Ever since I was a little girl I always felt I wanted to have a brother. I often asked my Mum why we didn’t have one and wondered what it would be like.
As my sister and I were growing up I hoped that Mum would have another child and it would be a boy so that I could have both a brother and sister to hang out with.
I loved being with my sister. We would keep each other company and we got on most of the time. We had similar interests and would play with all the children in the neighborhood for hours.
Over the years my relationship with my sister developed and you could say we were like two peas in a pod. I just came to accept that I had one sister with whom I shared most of my time. We did everything together including travelling, hanging out and living with each other once we moved out of the family home.
It wasn’t until my sister met my brother-in-law that things started to change.
You could say that the carpet was pulled from under me and I was in shock that the person I loved so much in this world was now sharing her time with someone else. I went into big time reaction and experienced a sense of grief because I thought that I was losing my sister’s love.
I knew that this reaction was not okay but couldn’t seem to stop myself from slipping into a pattern of anger, frustration and resentment towards this person and how I believed he was negatively affecting my relationship with my sister.
After a year I knew that this couldn’t go on as my sister began withdrawing from me because I was building a wall of hurt that would not let her or anyone else in.
With bucket loads of crying – and noting that by building this wall of hurt I was not only getting in the way of my sister’s new relationship but also my own – I decided enough was enough and knew the change had to start now, otherwise I would continue to harm the relationship I treasured so much.
It was only with the support of the teachings of Serge Benhayon and learning about the choices I was making, did I make a decision to heal old patterns and let more love in: it was then that things started to change and slowly the cycle of judgment started to shift.
Three years later, and with a lot of understanding and letting go of false beliefs, I realised that the day my sister and brother-in-law got engaged I was actually being sent a gift. A gift I was longing for all my life and one I was persistent in asking my Mum for as a little girl.
The brother that I thought was missing in my family and I was longing to welcome in, had arrived. Someone I could hang out with, share my crazy and silly sense of humour with, hug with great love and accept with all my heart.
So nearly four years later and with the celebration of my brother-in-law’s birthday (the other day), I found it fitting to buy him a card that read “A brother like you doesn’t come along every day.” At this point I knew I had accepted with open arms that he is no longer my brother-in-law but my brother.
I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.
With deepest gratitude and appreciation for Serge Benhayon as it is through him that I am coming to know my true self every day and feel truly inspired to be that graceful reflection.
His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.
Inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
Relationship games – fear of losing love
My Sister and I
A Lesson in Surrender – Be Like a Feather
A beautiful realisation of being open to Brotherhood.
I have what society would call an ex sister-in-law, but to me she is my sister and I love her dearly. Every year we all get together as sisters for a few days we have fun and share the happenings in our lives. She has now re married and I have gained another brother. My daughter’s best friends treat me as a mother and they are my daughters; I recently went to one of her friend’s graduation as I am very much a part of her family. To me family is not defined by blood but by how we treat one another which is with deep respect and love, this is what make a family to me.
Absolutely letting people in, True-Intimacy deepens our relationships left right and center.
What if our life was full of situations that allowed us to see the silver lining in every situation and thus eliminating every reaction, by opening the door to healing our ideals and beliefs about what we want things to be, now that would be Gold!
Developing relationships with another can be so important and when we appreciate the Love that can be shared then the heavens open up and we all feel the blessing.
Understanding, and letting go of our beliefs, is so important as you showed in this blog, we are then able to gain more awareness and move on.
What a great example of how destructive those pictures we carry can be, not only to ourselves, but to those close to us. They are so destructive, as they serve to block the view of life which could be possible if we were only able to let go of the expectations that come with them, and allow ourselves to surrender to what comes next; in your case, the brother you had always wanted.
Anonymous, ‘The brother that I thought was missing in my family and I was longing to welcome in, had arrived. Someone I could hang out with, share my crazy and silly sense of humour with, hug with great love and accept with all my heart.’ This is really beautiful that you treat him as your brother and are open and loving with him. It shows me that we do not need to treat our in-laws differently to our blood relations – they are still family and we can have a relationship that is equally as close and loving with them.
I struggle to use the words “in-laws” when I am referring to certain members of our family as to me it almost sets them apart when in fact, I love all the members of my family equally so. I know that many find this hard to understand as the beliefs around what a family is are deeply ingrained and very rarely challenged, but not to do so is, as far as I am concerned, causing us to miss out on the beauty, of what I have come to know, is true family.
A beautiful reflection of opening up to Brotherhood.
Anonymous, how life changing for everyone involved that you let your brother in- law in and accepted and loved him for who he is. The ripples effects of this are huge and it is very inspiring to read about letting love in and not holding people at a distance.
This is beautiful anonymous; ‘I had accepted with open arms that he is no longer my brother-in-law but my brother.’ I can feel that often we treat our in-laws with less openness and love than we do our blood-related family. It is beautiful to see our in-laws as equally worthy of our love and to know that they too can be our brothers sisters, mothers and fathers.
Breaking down pictures we may have, is so very important if we are to open up and allow others in, so often it is the pictures we have created that hold us back from our very own evolution.
I love what you are sharing anonymous, that it is a choice to let people in and to love and be loved.
Anonymous, reading this makes me realise that so often we are not as open hearted with our in-laws as we are with our own family. It feels great to see everyone as family and not just those blood related to us and then we have all the brothers, sisters and family that we could want.
A powerful message, gorgeous, for our brother does not come with a box, for it is in every way possible to have a brother in ways like this. It is all about connection, the rest eventually doesn’t count.
Its interesting to read in the blog how we use relationships as safe havens where we can feel secure but the feeling I get is when we do that we limit ourselves. What your story shows is how if we open up then more relationships happen and our community, our love, and the number of our brothers we are connected with grows.
Yes when we open our hearts we open our eyes as well to see the gifts that are right in front of us.
It is crazy how we can wish for something and then reject it when it does not come packaged as we expect! Awesome that you were able to let go of the pictures of how a relationship should be and embrace the love you were being offered.
Such a gorgeous sharing, so beautiful to read this again, no greater joy than opening the heart up, to let love out, and to let love in, for and from others.
Letting people in is living with our true family as the word family has nothing to do with our family of origin but is inclusive of everyone.
This is a great example of what’s possible if we live life embracing change rather than resisting it – life can engineer the most incredible opportunities.
A beautiful learning of the potential of brotherhood with all.
Things can change so very much depending on our relationship with them. By letting go of ideals and beliefs it allows us the space for a relationship to unfold in a way that supports us all. It reminds us that relationships are about everyone and not just one sided
A very beautiful and practical example of how healing and dealing with our hurts can completely transform our relationships and our lives.
Any investment in the way love should be is crippling what evolution is on offer should you commit to your truth.
Thank you for sharing this amazing insight as to how unresolved hurts keep us from fully exploring and embracing all that life and our relationship with life and each other have to offer. We can only evolve when we are open to love in all situations.
Anonymous, a great sharing and one which exposes the weakness of close relationships and attachments to people we consider to be ‘special.’ Special relationships exclude anyone outside the circle and is harmful. We’re all equal, and precious human beings, no one better or less than another.
Serge Benhayon has helped so many of us to bring understanding to our lives and from there to make new and loving choices, ‘His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.’
I reckon a lot of us get those feelings of ‘this can’t go on’ but where do we go with those feelings? For me also it was initially Serge Benhayon who supported me to start addressing my hurts and being responsible for the quality I bring to relationships. Now many many more people who are to the best of their ability doing the same inspire and support me and vice versa.
Family is not just those from the same bloodline but those whom we let in, connect with and treasure for who they are.
Beautiful and expanding Gabriele – just like all the particles in the Universe this is how we are meant to be with others.
It’s a common issue when family members take partners, the new person can be seen as a threat and not a gift. Your blog shows we can be possessive of the love/person that is already there, instead of expanding into more of love by including the new person.
In reading this what I was struck by was the openness of your brother in law, to be tested and put through those patterns that come from our protection and to not hold onto it; but when you were ready to still be there with openness is very awesome.
Anonymous, thank you for sharing your experience with your brother in law, who you now consider your brother, I have found what you are sharing really supportive for me and my relationships, what I now feel is that I do not treat my in laws any differently to my own family, that I can love and be open with them in the same way, this has changed things and allowed for a deeper and more loving connection between us, thank you fur your inspiration.
You just don’t know what an amazing part of your life someone could be until you fully let them in.
It is only by healing ourselves do our relationships truly change. To Understand that it is our responsibility to heal the disharmony within ourselves changes everything and we put an end to blame. Instead our relationships blossom.
Its wonderful to feel our family expand… until it embraces all of humanity.
When we address and heal our old patterns of behaviours and let go of the hurt that feeds them, it allows much more space for joy and love to come into our lives.
Yes and then there is no going back to the way things used to be as energetically we have let go of that pattern that can find no place to dwell within.
Anonymous, this is so lovely to read; ‘I knew I had accepted with open arms that he is no longer my brother-in-law but my brother.’ This makes me realise that I can keep people out that are not immediate family, rather than embrace everyone in my life as my brothers and sisters and enjoy these close relationships with them.
True family is not just a blood line – isn’t it time we question this belief that only keeps us separated and walled off, security driven and insular?
This is a great story that shows the pain we can inflict on ourselves and others when we won’t let go of the way we think we want things. In contrast when we open up to the love on offer, life is very different and so much richer. More and more I see we always have a choice and that can either lead us down the road of love and union or separation and hurts.
“I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.” This is beautiful – and inspiring – thankyou. When we open our hearts anything is possible.
I love how Serge Benhayon exposes the illusions we have, we seem to pick up all kinds of beliefs and pictures of how our lives should look, yet it’s only when we rid ourselves of them will we find true joy.
One of the most beautiful things about love is the absence of exclusiveness that it has
When we open our hearts to all it takes the pressure off our most intimate relationships and allows everyone to evolve and not be trapped in damaging behaviours that lead to jealousy and comparison.
It’s crazy how we can get so caught up in wanting something e.g. a brother that we do not see the gift we are offered because of the blinkers we have on about how ‘it’ will look. Thank you for sharing how you made the choice to work on your issues and then found the freedom from your ideals and beliefs to truly embrace your brother.
A gorgeous inspiring story Anonymous. Thank you for sharing your experience of getting yourself out of your own way and letting love in. A beautiful blessing for you both.
So many miracles are happening around the world as people are inspired by the Benhayon family and the presentations of Universal Medicine to let down their guards of protection, get honest about their lives, and lovingly explore why they have these walls ups and then go about their lives to let them down, slowly but surely. Your blog here is a beautiful example of this.
Yes Sara Flenley this blog is inspiring in the way it breaks down so many pictures we can have about in-laws being the outlaws and that they can’t possibly get along. Rather than stripping this back and recognising that a relationship with another and its potential can only strive when we allow love to be a core ingredient.
Such a gorgeous blog to read Anonymous, I love the way you learnt to accept, understand and appreciate true love and relationship. I very much resonated with what you express here, the gratitude and the graceful reflection.
“With deepest gratitude and appreciation for Serge Benhayon as it is through him that I am coming to know my true self every day and feel truly inspired to be that graceful reflection.”
How healing it is to recognize and acknowledge the hurts that have been dominating our lives, and then to be able to release and let go, and to re-connect with life.
Very freeing and more room to love even more!
The reaction towards a new partner coming into your sisters life was very much what society would say is the norm. We are taught from little to direct our love to special people and exclude those who are not in this inner circle. We are made to believe that we are only worthy based on who loves us, so we cling to holding onto anyone who feeds us a little love. This is such a lie, which we actually know when we are little. The more I open up, receive and love people and celebrate that they are loved by others, the more true love I feel. The anxiety of trying to hold onto or own that other persons love dissolves completely when you are not run by the beliefs we are fed about love being in a limited supply.
Beautifully shared, thank you Anon, when we let go of our ideals and beliefs about what we think family means we can open up our hearts to the true understanding that the whole human race, bar none, is our one family.
