘role’.
Love and connection is not determined by blood I agree Anna. I am fortunate to share ever- deepening relationships with my blood family and equally all those I am in relationship with. Our relationships with each can support us to evolve and expand when we let go of any pictures, ideals and expectations of how they should be. True family is about love respect and brotherhood.
Thank you Anna, for this beautiful message shared of the potential we all hold, to live in a way that embraces all of humanity as our immediate family, offering an acceleration to live our true potential as a humanity in Brotherhood. All of which begins with us, and how we live our everyday lives and how we are with all of those we are in a relationship with or meet.
I so know the ‘I’m hurt don’t come near me’ card. It’s merely an indulgence to wallow in it and keep people at bay. And such a wasted opportunity to connect with others who may be loving in their intentions and expression. We can allow anybody in to the same degree if we simply open ourselves up instead of shut down in protection.
Wow Rebecca this is a great ouch moment that you have shared
“I so know the ‘I’m hurt don’t come near me’ card. It’s merely an indulgence to wallow in it and keep people at bay. And such a wasted opportunity to connect with others who may be loving in their intentions and expression.”
I have played this card for lifetimes and it has got me absolutely nowhere, its such a game that is being played out that we ‘think ‘ we are getting left alone when we are not left alone at all, we are being smashed by the energy that we did a deal with in the first place. Until we realise the game being played, we are a willing participant of the game because we ‘think’ we are getting our needs met.
I have felt for a long time that family was more than simply being related by blood. I feel there is much more to unpack than this and certainly more to understand and to live. But knowing that by simply being open with people or even being open in how we move can really assist in keeping guards down.
True family are united by love not blood, and this is a bond that rather than bind, holds us firmly together by the quality of the love shared and not bound by the adopted ideals and beliefs that say it should be so.
Yes it is life changing to not see the reactions or behaviours of others as a measure of our own self-worth but just them as the reactions and behaviours that often have nothing to do with us personally.
It took me a while to realize I really can’t love someone more than another. I can’t love my neighbour less than my mum. I thought I could and I spend and waisted a lot of time and effort on keeping people out and controlling life.
I can see how I have protected myself from hurt and thus prevented some relationships in deepening. Becoming aware of patterns of behaviour is the first step for we will continue to meet similar situations until we finally surrender to being open to love.
I have met, worked and lived with many people that were not related to me but I felt a family connection. This blog just reminds me that when we make every connection as a global family there is no room for these limited ideals and beliefs.
People have so much to offer each other. I find it an absolute blessing to truly connect to another being and what is possible. Let whatever is there to miraculously unfold. We each hold the answers to what is needed.
When you start to feel true love and feel how that feels with others when you hold them in equal love, you get to feel within that divine love, we are the same, we are love, no matter what you look like or where you come from, that doesn’t even factor into it.
Shutting down hurts us more than the person/s we are shunning or think we are ‘punishing’ in some way. Before the sting goes out, it has already hit home.
“Learning to hold them in love and acceptance with no expectations of receiving anything back has been life changing for me and has allowed the space for another to feel safe to express and to enjoy the connection that is being offered.” This is such a beautiful way to be with another person, and it really is astounding as to what can come out of such a meeting, and sometimes more so even when the two people dont know each other. From my own experience I feel the absolute joy of connecting with someone in this way.
Unconditional love is a truly beautiful precious thing.
Hi Anna, thank you for your sharing. It is difficult to pick a paragraph that doesn’t resonate deeply with me, and I had to smile as I read through your words as I totally agree, the title of your blog says it all ‘Family Is More Than Blood’ – much more. And what has made life simpler for me is to see my ‘blood’ family as the same and equal as everyone else. This has made it easier to release any emotional attachments I have with them – and although I love them all dearly I feel freer now to embrace my wider community as my family.
I can relate to much of what you have shared, early on in life I struggled with my connection with my family and since then rejected more intimate relationships with others. I am starting to understand all that has played out and am now enjoying a ‘family’ relationship with those I live with.
I love how you explain walking through life with an open heart, the key is if we live with an open heart everything changes and we don’t know what is possible, it’s a different way of understanding life, of greeting people, every step is fresh, every day is fresh and every relationship is fresh. It makes the term “blood family” so last century.
So true Meg, with an open heart everything is possible.
“I am enjoying a greater connection and intimacy with others that I always thought was only reserved for that one special person in my life or a close family member” – This is amazing, Anna. We have no idea what is in store through our relationships, and being open to loving everyone equally is the key to unlocking this potential.
It’s crazy isn’t it – we paint a very false picture around how we ought to be with our blood family which leaves us resentful and frustrated and hence with much less love to give… and from there we keep everybody else out also.