Thank you for sharing, how you where able to build true relationship but looking at ones own obstacles that came in the way, and how beautiful that the gift you received of a brother you was waiting for for along time.
Great example of what opportunities can be missed if old patterns keep being lived and not healed.
When we put these labels on people from titles of connections it totally interfere with the potential of what these relationships can be.
When we appreciate all that we are and each and every occurrence in life, the people we meet and never-ending reflections provided, life becomes expansive rather than insular and allows depth, understanding and the greatness of us, out.
A great testimony to the limitlessness of love. All we have to do is stay open to it – there literally are no borders.
True family is those with whom there is a connection of true love.
What I am beginning to learn is that we may say that we have a good relationship with someone and perhaps a not so good one with someone else but this is not necessarily true. There is no separation when it comes to relationships because every relationship reflects something about us and that part is something we share with all even if the relationship we have with others is one we could say as being good or solid.
Great to reveal how when we hold onto ideals and beliefs around family relationships we build a wall up, instead of keeping an open heart and letting everybody in.
Our pictures of how things should be in relationship can destroy the expansions that take place along the way (offering us even more love) as we are blind to what is offered to us if we try to stubbornly cling onto the old or what is comfortable.
Thanks Anonymous for sharing your experiences of the battle lines that are often drawn between in-laws and the trust aspect of not allowing a new family member in. These are the beliefs that often cripple families and stop communities from grown to their full potential. It is rare to find a family that supports all equally including the ex- partners and this blog has been great to show how this can be when we stop to ponder on our hurts and heal rather than projecting these on others.
Awesome reflection! And just how much simpler and more joyful is your life now that you’ve let go of the illusion of the hurt? Not only have you let your sister back in, but you’ve gained a brother. That’s super cool!!
When we come back to love we can see how harming our hurts are to our relationships. So many relationships are destroyed by jealousy comparison and our own needs. It was great you were able to see your brother-in-law as a brother and see your hurts as being the one thing that was getting in the way of true family.
True Family is being there no matter what, it is holding the other tenderly in love accepting all of them. True family holds no allegiance or bound by blood. We are all one family yet many have forgotton hence the current world problems.
Absolutely – there are no conditions on Love…none.
Love is and beholds all and never will there be a distinction based on blood family, ideals or divisions. Love has no boundaries.
Just gorgeous, it made my heart melt. When we are closed to love who knows what’s standing in front of us.
This is a beautiful sharing and one that can offer so many a healing when looking at relationships. What i can see is that we can never own anyone, we can never have anyone all to ourselves, and everyone is there for everyone else. So in this case, how cool that you were open to seeing your brother in law as not a threat, but as a gift. The fact is we can be the same and all of who we are all of the time and do not need to save it for those closest to us, and this a very cool lesson in that.
It is beautiful to read how you came to behold your brother in law as your brother and that you did this through dealing with your own hurts.
Yes. A testimony not only to love but also to the impact of taking responsibility for the baggage we carry around.
Letting go of old hurts creates space in our bodies to know true love and break down the pictures that have been preventing from opening our hearts to others and to appreciate the reflection of love they offer us. Thank you.
Welcoming new people into our families happens on many levels. At school often new students join throughout the year. It can be seen as disruptive when you already have your class settled, however another way to look at is an expansion of the family where each new individual is bringing their own unique offering to the group.
This is a lesson in how the mental pictures we have can poison our relationships. When we let go of the pictures and choose a true connection then we can allow the love to grow with everyone we meet.
It feels so humbling to let someone in as ‘family’ when they are not related. I’m not talking about gangs or groups and all that comes with that, I am talking about simple family.
It seems like it is incredibly common for us to seek ‘the one’, to find a person, who better than any other understands us and supports us in many ways. But as you show Anonymous this can be less to do with care and more to do with comfort and familiarity. Like a comfort blanket these situations stop us opening up to the truth – True Love is there to be shared and felt with every human being not just those we have decided to choose.
It is an outstanding quality that Serge Benhayon reflects for us all continually… That it is possible to hold anyone and everyone in true love.
Expanding one’s love from exclusive relationships to ones that are open, expressing and receiving love in all our interactions is such a joyful way to live.
I can relate to what you share here, I’m reminded me of how I felt when the close relationship I had with my eldest (now late) brother changed when he met the woman who became his wife. There was a separation and loss between us, our relationship was never the same again. Through the teachings of Universal Medicine I know that it need not have been so. True love has no bounds and holds all equally. There are no special ones, given special attention and elevated above all others.
This blog exposes how ludicrous it is to continue using labels that separate rather than unite us. I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the words ‘in-laws’, ‘step’ brothers, sisters, mother, father, ‘iliegitimate’ and avoided using them. In one family I know, a woman embraced in her own home, mothered and accepted her husband’s child from another relationship while still married to her. The mother’s way left a lasting imprint on each of her birth children who in turn accepted this child as an equal and brother.
I know from experience that blame, anger, frustration and resentment towards another gets us absolutely nowhere. As others have shared it is great that with the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine you acknowledged what you were doing, addressed it and finally got your self out of the way so that you could truly love another. What a beautifull gift for both of you.
This gives me a bit of goosebumps – gaining a new family member who is also a great friend is quite wonderful
Yes Christoph we gain a new family member. As expressed by a mother who went from feeling loss when her son announced his engagement, to feeling joy with the realisation she was gaining a daughter.
Truly beautiful Anonymous as we are being revealed that family or actually connection is not depended on blood or genetics! Woo, that it is a level of letting other people in, welcome them with open hearts and letting go of any ideals and believes we might hold. This is super super awesome. Thank you for sharing this.
Holding onto hurts not only taints our relationships with others, it also delays our evolution as we are not letting others into our lives to feel the love that we are. This is a beautiful story of the how by letting go of hurts we can live now what we have been looking for all of our lives.
I’m so pleased everything turned out after a little love was let in, imagine if we could accept that every man, woman and child was equally our brothers and that all our love for each other was equal regardless of who we are or where we are from.
In the end we all want to be loved and to love others and to let go of our hurts and let others into our lives. It is the most beautiful thing to do.
This is s a beautiful story highlighting the choice we have to either hold on to our hurts and allow them to run our lives or let our hurts go and open up to being and expressing the love we naturally are. Whichever we chose is what will be reflected back to us.
This is deeply inspiring to read, seeing that love is universal, letting others in and not building walls of hurt is the way to beautiful relationships with everyone, true family all around.
Redefining what true family is all about.. How limiting it is to hold ourselves to family-ties and not expand to know each and every loved one in this world as our family member, equally so.
One day we will accept everyone as our brothers and sisters as indeed they are.
So very well shared Anonymous – this is enormous what you have shared – how we can shut other out because of our beliefs that they are interfering or taking away our love for someone. There is plenty of room to love many and not confine to our biological connections or ‘close friends only’ and everyone out. We miss out on so much if we live like this. You got the brother you never had and so much more.
It is only our own concepts and ideals that withholds us from seeing what in truth is offered to us in life. One of these concepts may be that what we have made family to be. Are we able to accept that true family may be something completely different then the concept we hold of family to be blood related?
It is so gorgeous to read of the responsibility you took in addressing your jealousy and the harm your were causing… and your commitment to open your heart to discover the enormity of what you had been denying yourself all along. What a beautiful opportunity to break down false pictures of love and extend your family like you have.
We are often so caught up in an idea or image how certain things have to be that we are unable to see what is right in front of us. To take a step back and appreciate that what I take, day in day out, for granted has helped me a lot to become aware of the images I pursue and eventually let go of them.
For me, expectations have been a killer! When I place energy outside myself on another with an understanding that a certain situation will happen then I feel I am unnecessarily placing a judgment on that person.
There is so much responsibility that goes with willing to let old patterns go. We can be so conditioned that our way is the best way not realising that we may be carrying a hurt and projecting how the world should be for us to be part of this. Thank you anonymous for showing your vulnerability and a willingness to expose the pattern that you held so long. Understanding that in the long run there was not only a relationship for you to develop with your brother in law but to also strengthen the one you have with your sister.
Absolutely, just another example of how Serge Benhayon inspires us, ‘His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.’
Interesting how we harm the relationships that we love so much not realising that this comes from our own ability to not love who we are first.
“did I make a decision to heal old patterns and let more love in: it was then that things started to change and slowly the cycle of judgment started to shift.”
Anon it is this decision that is so key, the fist step can be the hardest, the one we resist most, yet once we take the plunge and relinquish what can be years of protection, we can begin to undo a momentum that keeps us from our true sense of joy and togetherness.
Who I define as family is reflective of how open I am to letting people in and allowing myself to be vulnerable and to understand that I am part of humanity first!
We so easily hold some people close and keep others at arms length, measuring who we will let in or trust. In doing so we moderate how much of ourselves we share with others, when in fact we really crave connection with others.
When we let go of the beliefs that family consists only of blood relations, then we can open our hearts to inviting others into our close knit fold, not limiting who this is, but being open to love everyone. Our family then is continuously growing.
To hold on to the terms that family members have been identified by freezes them in an image that has connotations of what this should mean and how we should respond to them. It causes separations and judgments, and as you describe Anonymous, encourages possessiveness and jealousy. No one belongs to anyone, we are all free to have our own relationship with each person, regardless of their attachment to someone we know. I love the way you found what you had always longed for when you let this go. Why should we not all open our hearts and find another mother in a mother in law, another son in a son in law? This is possible when we accept everyone as an equal brother, as all of us are one brotherhood.
Everyone loses out on so much when we hold onto our hurts. If we chose to ‘live and let live’, regardless of the choices of others, the world we live in would be a very different place.
That’s so beauty-full, light and honest. Loved reading it and so great having it shared with all of us. As I can imagine the challenging process you went through and how amazing to get to where you are at now.
The picture and unspoken rules around family, blood related family does so much harm to relationships and caps the love available to us from those around us. This blog is a reflection of what is available to us when we choose to engage with others with an open heart.
When we feel shock, express that we feel shocked. When we feel grief, express that we feel grief. When we feel misunderstood, express that we feel misunderstood. When we feel joy, express that we feel joy. This is an honesty that our bodies deserve. And I find that when I am simply to how I feel, there is a rawness that opens into what is truth. I do not need to be perfect and in fact, quite the contrary, I just have to be real and honest, feel all of the rawness and come back to what is always within me. I felt Anonymous, the process of your relating with your sister and your brother (in-law) has inspired me to express the above.
This blog and many of the comments shows there are no boundaries when it comes to family.
It’s about letting people in without reservation and without the ideals of who I should love more and who – less. What a crazy waste of time that is. This kind of division creates boarders and does not let us be the enormously loving creatures we are.
How amazing to be able to see and truly feel that rather than losing a family member through a marriage, you have gained another one. And if we choose to, we can begin to realise that this is so for all of us, as our own family and extended family grows, we are gaining more and more brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and so on, and like your experience, filling in the missing gaps in our more immediate family circle. And as we do so, and look along the family lines, the connections with other families and just how far they extend, we will come to realise that we all belong to one big, enormous family called Humanity.
I love the change in perspective… to go from the jealousy of feeling like you have lost someone to the joy of having gained a brother. Complete turnaround, and the only difference is in letting that person in!
I married into a large family of six siblings, three boys, three girls and soon got over the unfamiliarity of that as I really enjoyed each one of them. Just laughing at that choice of word – from unfamiliarity to familiarity, family. Makes me realize any one and everyone can be family when we let them in.
I am the youngest of three girls and because there was only my dad around as the male figure I decided to be a Tom boy and be the boyish in my ways. Many years later I started to feel how that was so far away from the delicate, tender and sweet Woman that I am I knew things needed to change. I was inspired to be the work of Serge Benhayon and in particular the Esoteric Breast Massage. By dropping this hardness I was able to allow my brother in law in and appreciate what a beautiful tender man that he is instead of trying to meet him in a masculine energy that is not me.
If we are to truly arrive to a state of harmony as a humanity, then we need to start by letting go of the old adage that it is “family first.” Only then can we understand what true brotherhood entails.
It’s interesting to observe that in our relationships with others that we can put up blocks and project that the problem lies with the other person rather than looking at the choices we make that contributes to the difficulties. As you say anonymous it can simply be a choice of letting more love in that changes a whole dynamic.
This blog really exposes the volumes of connection that we’re missing out on If we get attached to a picture or hold onto a list of conditions someone has to meet before we open up to them.
It is interesting how we can get attached to someone and then when something changes the dynamics of our relationship we are not ready for it and not prepared to accept it. All these conditions and expectations that we go into and take on as being our own cripples us from having true, open and evolving relationships.
This is beautiful to open your heart up to extending your family beyond the borders of blood.
In truth we are all part of the same family, yet this is definitely not our lived everyday experience, even with blood family we can bicker and see the worst in someone. Letting hurts go is vital if we are are to have a healthy loving society.
If we bring the love we have of our family to all others, our hearts will be filled with the joy of our Soul, as expressing from the Soul is where true love lies and we are all not so different when we see life this way.
It is so beautiful, to accept that someone who is outside of our ‘family’ can actually be our family, and sharing a loving and true connection – well nothing is more enriching and joy-full.
The hurts that we carry can be so harming to the quality of life we can live. Reading this blog it reminds me of the hurts I have carried through the years that have been built on the judgements of how I thought things should be. As you have shared Anonymous your brother was waiting patiently for you to let him in. The works of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine shows us that the barriers of hurt are huge in preventing the loving relationships we all want to live.
We can easily slip into being comfortable within a status quo around our relationships and hold a certain picture of what suits us. At the time we can believe this to be love, but its s not. Love is never rattled by change and includes everyone.
I have learned over the years that the only thing that constitutes family irrespective of surname, blood line, relationship/partnership/marriage/connection, is a love that’s equal, universal and universally true. Anyone and everyone has the capacity to be this love, and in this be true family.
On Serge Benhayon, your words – “His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love” – totally agree Anonymous, the universality of love, or truth, that Serge presents it as, means understanding and applying the fact in there being no favourites or special treatment, but instead the holding of an equal love of all, for all….. is not something/a love i grew up with, and was the cause of major discontent at times rage within me. Needless to say this rage was buried, and became how i loved, with directed exclusivity or favourites of people who benefitted me in some way, and i them. Love was an exchange or barter agreement, and not the (true) love i enjoy today that is free from tangled emotion or turmoil, and full of honesty, depth, understanding and space.
Agreed Richard, wouldn’t it be startling to live in a world without images of how everything should be. If we were to remove all of the images and just allow ourselves to be governed by our natural instincts, rather than try and match life to the pictures in our head, then our world would be a startlingly different place.
The truth is that whilst blood may be thicker than water, this in itself is not reason nor justification to see immediate family as being more valuable or important than our relationships with all others. It is this ability to segregate ourselves off from the rest of society that leads to such division, not only beyond our doorstep, but within the walls of our own homes.
It is so lovely to let people truly in, recently I met a lot of different young men from different countries, and they brought so much love and care and joy to our meetings and I had the feeling I suddenly got a lot more sons to love 🙂
People can stay in the hurt perspective, and withdraw from life and people, feeling isolated and alone, ‘I was building a wall of hurt that would not let her or anyone else in.’ It is key to heal and let go of our hurts, and protection.
The relationship with your sister was a great training ground for being loving with all people. It is gorgeous the way we can build our ability to love and be open with another and then take that into all of our relationships. I knew without a doubt when I was a little girl that love was for everyone and was not to be owned or directed. Being able to know that we have nothing to lose when there is genuine love and everything to gain feels key.
Sometimes we can’t see the gift before us if it doesn’t come in the usual packaging. Family has been defined for us as blood relatives or by marriage. This creates a lot of unnatural pressure on us to focus our love on them. Whereas anyone can be family as we are part of the family that is humanity. It makes it a whole lot simpler and more joyful when we see our big family, instead of being selective about who we love and favour.
It’s amazing how easy it is to not be able to see the gift of a new friend or family member if we think we have something to lose. The attachment and perceived safety of the previous arrangement narrows our vision and doesn’t let us see the opportunity that is there. We get sold that there is only so much love to go around and we will miss out if it is being shared with another person. In contrast to this belief I have found the more open and loving I am, the more I have to genuinely share with everyone.
I loved this article because it addresses something most of us have felt and probably struggled with at one time or another. It also reminds me of how open we naturally were as kids. It is natural to want to welcome more people into your family, to love everyone. I am sure lots of us wished for more siblings or the pen arrangement you had with playing with all the kids in the street.
Also anonymous could it have been the greatest gift because it gave you space to get to know yourself outside of your relationship with your sister? I have observed sisters that were really close, spoke every day, saw each other once a month despite living far away etc develop a much stronger connection with themselves after one day, one of them went traveling, for a whole year. The emotion they both felt when she left was almost unbareable for them (& others around them). Whilst the one sister was away they both learnt to rely on themselves a bit more and grew apart as they needed each other less. Following that the real corker came when the same sister moved abroad for 2 years! Now they’ve both been in the same country for 4 years and hardly ever speak and the sister that left and came back built lots of upset and rejection over this but then realised that this lack of “connection” was actually a good thing as they are both finally having the space to learn to deal with things in each of their lives that they would have previously bull dozed through for each other, and so they are each learning to feel what’s going on for themselves rather than totally distracting themselves by dumping all over the other! So whilst it feels painful for them, it’s super loving and I imagine they will come out the other side more in touch with themselves and more accepting of each other as a result and therefore develop true connection.
I know also what it is like to have an in-law become more like a sibling than anything else,having lived with my sister in-law for a number of years and becoming more like true family than a connection because of another relationship.
It’s so easy to get fixated on and attached to one person if we love them dearly. From my experience this can lead to shutting everyone else out. In this I become miserable because my heart isn’t truly open. I have been getting to know someone special recently and I have been noticing my tendency to want to withdraw from other relationships in my life. It is great to catch it and consciously focus on remaining open and loving with everyone.
Anonymous, this is such a gorgeous article to read, ‘I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.’ I can feel how it is ‘normal’ for us to be closer to our blood brothers and sisters and to hold brother in laws and sister in laws as different and not feel that we can be so close to them, this is a false belief and I can feel how it is simply a choice to let people in and that we can have this close, loving, brotherly and sisterly relationship with anyone, blood related or not.
Once we have re-connected and are open enough to let people in, this is when we start to build true relationships. After 12 years of living in a way that brings a deepening of my connection, I am slowly learning to reconnect with my essence. I am now sharing more deeply with others and building true relationships!
Serge Benhayon’s “inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.” I, too, can echo these sentiments as through the understanding he presents of true love being completely devoid of emotion I have been able to liberate from the dependence to impose upon others my personal needs. The adoption of this understanding and living by the mass of humanity will address the source of the greed and suffering there is in world.
Putting a stop to harm and instead letting people in, especially those who you have wanted to keep out the most, is beautiful, and the fact that you can do this is testament not only to yourself, the writer of this blog, but also to Serge Benhayon for the tremendous work that he does in supporting anyone and everyone to have and to build deeply loving and respectful relationships with eachother.
Letting go of the ideals of blood family being the only true family is so false, it is about letting people in and feel that we are in essence all longing for true relationships, which what family should be about. Knowing that a relationship is there for us to evolve in.
Yes Benkt. Every day we come face to face with someone who we deeply Love, someone we are so connected to, who breathes and cares the same as you. Every day we encounter and spend time with this member of our family, who we have an important relationship with, one which goes ‘way back’. And this someone is everyone we meet, for there really is no division between us all, we are all equal family in truth.
Once we let people truly in it is such an enriching way for all – so much joy and love can be shared, and reflections offered and evolution will be the natural way to move.
It is a funny term isn’t ‘in-law’ as if the only relationship you have with them is legal and removed. Rather than someone who is your equal brother.
It will be great when we can take this one step further and treat everyone on earth as brothers and sisters in the same way without exception.
i love how you decided to deal with your issues, rather than keep hurting your self by not doing so.
Its awesome how taking that step is crucial and so responsible.
I love your last sentence, the way we live does harm our relationships, but instead of taking responsibility and looking at ourselves, we blame the other person. The way we live effects everything and everyone, not just us alone.
Yes and it is something to truly ponder in – everything we do in life affects everyone – what a huge responsibility this is once this is truly understood.
Letting Love in, and staying open to receiving Love is not something that we control or plan. It is in a living way that is in harmony and flow with the universe – simply being in every moment without any ideals or caveats on anything.
A great example of how we hold onto pictures of how life should be to the extent that they can get in the way of what is truly on offer to us.
Anonymous, indeed what an amazing gift, but also how wonderful is your own honesty and what has unfolded for you. That you were able to turn the mirror onto yourself and feel where and how this new relationship impacted you so, but also look at what needed to be cleared for your own development. Then to come to the conclusion that you have a brother, not someone to compete with at all.
Welcoming all those that enter our lives as our brothers is in alignment to our natural way of being. Without the protection of years and years of choices in alignment to something else and the accumulated hurts we are all equal and one.
I have always felt this – that those around me, my friends, flat mates etc are not just that – they are my family, they share my life together and we share a bond of love and connection – to me that is family and it’s a beautiful way to define it.
“His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.” Without a shadow of doubt, Serge Benhayon is ‘The Relationships Whisperer’.
I love your deep and honest unfolding and appreciation which you have shared so beautifully with us all. It brings to mind a quote from Matthew 13:16 “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.”
This blog is a beautiful reminder that we are given gifts of love continuously throughout each and every day – we just need to remember to connect to our heart.
To break down the barriers that names and labels suggest, has redefined this relationship into a true and appreciative one..“I had accepted with open arms that he is no longer my brother-in-law but my brother”. The love and equality in this statement is a great example of how when we put our reactions aside the relationship goes full bloom.
“by building this wall of hurt I was not only getting in the way of my sister’s new relationship but also my own”, this is an amazing realization; that our hurts become obstacles to the connection, warmth and love between us that would otherwise flow freely.
We can get attached to things being a certain way and having a picture of how we want things to be and if they don’t fit the picture we go into reaction not realising the unnecessary rift we can cause. Your brother in law was a true gift for you to see that everyone can be your brother, not just blood family. Thank you anonymous, your sharing was a gift for us all.
I have the best brother-in-law in the world, not that I have ever called him that because he feels more like a brother. It is such a wonderful gift to have him in my life to share a laugh with, have a cuddle and just be able to spend time together whatever it is that we do. I believe it is time to make a card and express all the appreciation that I have for him – too often I can take things for granted and not embrace all of what is on offer.
Once we have re-connected and are open enough to let people in this is when we start to build true relationships. After 12 years of living in a way that brings a deepening of my connection as I slowly have with my essence so that I am now learning how to share with others so I can build true relationships!
It is remarkable that holding on to pictures and images of how we believe life ought to be can play so much havoc in our life, to the extent that we can start fighting what life presents and even completely dismiss the blessings it offers us. A great story.
Every person who walks into our life is a gift, even though we may not always feel like it is a gift – but it is about our willingness to see things for what they really are and the opportunities and learning that is offered in each and every moment.
On re-reading this blog I caught a glimpse on a familiar pattern of how siblings may in their relationship be so close that they hold each other in a child like attachment in their relationship which is very comfortable, safe and secure, in a ‘special’ relationship with someone you have known since birth. It became clear that when this new relationship began to develop, it was reflective of that attachment shared by both sisters and it inspired me to see how the writer dug deeper and listened to her soul impulse, let go of the security blanket and grew up instead of remaining in the reaction of that attachment, which could be so harming in formative years.
Anonymous, I can very much relate to this ‘His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love’, I have also been inspired by Serge Benhayon and have come to realise that we are all family, not only those that are blood related, and that we can have a very beautiful connection with someone we have just met, we are all souls and all equal and so this intimate, loving connection is possible with anyone – this feels like a very true, lovely way to live, rather than thinking life is about the connections with our immediate family and friends only.