If we made all of our relationships and connections about Love first and foremost the ‘should’s’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ wouldn’t be able to come in – our barometer would be love itself.
The ideals and beliefs we have around family can be quite trapping… holding us to random in life. I have noticed for myself that a few years ago I would accept attitudes and behaviour from family members that I simply would not accept from others. I made the allowance that because it was family that somehow gave license to abuse. But I realise now, this came from a self-investment of keeping myself lesser and born from a lack of self-worth. I am glad to say that this has now changed, but I still have to watch that I don’t go into old roles because they are familiar.
“Family Is More Than Blood” – it is just love.
As someone who spent twelve years of her childhood with a family that was not of my blood or race, I can attest to the truth that ‘family is more than blood.’ Today I find myself working and living in a client’s home, treated with love and as a family member as much as I embrace them as part of my family. Much more profound is understanding we’re part of one human family and embracing each human being as brother or sister. The divides we construct are purely artificial and once we get rid of them we can embrace each other equally.
So true Kehinde! We are one human family.
I remember being called little sister by the grooms who took me out riding on Arab horses into the desert in the Middle East. I felt at home and truly met by these open and welcoming people.
I work closely with families also and there is a real mix of those who may be related by blood and those who are not. Sometimes there is some justification such as “I am just the step daughter, ex wife etc” But really they are in a relationship, which to me is the important thing, I feel that confirming to clients that what they feel is family is important and it helps them to understand that no justification is ever needed.
I love your last paragraph about just accepting people when you meet them, that open living without expectation is no doubt a beautiful way to live and be met in.
I love my family no question, yet the toxic ideal of family is an absolute poison when I apply this to my relationships with them. Its taken me a long time, and many difficult conversations and situations to unpick these ideals from the true relationship I am having with another human being (that happens to be my father, my brother or my sister).
So what is that I love so much about my family (becuase this is by no means an ode to happy families)… its that of all the relationships I have these are the longest in my life and offer an insight into how much we change personally. They remind me that nothing is fixed, that the more open I am the more I learn, and that it is super important to simply be me no matter what the outside world is offering up.
I like that Simon, relationships are not fixed and the longevity of the relationships with people in our families is a wonderful reflection of that.
Family’s offspring so often is misery. For as soon as we narrow ‘those that we love’ to a select few, it eats away at the truth inside of us. As you beautifully show Anna if we do the reverse and let everyone in, as our greatest friend we start to see the barriers and segregation only exists in our heads.
The key is to love all and let everyone in, keeping protection up and barriers is closing us up and building a separation.
‘I am grateful that I challenged this limiting belief as it has allowed me to see the wider family available to me everywhere I go.’ What I love in what you share here Anna is that family is everywhere we go, if I’m open, others have the opportunity to be too but if I walk around protected in anyway then it’s less likely to happen. I’ve laughed and cried, felt supported and done the same to people I’ve only just met but the gold shared has been priceless. If we stay in the societal belief of what family is we’re playing small to what’s really on offer and holding back on the potential magic and connection available in each moment to anyone.
Beautiful sharing Anna, and so very true ‘No matter how we are in life or what our demeanour is, deep down we are all wanting to feel loved and accepted.’ The more we see, realise and accept this not only in ourselves but in others the less hurt we will get by what we see and the more we will embrace life. I used to think I had to be loved by another or others but now see the falsity in that because if I am first not loving myself no matter how much another loves me I will not see it, in fact I will doubt it, question it and even fight it. So it all comes back to how I am with myself first and foremost.
‘no longer waiting for the other to first show their love to me’ This is key Anna as while everyone is waiting for the others we are going nowhere. Someone needs to be the first to show a different way of being and why would it not be me?.
It is lovely to understand that we are all family and that we can let go of the many false ideals and beliefs around our blood ties.
I too have come to know that ‘family is more than blood’ and in the process my biological family is now only small part of the bigger family that I have now embraced. This family is scattered around the world and it may sound strange, but there are some members who I have only met a few times and some I haven’t met in person, but the time I spend with them online working on projects is a such a precious part of my life and with each meeting I get to know and appreciate them more. I grew up always wanting a big family and now I have one!
Anna the way you are living is showing the way we all must choose. We have all been deeply hurt at one point but the protection we put up is hurting us more and keeping us away from the love we all naturally are.
This is very true Kev. The love we crave is the love we are. It is only our protection that hurts us and prevents us from expressing that which we each in essence are and in-truth can never stop being – LOVE – no matter the guards we erect to halt this expression.
So true Kev, its the protection layer which we put up, walk around hard and closed, that’s actually causing more hurt than letting it go and dropping the protection.