We are laden with belief systems that prevent the possibility of the most supportive and evolutionary relationships.
Life can be so simple when we get ourselves out of the way and let love in. Often what we always think we want is right under our nose, when we open up it is being presented in its own way.
In my experience with families they are forever evolving with death, birth, marriages, divorce, second marriages, twists and turns i could never have imagined my family grows and shrinks and the most amazing people come into my intimate circle, and friendships develop and offer me the opportunity to experience true family.
Love can come from anywhere. All we need to do is respond.
It is amazing how my attachment to how things should be can get in the way of a gift, stareing me in the face. I am working at being more open to all the miracles all around me. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting a way of living that makes sense and works for me.
There are a lot of traps, stereotypes and rules that we can fall into if we do not ask questions for ourselves. The ‘in-law’ label is heavily loaded and this article is an offering for us all to refresh our approach.
Love the blog … I find it so crazy that the things we want and cherish so dearly to our core are the ones we find so difficult to accept at times. Building a great wall, only to knock it down
I agree Jaime Foley. We spend so much time breaking down what we truly love when we put our hurts first. With love comes responsibility and this blog shows the writers willingness to heal the hurt first.
A great example of how not making life just about us and our needs, our hurts, but making it about the bigger picture, and how things then take on a completely new perspective.
‘…someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.’ How gorgeous that such a loving man came into your lives – albeit not quite in the way your ‘picture’ dictated. As your story demonstrates, it can be painful when the images we hold get smashed.
Interesting Anonymous how you, and your sister, long felt you would like a brother and that one was ultimately delivered. It’s as if our souls can feel our futures, if we so let them.
‘I knew that this reaction was not okay but couldn’t seem to stop myself from slipping into a pattern of anger, frustration and resentment towards this person and how I believed he was negatively affecting my relationship with my sister.’ It’s interesting to observe, when we see someone as the source of our woes, how we start building a federal case against them. It’s a negative spiral of resentment – a ’cycle of judgment’ as Anonymous says.
‘I went into big time reaction and experienced a sense of grief because I thought that I was losing my sister’s love.’ I recall being on the receiving end of a friend’s grief when I entered into a serious relationship with a man many years ago. I actually received a ‘It’s me or him’ ultimatum, which didn’t turn out well for her. The bond two women can build can be very co-dependent and exclusive – and challenging for the one who feels left behind. All good reason to work out how to be beautifully open in our relationships without an ounce of need.
Well said, Victoria. Relationships ‘without an ounce of need’ are incredible and transformative, with a whole lot of space for growth and development.
Such an open and honest story – one that inspires and demonstrates to the world that our brothers and sisters aren’t just those born from the same parents. I have so many people close to me that I feel I can call my brothers and sisters – people I would identify as my best closest friends. The amazing thing to me is that we can actually be this way with everyone. It is only our hurts and protection stopping us from being so.
A great example of when we get self, and ‘our hurts’, out of the way, how love is naturally there waiting for us.
Indeed these expectations and judgments are the pictures that hold us back from the trust and openness to allow for the abundance in change.
Its amazing to ponder that we can go through our whole lives in the reaction and judgment of one choice which holds us away from the rich and glorious gifts that lie beneath our feet.
We can choose to keep our In-Laws as In Laws or we can heal everything that holds us back from the magic of true brotherhood.
Thank-you anon for making the commitment to heal old patterns and let more love in and boy oh boy are the returns glorious, behold a brother, just what you had always wanted! The teachings of Universal Medicine open our eyes to the abundance of treasures that await us when we choose love.
After 12 years of attending the presentations by Serge Benhayon I can still feel that my body has a way to go to be completely rid itself of all the walls I have created over many life times!
It feels so wonderful to appreciate this story and this sharing from someone who was able to be honest enough about their own inner experience and who this affected their lives. I was so glad to be able to read this blog.
this blog speaks of humbleness and humility and was very touching to read. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story of family.
This is wonderful that you let go of the hurts and could see the blessing you had been sent, ‘Three years later, and with a lot of understanding and letting go of false beliefs, I realised that the day my sister and brother-in-law got engaged I was actually being sent a gift. A gift I was longing for all my life and one I was persistent in asking my Mum for as a little girl.’
Breaking that cycle of judgement is crucial step and with the support of Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine I too have started to fully understand the insidiousness of what Judgement is. As much as it hurts the other person and creates and issue in the relationship ultimately it is our own self furry that is causing the judgment in the first place. Learning to look within first before blaming others is what it truly means to be Responsible and supports us to live the Love that we are with all.
Your story of healing your hurts and accepting your brother-in-law as a brother reminds me of my mother-in-law; I never liked using that word because it comes with so many connotations. And the person in question (deceased now) just didn’t have anything about her that made her an ‘in-law’ kind of person for me. She treated everyone the same and she was amazing in her simplicity and no-nonsense loveliness.
It is interesting how we use words like “in-laws”. The opposite of in-law would be the word outlaw, which denotes someone who is outside the family/law/society. It just shows how there is embedded in our language a sense of separation, in the sense that you are either a part of the family or a stranger who is to be feared. There is no truth in this. We are all brothers/sisters and it is time to heal anything that prevents us from knowing this.
What a beautiful story to read, thank you Anonymous for sharing your story of love for your sister and brother-in-law; a divine gift for you all. It is a credit to you that you took responsibility to heal your hurts and lower your walls to build loving and harmonious relationships.
Funny I recently read a novel about just this experience. So often we can hide in the relationships we feel safest in and become so protective of them that there is no room for anyone else, woe betide anyone who should want to share the relationship or the love. This kind of love can be so suffocating and abusive. I am not talking about open relationships being the answer, but relationships that allow space to continue to be yourself and have friends who you love equally, it is simply the expression of that love that differs.
What an amazing blog. To me this shows the fact that we can’t have love for only one person. Love is to be held for all, otherwise we see the protection and hurt come in. When we expand our understanding of love and are open to loving all equally, then we can truly let others in and appreciate all that is there.
Being open to the growth of our families and the love which is shared reveals the potential we hold if but we drop our protections and barriers based around the age old divisions in humanity around religion, nationality and culture.
A story that begins to show our way to true family. We have a long, long way to go. The way we are currently living ‘family’ is one of the most separative and destructive forces in society. Everyone looking our for their own little bubble, their own gang. The recent Brexit vote in the UK is a classic example of the ripple effects that this can have. Once we break the barriers of family, we will then start to see that barriers of nationality, culture and religion. And then we will begin to taste true harmony.
I agree Otto this blog brings such simplicity that can be in every relationship and the potential for the love to continue to grow when we let go of our hurts and let others in. There are many waiting patiently just like the writers brother – no longer an in law.
I feel we can open our hearts to everyone when we choose to let go of the hurt. I know that I held on to jealousy and hurt in my relationship with my sister for many years and then like you Anonymous I found support from the work of Serge Benhayon. and I realised that the hurt was all of my own making. Just recently my relationship with my sister has deepened further and we are committed to maintain and sustain our relationship in the last years of our life.
The beauty you share here ‘A’ is that once we realise what all our building of walls does to us we make every effort to rid ourselves of this intrusive behaviour. After 12 years of attending the presentations by Serge Benhayon I can still feel that my body has a way to go to be completely rid of all my walls!
I love how you’ve weaved this story… That what you’d always longed for actually showed up – and then it was a matter (and quite some matter 🙂 ) of letting that much love, the love of a beautiful brother, in.
Thank-you anonymous, for such an honest sharing – inclusive of the time it took to let this ‘new’ person into your life.
Relationships never truly die, do they… but something that does occur is that they change their form and activity during our lives.
The intimacy and ease you describe knowing with your sister is a deeply precious thing to have in this world, and clearly something that has not been lost – but the relationship you have with her has changed its ‘form’ or expression, and beautifully so, for now it is not only the two of you, but more whose hearts are held in yours. As it rightly should be – for such great love deserves to expand and be shared. Any hurt that may arise alerts us to deeper foundations we can build within ourselves, always – that you’ve shared your own process with this so openly can support many, thank-you.
So true, Victoria – “Relationships never truly die, do they… but something that does occur is that they change their form and activity during our lives.” We cannot undo the time and experiences shared together with another.
I love what you have shared here Victoria Warburton where the relationship is no longer only the two sisters but the brother making it more about love and no longer about specific blood lines of families.
We tend to complicate things by giving people we are in relationship with a label or title. Take that away, and it’s just two human beings connecting and sharing their amazing together.
Such a great example of when we put ownership onto a relationship and become invested deeply in it that this actually stops each person in it being able to share their love with others. So when someone else takes your spot so to speak it is devastating and we shut down because we don’t know how to deal with the sudden loss of love or time together. When we open the doors and allow everyone’s Love in equally there is no room for hurt or disappointment.
Thanks Natalie, at the end of the day anonymous took responsibility for her part in what was happening and what a glorious ending to the story – an opening to an enduring love.
So often the thing we crave most comes in the most unusual ways – we just have to let go of expectations and be open to the unexpected.
Simply taking away the labels (in this case ‘in-law’ which we have to admit is laden with issues) frees our relationships with everyone, to be able to be what they are rather than tainted by expectation or societal ‘rules’.
A beautiful sharing of how letting others in changes our lives.
Thank you for your open honest sharing Anonymous. When we go into re-action we lose ourselves to the emotion of the situation and the clarity of truth. Letting go of our hurts supports us to bring clarity and honesty and in your case an open heart to your brother and sister.
Appreciation makes all the difference to situations
Our constructs of what and who family is can leave us reducing the love and acceptance we have for others in our life.
I love the feel of dropping the ..in-law. In truth we are all brothers and of one family.
It is truly amazing how much trouble, hurt and pain we save ourselves simply by reading what is going on in a situation. This applies to me too.
This is so beautifully honest and therefore of such support as we navigate our way through life. This is inspiration to dismantle our thoughts and come to root causes for patterns of behaviours so we are not victims of circumstance but masters of all our interactions with others and life. Thank you.
When people join a family through marriage, they are often a gift. My family have that gift through my nephew’s partner and daughter – they are both gorgeous and we all love them and have welcomed them into our family with open arms. I feel blessed that they’ve joined our family.
Absolutely Sandra, it is like in this process we become willing to open up and let someone else in, we find a warmth and care for them even though there is no apparent link by birth. Just imagine what would happen if we were this way with everyone we met and not just those who marry into our immediate group? Perhaps then we would see that this Love is right here waiting for us all when we are able to stop putting up barriers berween us and others.
The term ‘in-law’ and ‘step’ when referring to people who become members of a family due to marriage, has always felt a bit odd. Many people feel family as more than blood, so when someone becomes a member of one’s family through marriage, they are ‘family’ just as a close friend is family. The terms ‘in law’ and ‘step’ seem to put a barrier up, as if to imply that they’re not real family.
Absolutely. These labels are the application of the first degree of separation, one which, in truth, does not exist.
Love is love and this is a great example of how we can categorise it to falsely believe it belongs between those we choose to meet our own needs. A great sharing to expose this.
This blog poses a great question – should we ‘save’ our love for or treat our families differently/better to those we are not biologically related to? Though what If the word ‘family’ was replaced with something else… Imagine if the question was – ‘should we save our love for or treat those of the same race differently/better to those of a different ethnicity?’
Good point, Susie, that exposes how separative we can be when we are holding on to an ideal of what family is and isn’t, and limit what we accept into our lives rather than seeing the bigger picture.
I also very much enjoy the partners of my sisters. I don’t have brothers so it is lovely to have some men around the house.
It is so inspiring to feel the power of true healing when we are prepared to look at our reactions and hurts, to bring understanding and healing to what is happening, which not only supports healing for ourselves but for everyone involved.
How many of us, and how often, do we crave something and seek it everywhere when it is standing right in front of us? We cant see the wood for all the trees so to speak because of all the ideals and beliefs, the pictures of how we think things should be, and so we are blind to what is ready and waiting for us. This is a great example Anonymous, and how beautiful to come to a place of understanding and appreciation of yourself, your brother and your sister.
That’s really cool finding a brother after all. I love how perhaps more often than we are aware, things constellate in our lives that deep down we feel will support us but are not so clear at first and that when we follow the truth we know inside and put love before personal need, we find the blessings that were there all along for us.
The beautiful thing about this blog is that it reveals so clearly the choices that were possible (continue with the wall up and running or saying no to it) at crucial juncture. The choice made was amazing since apparently was not the easier one (the other was seemingly easier to maintain, but more costly all the way). The help of Universal Medicine was crucial for make the decision happen. Another UM miracle.
It is interesting how we grow up learning how to manage our emptiness until the filler gets filled somewhere else and redirect the filling towards someones else. Our world collapses then.
It’s old wisdom: What we are longing for is right before us – right there inside us even! Universal Medicine therapies help us to get rid of the big log in front of our eyes.
A beautiful change in perception! Letting people in brings us a lot of joy.
When changes occur in our lives it is always challenging, but there is always something greater to learn in the process as well. If we know how to embrace change it will enrich and enhance our lives tremendously.
This blog made me feel that we all are really being supported to learn and grow all the time, but it’s the expectations and pictures we have created in our minds about how things ‘should be’ that sometimes get in the way of seeing this more clearly.
Letting go of the picture of how we want life to be, life in every moment is a treasure and a gift.
The breakdown of any relationship is our choice to put up a wall of hurt between ourselves and the other, this is the energetic representation of physical separation. If two people are no longer together in a physical relationship, if connection exists, there is never separation.
That is so cool. It is amazing how we can view the same situation completely differently depending on what perspective we look at it from. Just like illness and disease we can see it as a blessing or a curse – the choice is ours and ultimately whether or not we want to take responsibility for our lives.
We are always being reflected our choices, just sometimes they don’t fit the picture we imagined, but being offered an even bigger picture for us to grow and evolve in and it can be challenging to accept but an opportunity and lived experience to evolve in
The one thing you valued the most taken away, but in return a greater gift and expansion in your family and an opportunity to expand in Love.
It is interesting to see how many boxes we have created to put the people in our lives in: direct family, family in law, stepfamily, non family, friends. non friends, colleagues, neighbours etc etc. We seem to have rules for each of them in how much to engage and how much intimacy is allowed. To me now family is all who are in my life, some I see and speak often with and some less, but all are equally important to me and part of who I am.
This is a gorgeous story showing how our attachments to pictures of how life ought to turn out, has us not appreciate and at times even resent the gifts that we are so lovingly offered. I too have learned that those inner tantrums, however carefully I may guard them, are never our true essence and whenever they show up it is worth exploring and healing them. Life is so much more loving and joyful when our perception is not restricted by our past hurts and judgments.
When our family grows, we can react in one of two ways – embrace the change and the adjustment that comes our way, OR fight the change and attempt to hold onto the old ways. We can see really easily which way is the one that is simpler, more straightforwards and clearly more supportive for everyone (the response to embrace the change), however, we may not always find ourselves choosing that option. Sometime our hurts get in the way and we can find it hard to see things in a more positive light. And so we do make things more difficult for ourselves and those around us. At times like these we need to allow more space for ourselves and also a deeper understanding – an understanding of where we are coming from, but also an understanding of the situation. In the physical world, time does help too – but in the end it is space that is the thing that heals us the most and the fastest. And in the end every thing is actually an opportunity to bring more love to the table.
What a gorgeous example of opening your heart to someone to find they too have a special place.
A lovely way to show how we can grow into a relationship with our whole family… and that is not just the in-laws, but humanity. When we let people in, our life is enriched, there is more love, and we can find brothers in all sorts of interesting places.
Beautiful Anonymous, a great reminder that when we let someone in truly, they become a brother, and in your case the ‘brother’ you had always longed for. It is time to let go the notion that a brother has to be by blood, and not by heart.
Imagine if we welcomed the whole world with open arms; appreciating everything people bring into our lives as opposed to protecting and guarding ourselves from what we seemingly think we are going to be hurt by.
Unresolved hurts, emptiness and insecurity prevent us from accepting increasing levels of love in our life. In this case, the arrival of a new family member was distorted to seem like you had less love in your life, when in fact had received more than you could have ever imagined!
When we are fixed on a picture of how life should be we instantly stop letting others in. Such an isolated and contracted way to live. This blog shows how when we open to change, we get everything we ever thought we wanted – Love.
This gorgeous story offers us a powerful revelation, that the quality of our relationship with ourselves is what determines the quality of all relationships that we are in.
How liberating to realise, once we let go of the beliefs that held us in our hurts, that have us build a wall of protection between each other, we are then actually able to receive the gift that we are to each other and explore the vastness of love that there is to share.
It is amazing how much we can learn from our relationships when we are open to being honest with how we are feeling with ourselves. As then opportunity to grow is endless for all involved.
Such a simply beautiful love story Anonymous. You offer such valuable insights as to why there is so much protection in our world today, and the harmful effects that ideals and beliefs have on our relationships. Thank you for sharing that there is a way to overcome and let go of our hurts so we can let love in.
It is interesting the way which we can so often resist that which we truly have been longing for because of the feeling it raises for us to deal with and the opportunities for us to evolve beyond past hurts and the comfort we have created.
I love this blog. It is so refreshing and gorgeous when we can be truly open with another person, especially if they are of the opposite sex, and not be in a realtionship with them. As women we can have best friends as women, and no one thinks twice about it, but to have a best friend who is a man soon gets people gossiping, particularly if they have a partner already. What I am learning is that the more I accept who I am, the more I can allow myself to open up to others and let them in, particulalry men, and I am developing some very lovely realtionships with some of them who I now see as dear friends. It is a real joy and a true blessing to have relationships such as these.
Beautifully expressed Anonymous, how often do we let our hurts get in the way of our relationships, and when we deal with the hurts our relationships have the space to evolve and deepen.
Oh anonymous, those pictures we hold are kill-joys, they are persistent and they are infinite in expression. They are so precariously perched that they will inevitably fall and smash to smithereens, and when they do we are left in a maelstrom of emotions. They hold other more joyful and evolutionary possibilities at bay and hold us hostage to their illusionary ideals. How awesome to read about how you recovered from your smashed picture and accepted the positive gift it truly offered. What Serge Benhayon has taught me is how to identify what is an ‘image” and what is truly being reflected to me by life and others. This is liberating beyond imagination (pun intended).
It’s interesting how our perceptions can get in the way of our seeing and appreciating the blessing right in front of us.
I’m realising just how much conditional (emotional) love I’m holding inside me within relationships. For a long time I’ve denied as best as I could how much people mean to me. And in doing so, I’ve been denying how much I mean to myself. I didn’t see this last one coming when I started typing… There’s no ‘fun’ in admitting how much I’ve denied myself, dismissed myself and disconnected from the natural loving connection within myself. Instead of being honest I went into blame. Which is lasting until today, but I am also starting to make the choice to the level of hurt that this is causing. On a day to day level. First of all towards myself, but secondly towards ‘the world at large’ as they get the confirmation that life’s not worth to be lived and that everybody in fact is worthless. Where we all know (!!), the opposite is true. It’s up to me to accept how loving I am and how loving all those beautiful people around me are.
It is truly inspiring how you were able to be honest with yourself so you could break through what was getting in the way of the opportunity to embrace a beautiful man into your life. Thank you I loved reading this.
It’s a great sharing, and so common when our sisters get married and we feel their partner has come in the way., but in truth if we just opened our hearts and them in as brothers how loving the relationships become. I have 4 sisters and many cousins and all their partners have become like brothers, they are always there with open hearts.
This is a beautiful article which brought tears to my eyes as I read it. I feel it is an amazing journey that you have been on and all credit to you for being willing to look at your own reflection and really focus on making changes and letting go of old behaviour patterns, ideals and beliefs. All too often these can stand in our way and if we are not aware, we can go through life repeating the same behaviours and expecting different results, without even realising.
Love is not something that you can grab and hold onto. It is rather something that asks you to let go and expand.
‘I went into big time reaction and experienced a sense of grief because I thought that I was losing my sister’s love’ – Isn’t it interesting how we associate love with attention, and that when someone we care for begins to spend time with another person we react because they aren’t spending the same amount of time with us as before. In actual fact it is a case of quality over quantity – you can love many people and the quality of our relationships can stay the same even when more people come into our lives.
“Three years later, and with a lot of understanding and letting go of false beliefs”anonymous, it feels to me that even though the subject of our beliefs vary from person to person, the effects of beliefs are surprisingly similar. Beliefs cause us to behave in set ways, the set ways of being then confirm the belief in our bodies and so the cycle repeats. It is inspiring to read how you challenged and then changed some of the beliefs that you held.
Interesting isn’t it, we get given the very thing we have been asking for and because we have a picture of what we think it should look like, we totally pass it by when it is presented to us. Thank goodness you got to see this and was able let in your new brother.
Family can extend beyond blood ties, we are all ‘brothers’, just choosing to live in different places, in different groups, and choosing how we look at each other. Once we can feel the equalness that is there, there is no longer a boundary of any kind between us.
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful unfolding about family, relationships and yourself. It makes no sense, yet is normal that we often get in the way of allowing the one thing we most want – connection and love. It’s great to look at the support you received and that it’s about our choices and how we are that determines this not anyone else.
As I learn to accept that every relationship occurs to support me to evolve, it completely changes my outlook on relationships. So every time I get to feel uncomfortable and that can be with anyone I meet it is a good thing as there is potential to heal so that I can bring more love to relationships.
Anonymous, I love reading this article, I can feel how in society we are so caught up in our blood related family that we do not see how we are surrounded by potential brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunties and uncles and that we can have beautiful, strong relationships that are just as close and loving with people that we are not related to as those that we are.
It is incredibly beautiful when we admit that something doesn’t feel good in a relationship and do something about it. Relationships change when we take responsibility and heal the hurts within us first.
I agree Caroline Francis. So often we can sit in the discomfort and feel ourselves building walls of resentment or hurt that we know can carry on for years and years and then we often comment with “we just drifted apart”. This blog shows the writers commitment to work through what didn’t feel loving and trusting that there was a far greater love for her to share with more than her sister in the long run.
When we begin to see the world as the limitless family it is and we’re part of, we can never speak of loneliness.
What a gift indeed to be supported to see the beliefs that you are holding onto that are getting in the way of having true loving and deep relationships. This is what Serge Benhayon is – A Gift to humanity. From Serge’s dedication in his own life and developing a deeper connection to the Love that he is, he brings this to everyone that he meets. Once I met him and started to let go my protection and allowed the Love in I could feel that I too was a gift to humanity, I only needed to undo the ribbon and unwrap what was already there.
This is a great sharing that shows how imposing and suffocating we are with the expression of emotional love and how it comes from a need of the person that is fed by the lack of self-love. The desire to have something we believe gives us which we are missing in ourselves. A very harmful behaviour we call call normal specifically in family constellations and particularly in mother child relations. We have mainstreamed a massive range of abusive behaviour which we call normal today without ever reflecting on its impact on our relationships.
Thanks for bringing understanding here of relationships and how we hurt ourselves and others when we build walls to protect ourselves, keeping ourselves locked away and others out. It’s only when we have the courage to look at the pictures we’re holding on to of how we want our lives to be, choosing how and who we want to love, can we start to let the images go, and let everyone in and love everyone equally.
Thankyou for sharing your story, it’s given me a new understanding of the many reactions directed at me when with a partner.
I have found the walls of protection hurts us and others more than we realise, it is so, so damaging. When we are busy building the protective walls making it thicker and thicker, it pollutes our senses and our ability to accept love and truth. It is always our responsibility to break it down because we put it up in the first place. Choosing to open up, allow people in and to allow ourselves out to be seen by the world instead of hiding behind our walls of accumulated hurts is a blessing for everyone.
When we try to contain love it is no longer love anymore, we become needy of it and it loses its quality of true connection because it is laced. Love is expansive and when we let go of old hurts we can see that love is limitless and can be shared with all.
True family is founded on the love and connection we build with each other. We are all brothers and sisters in truth.
I love how this blog brings light to the fact that often want we wish for most is right before us, we just have to allow ourselves to be open to receiving.
As love is naturally all encompassing, it is we that put the limits and restrictions on the expression of love based on our own ideas and beliefs and expectation about how it should look. Love cannot be reduced to fit an image that we create because of our hurts and protection.
Family is defined through true love. When we all live the love we are, we will live true family.
I great blog about the true meaning of family – building relationships and loving everybody equally independent from blood and family lines. The meaning of family has been so misinterpreted it is of great value to have blogs like this to start a new conversation about family, about true family.
A great illustration of how emotions and hurts blind us to the beauty of relationships that can otherwise be enjoyed!
We are brothers and sisters through love, not blood. Hence only when we open ourselves to be love with everyone the potential of having the deepest relationships with people is possible. That requires to let go of images, expectations, judgements and last but not least our hurts and protections.
Alex what you have described feels like a glorious abandonment to love.
The depth and ease to which the Universal Medicine Therapies can help to release the emotional entanglement are remarkable, understanding that everything is energy and thus energy is the root cause of all our dilemmas hence resolving the energetic configurations held in the body by the use of different esoteric modalities opening space to reconnect with our innermost self allowing for wiser choices to be made.
Every relationship is an opportunity to evolve. Doesn’t that give us another perspective when we may be challenged and tested by different people.
We are our own jailer, keeping us in a jail of emotions, hurt and stubborn protection, looking outside for what we desire but holding a firm grip on the bars while we rant and rave. Letting go of what we hold on to sets us free, realizing that it was only ourselves and never someone else who forced us to keep incarcerated.
It can be and often is quite extreme how we hold on to conditions and expectations that in fact only hinder us from living what we wish for most. Conditions always come from protection and like in your case it can be made of walls of stone and it takes commitment, a choice and healing to break or melt down these walls and open up again to the love, intimacy and trust we long for. The Universal Medicine Therapies are designed to perfectly assist one in that process and Serge Benhayon has brought great understanding to how our psyche works on all levels beyond and in addition to what psychology teaches.
A beautiful blog about letting love and people in, and how we can protect ourselves in relationship arrangements that only truly inhibit us.
I always wanted a younger sibling, someone to look after, or an older sibling to look after me. Thoughout my life I have met those younger and older then me and welcomed them into my life as family, and in this way I have never been without the love of brothers and sisters.
It isn’t uncommon to find ourselves having reactions that we know we shouldn’t be having but we don’t quite know how to stop them or what lies behind them. I am forever grateful for the teachings of The Way of The Livingness which have helped me understand the role of energy on these dynamics and personal responsibility.
We can miss out on such amazing opportunities and relationships – like the one you now have with your brother-in-law if we let our attitude and views of people become clouded by personal attachments or expectations.
Your gorgeous blog reminds me that we sabotage relationships that are precious to us when we become attached to someone or to the relationship looking a certain way. When we let go of this attachment we feel the all encompassing expansion that truelove offers.
True love needs nothing from anybody.
Anonymous, what a testament to your commitment to living what love really is, letting go of your own hurts and fears, and instead letting into your life another beautiful human to enjoy. If only we could all see that additions to our families, friends were this, more people in our lives to enjoy, to play with and to love how different our world could be.
It is amazing how we hurt ourselves and shut others out when we live by our false pictures of how life should be. And how gorgeous life becomes when we drop the picture and start letting love in and out.
Life provides us with everything we need to evolve, we only need to stop fighting with images and we will see that love can be so simply lived.
A truly beautiful article to read. It is amazing how many relationships have been healed and deepened by students of Universal Medicine who were willing to take responsibility for the part they played in the separation and bring love and understanding to the relationships. Truly gorgeous to see and be a part of.
We humans are funny – are we not? We are wishing something to be and when it happen it is not enough, the wrong color or what ever…. In fact we ALWAYS get what is the best for us right now, just that we maybe have not the view, not the greatness, not the grace to see it as it is: a blessing and a reflection of Gods love for us. Everything on earth is here to support our learning, our growing back to who we truly are – and if we take it it is so much joy to walk the way.
Prior to meeting Serge Benhayon and attending the Universal Medicine Workshops I was exclusive within my close relationships and easily jealous when a lover or friend showed affection to another. Through the healings received and understanding gained from these workshops and other healing sessions I came to realise that my jealousy arose from my lack of self-worth, self-love and unresolved hurts. By addressing these issues in me it is now with joy that I now see my wife sharing affection with others and being appreciated, which has deepened my appreciation of her. Instead of being a threat, as I used to perceive such attention, it has in fact deepened our relationship.
How many times has a scenario like this been at play with totally different outcomes. Family feuds and people not speaking for years. Its great anonymous that you are able to see truth so that everyone becomes a winner.
Yes, the pictures of how we have decided life and love needs to be, deprive us of so many golden opportunities. There is a whole world out there of potentials, and our narrowed version of life keeps us from who knows what? To let go of the protection and the control does require us to look at and heal our hurts, but at the end of the day we get more love… now who does not want that?
Thank you and this is such a lesson in seeing beyond the ‘in-law’ tag, a tag that we often use to keep family members at arms length usually because of our un-resolved hurts. I love how Serge Benhayon brings such clarity to what true family is and consequently is empowering thousands of people to break down the self imposed barriers and see that everyone is family, both in and out of the law.
This is a beautiful sharing Anonymous of how you let go of your hurts and needs and opened up to let your brother-in-law in. It is reflective of how so many of us can be in all sorts of relationships whether it is with family members, friends or colleagues.
How many of us are trapped in relationships that are held in stagnant static ways of being simply because we hold rigid ideas of what each relationship should and should not be.
Anonymous what you have shared feels like a see saw. You had a set picture that determined a certain way of being in a relationship but by challenging that picture and changing your perception you tipped the see saw the other way and changed your experience completely.
‘His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love’. Anonymous on reading what you have shared here makes me really realise that the pictures that we hold about who we should love results in our massive contraction around sharing the very natural love that we are. Everybody misses out on the one thing that we all want.
I love that you saw a different man when you were able to choose to let your brother in law in to your world. The personality and approach we get from others is so often shaped by our own demeanour and how open we are to letting others in to our lives. Many people are waiting to see if they can trust, and the more we take responsibility for creating that space to trust the more joyful the friendships are that follow.
It is gorgeous to experience how anyone can become a close family member, and we can let anyone in. Love does not have boundaries.
Beautiful and touching sharing as it demonstrates so clearly how our hurt and emotions, all born of expectations and neediness, dismisses the other. It is a rejection of what could be easily seen as the gift as you so beautifully saw it as when you got over that hurdle.
It is beautiful how all relationships are always asking us to evolve, expand and be more of ourselves. It can sometimes bring up hurts, or better said, we can choose to react, take things personal or just surrender to the opportunity to even express more of our love in each and every moment.
This blog shows me that when when we are trapped in emotions we hardly can see what great gifts are presented to us through life, even when it is right under our nose.
This is just gorgeous. How funny it is we put up these barriers to love. I’ve always wanted sisters and, when I let go of beliefs around blood family or have to have grown up with them – childhood shared experiences and all that – I find I have amazing sisters and family full stop.
The honesty in this blog is a truth many choose not to go to. Anonymous the simplicity in which you write is showing us how we can carry our hurts for so long and leaves us feeling empty, asking why and not allowing the golden marker in- deepening our own understanding of the part we play and the harm this causes in the long run.
I can relate to this, I had the same reaction when my best friend entered a new relationship. I went into control and wanting to keep it the same as I was scared of losing her but it was this fear and control that pushed her away. I too have since learned what a blessing her partner is and how he is like a very dear brother to me. Their relationship was an expansion but because of my pictures, hurts and insecurities I couldn’t see this at the time. I took time to work through this and learn to let it go. Thank goodness for the Benhayon’s who always remind you to bring it back to love and not let your hurts run your life.
Great sharing here showing, how when we let go of the guard, the protection and hurt, the expansion in all areas (e.g.: health, relationships) is endless
There’s a lot that we take for granted in life, rather than appreciate it everyday. A strong, solid and lovely relationship with a sister and / or brother is one of them. Because they’re usually there all of our lifes, it might feel as we ‘own’ the other one. Rather than being appreciative of the fact that someone chose to spend most of their lifes with us. The difference… a relationship with life based on need / what can I get out of it, or based on appreciation, full of wonderment what life’s offering.
Wow – how awesome that you were able to see this ‘gift’ as the gift it is – the appreciation of the other, but also yourself in allowing the process to unfold. The arrival of any new family member (be it a brother or a sister or a permanent guest, or a go or pet) always requires a period of adjustment for everyone – for some it is greater than for others. But everyone has to adjust on some level. And the arrival of a new family member also represents opportunity for greater love for the whole family. Well done anonymous!
Reading this very honest sharing which I expect is something many other people go through to different degrees, it strikes me that it is about loving ourselves and everyone. When we focus all our “love” on one person it is not true love, because love is far more expansive than that and does not have any emotion. However, we call our various emotions that are not love, by the name of love, and thus disempower ourselves and our abilities to heal whatever emptiness or missing we have in our life and connect to the true love we are and share with all.
Its quite beautiful that you were able to move through the hurt and embrace your brother, it is not always the case, sometimes we can choose to make the hurt into a story that slowly becomes our reality, a distance that slowly drifts apart until there is but a memory of the closeness that we once shared.
Its so brave to face things the way you have done, to open your heart to what was waiting for you, the gift you always wanted, a brother, stunning.
It’s interesting how much we can limit our appreciation, or even go into the emotions you described anonymous – if we choose to see a brother-in-law as any less than a brother; or a friend or family member’s child as any less than our own; or a friend as any less than a sister etc.
By labelling people, or putting boxes around how far we are willing to let them in, we all miss out on the unconditional and whole level love we have always wanted; and the gift the relationship provides each person.
Isn’t it wonderful the joy and love that is there and can be appreciated when we let down that barrier of protection and open up to accepting another for who they are, and as in your case anonymous not seeing them as a threat in the relationship you have with your sister but as an addition to your family including the brother you have always wanted. An inspiring example on a very small scale of how it could be possible if we were all willing to not hold back and be open to letting people in, we could all be part of one huge family.
When we let go of the pictures of how it ‘should be’ in our minds… we open ourselves up to see the blessing of all we really have; and are continually given – to no end.
I can certainly relate to family being nothing to do with blood or genes – I also only have one biological sister but have many brothers that I grew up with and enjoy sharing my life with today.
“I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.” We can get so caught up in our own hurts that we don’t actually see what is in front of us. I love the way he gently waited until you were ready to let him in.
A great blessing presents – it is our choice as you say as to whether we let this in or say no.
Your sharing is so pertinent to times in my life and the realisation how destructive those “perfect images” we build can be, when the illusion that we have created comes crashing down around us. My brother had left home before I was born and I spent many hours creating a fantasy of what it would be like to have a brother or a sister, and in so doing designed the picture of what a perfect family would look like. When my children grew older and began to have disagreements of various degrees of seriousness the image I had created was shattered, and I actually thought I was doing something wrong, until a friend with a big family brought me back to reality by saying – but that’s what happens in families. It was in that instant I saw that I was using my children to fulfill my fantasy and that was not what they were here for. I can now identify many other images I have created over the years and am working through them one by one as they have no longer a place in my life.
When we work on our hurts it clears the way for true love.
It’s amazing how we divide things up by using words, things like, in-laws, step mother, blood relations, cousins etc. Most people would attest to having relatives that aren’t what society would deem as relatives. In other words why do we feel we need to explain or correct things that feel natural to us. I have seen people that consider themselves to be brother and sisters and yet ‘we’ like to know for sure. Why do we care to have this exactness for this part. It’s almost like we have to know the truth and then we can accept what we see or we can understand it better. I won’t talk about my family but just to say it’s not what you would consider within the bounds of normal. We all have a right to live the relationship we feel to have with someone else and honour it fully. If two men feel and want to be known as brothers then why are people uncomfortable with this and why do they feel the need to set things straight. Why not appreciate that people not born into the same family can develop a relationship that is at times closer then if they were. This was sparked from the title of this blog.
Ray Karam I too found the title of this blog supportive in breaking down beliefs of the titles we have. There is such a separation in the addition of the words – in law. Giving the feeling that they can’t be seen, or accepted as a true blood line. The honouring of another comes from our commitment to building a loving relationship free from titles. This calls us to greater responsibility in allowing more loving choices and embracing the other as an equal.
That is a lovely way to put it Mary. Great example.
I love this blog. What a beautiful man to wait so patiently for you. What a beautiful you, to commit to the changes you made within yourself so that the love there is in your life now is hugely magnified.
Feeling how expansive love can be shows it’s beyond blood lines, or any other physical association. We all miss out when we limit love to just this.
I have learnt that over- attachment is a need in me and can be very destructive in a relationship. Over-attachment comes with so much expectation and jealousy that it has the potential to destroy a previously gorgeous relationship. I love the sharing here as it illustrates beautifully about letting others in and the expansion that occurs when we allow this.
Often in relationships a sense of ownership can come in that becomes threatened when a new person wins the equation. The ownership seems to be related to not appreciating ourselves enough to trust that the relationship and connection will still be there even if the form of the relationship may alter. When we are strong and solid with ourselves then a new person will simply be an addition to our lives and the new constellation can be openly explored and enjoyed.
It is amazing how our needs and ideals can wreck the relationships we most cherish. Without loving and appreciating ourselves we will not be able to love and appreciate others and we will be left with needs and patterns. When our needs are no longer met the trouble starts and the hurts start bouncing back and forth.
When we live by our hurts and needs we cannot see what is actually right in front of us and we always see the glass as half empty and never live the true fullness of life and what it has to offer.
I find that relationships with family members can at times be difficult when things come up or things don’t get expressed or talked about. I have now found that by dealing with my stuff within the whole scenario that can occur, allows for much freer interactions and connections again. Letting family members back in for me was a beautiful experience and the love shared made me so very very grateful.
When we get true understanding that we are all brothers and connected all of the time, then we don’t need to have walls any more. Walls keep people out and love is all about letting people in, wonderful when put into practice more and more. I am finding that the more I am connected to me and the more I take responsibility for carrying hurts, the easier it is to let them go, allowing others in again, feels just awesome.
Walls of hurts do so much damage as they don’t allow for anything but the hurt. Once we can shift the hurt,everything starts to flow again and often we may wonder what all the walls were really about…
Wow what a journey you have been through and what an inspiration you share to be open to feeling what is really out there for us and not to push away love .Your offer a great reflection and opportunity for one to be open to see what is really there for us and to trust what this is and not push people away .
Beautiful learning and evolution Anonymous – isn’t it awesome when we get to – “.. to heal old patterns and let more love in: it was then that things started to change and slowly the cycle of judgment started to shift.” What a difference it makes for our selves and all we are connected to,.
It is incredible how much we miss out on, and how many wasted opportunities there are when we shut out the opportunity to deepen our relationship with another due to holding onto a hurt. Anonymous, I love how you turned things around by seeing beyond the hurt to value the blessing of a new brother in your life.
When we stop seeing blood and names as what constitutes our family we will eventually open ourselves up to the truth that we are all one, one brotherhood, one love.
What a great outcome Anonymous. Without the teachings of Serge Benhayon and the Ancient Wisdom many of us would still be struggling to understand the complexity of our relationships and how to heal them!
“His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.” I am forever in admiration and awe of having a relationship with Serge Benhayon. I am learning through his absolute commitment, dedication, and the firm love he is with me is not the image I thought love was, and incidentally reflects where I do not love myself.
This is a great example of when we have a picture of what something needs to look like that we miss the very thing we say we want. In your case anonymous it was a brother and it came to you in a way you hadn’t expected. It’s gorgeous that you committed to healing any hurts so you could let him in and love him as your true brother.
A fabulous learning here for all, that in the letting go actually gives you abundantly more…
Yes so true and this is something to really learn so that we can bring this abundance to all.
We have an idea that our family are those who are related to us through birth or marriage but in truth are we not all related to each other? Is our family not also humanity? Letting and including others into the love from our immediate families is a great way to begin to feel the potential for a return to our true way of living in harmony and as one.
Such a great celebration of what happens when we get ourselves out of the way and allow love to flow.
Such a lovely, simple blog Anonymous showing what happens when we let go of the picture of how we think things should be and let in the love instead. Beautiful.
Our lives are so guarded and shut down by the way society sees family as purely blood, you can find a true brother in the most surprising of places 🙂
A beautiful sharing Anonymous, and one that shows how we can try to own someone’s love for ourselves. I have done this myself too, feeling little pangs of jealousy and rejection when I felt that someone loved someone more than they loved me, but all this does is reflect the lack of love I have for myself. In accepting your brother-in-law as your brother was a gift for both of you and fulfilled your childhood wish, how simply gorgeous.
That attachment to how things should remain as they have for a very long time is something I am sure many can relate to. But if we react then it shows that that prolonged way of being isn’t sustainable, nothing can remain static or fixed so why do we place so much focus into trying to making it that way? If change didn’t occur then there is no growth and without growth our relationships wither and stagnate. By allowing for the change in your relationship and situation you’ve grown so much and allowed for more love in your life and for those around you, thats pretty cool.
What a gorgeous opportunity for letting more love in.
Anonymous, this is a wonderful article to read,this stands out for me, ‘someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.’ I can feel with people that I know who are not my immediate family that I can hold them ‘at arms length’ and not let them in in the same way I would my own family, I realised this reading your article, I can feel how I choose who and how much I am going to love someone – this feels very controlling and not like true love which is me being open and equally loving with everyone.
How familiar we are with the comfort of the ‘status quo’ of everything remaining the same within our lives, even if we have no appreciation of the value of what we have at the time. It is easy to get stuck in a fixed way of being and these shake-ups can be very uncomfortable, yet offer an amazing opportunity to expand, change and evolve or we choose to remain closed down in what feels like safety.
l always wanted a sister. It took a long time for me to realise that all my female friends were to be loved as if they were my siblings. lt was a great realisation of abundance. When we are open to love the abundance of the world comes knocking.
It can be all to easy to feel that when a close friend finds a partner or even another close friend, that somehow we lose them or the relationship we have had – and most often it is true that the relationship does change, but it doesn’t have to mean that we see it as losing another, but more that they have gained another love and support in their life, which does not decrease your love and support of them. For you to be able to see your brother in law as simply your brother is beautiful, because you and your family have been blessed by another person, as have they been blessed to become a part of another family.
Your blog shows how we are all family when we let go of false beliefs.
This reminded me how I felt hurt and reacted when I was 15 and my close friend got herself a boyfriend and was no longer available to hang out with me – but it was directed at my friend, rather than her boyfriend. We had some awkward moments and talked about it and remained as friends, but it never was the same. Reading your sharing I can now understand how I pulled away and held back my love because of my held images of what ‘best friends’ should look like while I felt abandoned, and putting a plug on my love was not necessary – as I can feel how beautifully expansive it is when we stay love and let people and world in.
Thank you. What this shows so clearly is how much we cling onto pictures how we think life should be, and then these pictures literally stand in our way making us critical and judgemental, all the while our hearts are telling us otherwise.
Anonymous I love what you have shared because it made it very clear that if there is a hurt the heart can be closed and so it is not so easy to see the whole picture – you can see only a snippet.
Serge Benhayon and the Ancient Wisdom Teachings have supported me to know that I have choosen the life I am living and that the choice to live with an open heart is mine. What you have shared anonymous is something we can all choose to feel deeply into in all our relationships not only with family but with friends, neighbours, strangers and all other cultures and nationalities. The truth is within us all and the choices we make will be reflected in the lives we live. Great article.
A gorgeous sharing that each and everyone of us can relate to and offers a beautiful learning.
How truly amazing is this! “His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued.” Definitely something much needed in our world.
I am the youngest of four girls and when I was younger I really wanted a little brother as well, now I have 4 nephews and 2 nieces ✨? and the realisation that everyone is family if you let them in ?
Love the way Anonymous that you got over the handicap of sibling partner jealousy by seeing what you have, and not what you thought you don’t have or had been taken away with the new addition of an ‘in-law’. ‘Added to’ makes thingS that much more whole when it’s seen and accepted as being this.
Jealousy with siblings and their partners, such a huge topic Anonymous, I can relate to this very much, it is also experienced the other way too with the sibling being jealous over their partner’s relationship with their own sibling… and similarly also the partner being jealous over their partner’s sibling too. Jealousy all round. That’s what comes with exclusivity, and the belief of only loving one, not all equally.
Its interesting to note the ties and relationships we have with another and how much we depend on them rather then holding our own. Its an awesome chance when this gets shaken up- to bring more love, understanding and awareness to ourselves and relationships.
When we give up on our ideas of how we think things ‘should’ be, we open ourselves up to endless possibilities. There is far less room for disappointment when we don’t narrow down our opportunities,
So true, if we have a fixed image we have limitations and nothing can really be in the flow. Opportunities arise though being open to the endless possibilities that are just waiting for us to notice them and get on with it 🙂
Elodie I actually think that life is made up of endless possibilities but we walk around as if wearing narrow goggles that limit out perception of what’s possible down to a sliver. The narrowed perception is produced by the fact that we look out through our hurts and often see images and pictures created through our distorted lens.
Gorgeous Anonymous. We have that opportunity to extend family to not just blood ties and amazing things happen when we do. The word opens up almost as we let more love in.
So beautiful Anonymous! I can relate to your experience very much. I’ve often felt the ‘loss’ or rather ‘perceived loss’ when a close friend of mine is suddenly in a relationship with another. Over the years I’ve learnt that it is about my lack of appreciation for myself, and that I need to treat myself as special, to honour myself for who I am and stop expecting others to do it for me. I gave my power away to others to make me feel good, and then I’d be devastated when they weren’t there as often to prop me up. Having this awareness has helped me enormously to be less dependent on others, and also opened me up to allowing others in to my life and not shut them out for fear of being hurt.
I can relate Anonymous, as when a family member met their now husband, I definitely got to feel the investment and need I had for them when their presence was noticeably missed. I too withdrew into my own hurts which were a mixture of jealousy and missing their company. I can see how this withdrawing affected the whole family not just our relationship.
I am learning more and more about how much the hurts that I have accumulated over the years are projected onto others, even in the smallest ways.
Isn’t it wonderful when we can recognise this, because then true healing can start and love can be felt again…
Such a honest sharing about what can go on when things change and what it can bring up for us. This stuff is deeply personal which is why we don’t ‘get each other’ some days. It can take time and some reflection and honesty to see what is really going on.
To see the bigger picture, looking behind what is presented and then taking responsibility for our own stuff within these issues is really the only way to start healing our hurts and allowing for deeper connections and more love to develop.
There is a palpable difference with most when they mention their in-laws, there’s even many derogatory jokes and sayings out there as well to fuel this separation. It’s like it is a given to have issues or tension with the Mother-in-law… and as a society we very rarely question what is this about. I can also see how many create issues to keep their own birth families happy and reassured. Imagine how it could be if we saw everyone as family we have or haven’t meant yet.
You honesty is inspiring Anonymous; it gives us all permission to share how we react to the comfort of relationships that make them about ourselves and not the all. Thank you.
Wow, that is so gorgeous anonymous. Well done. How is it that often the thing we most want in life is actually there staring us in the face, yet we don’t see it because we have a fixed picture of how it needs to be.
So true – this fixed picture throws heaps of stones in our way too…
Thank you Anonymous. I pondered how much I missed growing up without a brother.. It made me realise I had two sisters and no brother because that was how it was for me to learn, grow, and understand more of me, and most importantly embrace how special it is that I have two younger sisters. I cherish them dearly. I was not missing out and never felt I did in fact I felt I had more with two younger sisters. I am that solid older brother someone to look up to. Either way I had a male best friend soon as I attended school. I really appreciate how it all as constellated and the importance to appreciate what you have and not what you ‘think’ you do not have.
I can see that in many cases a story like this could have ended in tears and a grudge the size of Western Samoa may have been formed, so its great to hear you rose above it and got the brother you have always wanted.
Yes Kevin McHardy I have seen many relationships between siblings fall apart when a new member joins the family. What I love about this blog is that although the writer felt so much hurt and pain they could feel that this was not truly the way to live. The willingness to receive support through the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and to work through the enormous levels of conditioning that comes from ideals and beliefs that are fed to us daily, shows us all that there is more love for everyone to feel when we make relationships about being open.
What is great to read is that the brother the writer had been longing for has arrived.
When we get away from the ideals and beliefs that we can only be a certain way with our true family, our blood family and that we have to be another way with others there is so much love that is there for us to share. We are all brothers and sisters, and we are missing out if we don’t open up to this and embrace each other more.
I really love this story and can only imagine how in letting your brother in law be your brother just changed how you were all able to relate and be with each other.
This is an incredible shift, to see through all the hurts and finally appreciate the gift that has been heaven sent. It is a great lesson for us all to realise that when we hold onto our hurts because we feel we are losing someone, we are in fact turning our backs on humanity. What a joy it must have been the day you realised that your deepest wish had come true and there was this amazing brother ready and waiting to join in with the family. I love how the teachings of Serge Benhayon supports us to break down the barriers we construct in our heads and empowers us to see that true family lies beyond the usual ‘relative’ bonds and blood lines. True family is about connecting heart to heart with another person and creating a loving, playful, caring relationship either platonic or romantic and empowers us to dissolve many of our preconceived ideas that have in the past kept us apart.
Truth is, we are all family whether we like it or not, and the more people we let in the more we will realise this fact.
Seperation feels like a man made invention, like nationality and culture, that seeks to divide and make us feel like we cannot relate to each other. But we cannot extinguish the flame that burns within us all and the innate want to be with each other and connect. We see this in times of huge catastrophes where the world pulls together to support a country.
This is a great metaphor for life, whereby we react to what does not fit the picture we have of life to then create our own hurts from the disappointment and protections to guard those hurts and keep them alive. But, with bigger eyes and greater understanding we can stop and see that life is always giving us options to grow in Love if we choose and surrender our pictures of what we think things need to be like for us. When we surrender, the self created hurts are free to heal.
We are all Brothers, united by love not blood.
This is a great confirmation that love just keeps on loving and it is simply us who need to get out of the way. It is inspiring to read that at any stage we can let go of all the pain and hurt and simply return to the love that we are. Thank you for sharing this.
Your blog reminds me to not take things personally when someone reacts, because it often is never about me but about what is really going on for the other person. It was beautiful to read that your brother in-law waited patiently for you to connect to him instead of reacting to the rejection he may have felt. Openness is always very loving and I am learning to do this more and more. Also I am learning to not react to other people’s reactions but to stay steady, observe and allow others time to find their way.
It is easy to build walls of hurt that damage everything. Its great to know how to deal with the hurts so that you can be free,
In truth we are all brothers, we simply need to let go of our walls of protection to feel that we are one unified through love.
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful story, letting go of the hurts and opening up to a much greater love, of now, a brother.
Beautiful Anonymous, a very honest sharing of what you really felt and what you go through (feelings, emotions) and how this has only opened you up for more love in your life – that to me is profound. I must say – this story is not commonly written with this ending.. I simply love it.
Wow, this is a deeply honest and inspiring blog. It shows how much we miss out when we choose to shut people out and how damaging this is to our relationships and to ourselves. I’ve realised that a lot of people think (including myself) that love actually hurts and we start shutting ourselves down and keep people out in order to protect our hurts. But in truth emotional love (if you can call it love) is a false version of love, which is loaded with neediness, emotions, rules and expectations. True love is none of this. It is awesome to read how you chose to break down the images of how love should be and how to express it. Love really has no rules and I too am learning to break down my protective wall, discard the images and learn to allow myself to express love openly, not just to close family and friends but equally to everyone because everyone we meet are our brothers and sisters.
A beautiful blog Anonymous demonstrating that it’s not until we get ourselves out of the way that we can see and appreciate the gifts God has laid before us.
If we let go of the belief that family is that which we are born into and allow ourselves to love and be loved we may see many brothers and sisters amongst us.
Ah yes, I am very familiar with avoiding feeling hurts as a way to protect myself from something that doesn’t even need protecting.
A beautiful sharing, thank you Anonymous. I can share with you that feeling of always wanting a brother. I have 2 sisters and we were not especially close when we were young, there were nearly 5 years between me and my first sister, then about another 7 years before the third one. I remember always wanting a brother to do things with. For quite a few years I had a boy next door that my mother approved me to play with, which was probably the substitute I needed, and I was heartbroken when his family moved away, when I lost my best mate. I was probably all of 12 at the time. I must admit I felt that loss for many years. There is something about having a brother that feels to complete a family, even though sometimes there can be tormenting and conflict. Wonderful that you now have a true brother that you can hang out with, someone you have now accepted into your life, your sister’s husband. How beautiful for the 3 of you that you were able to let go the resentment you felt about him seemingly coming between you and your sister, and accept him into your family as a brother.
I have come to the conclusion that family is not restricted to blood relations and that anyone can be my family if we have a strong connection. Who I consider my family these days is more based on depth and quality of relationship not just blood lines.
Sometimes we get so attached to our pictures of what family should look like or who family should be that we miss the amazing people, relationships and connections that are right under our noses.
I think this is a great blog and shows most of the time what we see in between any relationship comes from us. As anonymous is saying, “I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.” But no doubt over the 4 years all types of thoughts would have been there. I am constantly amazed that when we dedicate to dealing with our part the things we thought are just not there, even though they can be so convincing. I love this blog because it’s just so plainly simple, deal with what you are hurt about and the rest takes care of itself, a lesson for life.
What a win win situation, you got to see how much these ideals and beliefs really had an impact on our relationships. By judging and reacting you create a wall of protection where you are left to swallow your own hurts. To then clock and feel that this isn’t it and embrace what we all know is true that when we let all our love out and allow love in then everyone is a winner.
Family truly is what we choose it to be. We can build it out of our hurts and needs, or we can build it on the love that is being offered to us by those whom we share life with.
Wow how often we fight and get upset at the very thing we are here to experience. The reality is not the horror or difficulty we make it out to be, and once we open up to embrace how life is right now, we start to see we are supported universally to return to the simple state where everyone is our brother, and we are rich beyond belief in the connected way we live. Thanks Anonymous for writing here to remind everybody.
A beautiful reflection. Our hurts and the walls of protection we build around us will always stop us from seeing the truth.
“A brother like you doesn’t come along every day.” What a gift are you for each other, how beautifully you have open-end up and embraced your brother in law.
Isn’t that a gorgeous way to accept people and let go of ideals. To see people for what they bring rather than who they are. So often we can hold family in their roles – but to see everyone is equal is something I had not considered before. This blog shows the importance of not holding people in things, such as the expectation of a sister being there all the time and 100% for us. This should be a constant conversation within families so we don’t have to get to the point where we are holding people as who we want them to be, but rather that we see them for who they are.
Wanting things to stay the same – but they never can. Keeping an open heart for everyone – then anyone can be family.
Re Serge Benhayon – “His inspiring work has allowed me to break down the pictures I had of who and how I should love and brought a stop to a way of living that was harming the relationships that I loved and valued”. I never realised I had so many images of how I – and life- ‘should be’ until i attended one of Serge’s workshops where this was presented. Instantly I knew this was something I did too – and am now working my way through the pictures I have created – with false expectations of how things – and people (including myself) – should be – and healing them. Just noticing that this is what I do is revelatory.
What a beautifully simple blog Anonymous capturing a feeling that most of us would have experienced at some time during our lives….the hurt and jealousy that comes from another entering into what we consider a close or ‘special’ relationship…..this sentence in particular touched me…..”someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in”……made me consider how many people have patiently waited for me to let them, or perhaps are still waiting.
A great blog with insight into family situations, and what is so common in the world! When relationships change we don’t necessarily have to see that as a bad thing, there will always be an established connection between us all.
When you have a special relationship with someone, whether grandparent, sibling or best friend, it is easy to feel a sense of loss as they find new partners, have babies, or migrate, but the world is a small place, you and they are still in it, and opening up to a wider relationship is simple once we can let go of the image of how that relationship should be. Plus there’s the bonus of adding in new friends, brothers, sisters . . .
This was so lovely to read. It can be horrible sometimes when we hold guards against people and never really get close or get to know them. The greatest gift of holding no protection is we realise that all people can be family, as long as we welcome them as such and open our hearts to them.
What a great reflection on coming to understand that brothers, family and people are not united by blood but by purpose and relationships first. Its also amazing how God delivers us everything, we sometimes take time to accept and notice it.
Sometimes we are given something we have been wanting all along, but because we have a picture of how things should be, we miss what is right in front of us.
We put labels on family members and it is as though they are a measure. A brother-in-law is less than a brother, a stepmother less than a mother, a second cousin less than a first cousin and a cousin less than a sibling. Immediate family is measured differently to extended family. It is all crazy.
What you share is the ever beauty of the expansion of love – there is just more there than we can ever know. You thought you had lost love but actually you expanded the love within you to receive more love and let others in. This is available to us with all of our interactions. Kind of mind blowing when we consider it.
It is amazing how we see a the partner of a best friend or family member or anything really as a threat to our relationship when as this beautiful blog shows it can be an opportunity to open ourselves to more … facing the adjustment head -on and seeking support from esoteric practitioners is a great way to break through the limiting patterns we hold.
Thank you Anonymous. It is strange that we form the idea that there is a limited amount of love to go around. You demonstrate that the more we try to hold on to our love in an attempt to protect it the less we feel it. When we open our hearts our ability to love and be loved expands.
It’s amazing how much love we can over look when our hurts get in the way.
Growing up I experienced this dynamic in all sorts of situations from the families that stuck together and wouldn’t let anyone else in or mothers that wouldn’t accept their son’s choice of partner, etc. I always found this strange as a child and as a parent was very aware of accepting my children’s choice of partners and embracing them as a part of the family because of that’s what they are. Our lives are so much more enriched if we are inclusive of everyone. And of course the reflections that are offered are an opportunity for healing if we choose to understand this.
Seeing that the bounds of family are limitless, rather than limited to blood and family name is a huge learning – that each new addition is an opportunity to grow in more love, rather than to lose someone to another relationship. I have been learning this lesson as my friends have gotten boyfriends and our paths have separated – my love does not have to diminish or lessen because of time or distance apart or because they have other people in their lives.
This blog makes me wonder just how many blessings come our way all of the time and whether we stop and recognise, let alone appreciate them? If we have unresolved hurts as you say, this prevents clear sight and acceptance of what is before us
It is a joy to hear of your learning and the richness that has come from letting another in and deepening your connection to you.
It’s an interesting term ‘in laws’. Like being related by law. But how much further from the truth is it really and your very honest and gorgeous blog highlights this. Imagine those with ‘in law troubles’ doing exactly what you have done and see the opportunity that is actually right in front of there eyes.
It is so easy to get stuck in hurt and jealousy, the healing you describe requires taking responsibility for our own reactions and dealing with the hurt. Very inspiring thank you Anon.
Imagine opening our hearts to people around us just not in our immediate family, we could then have so many brothers and sisters.
I can relate to loving my sister’s boyfriends when I was going through my teens, I’m not so sure she was so happy about me hanging around but very gracious in including me where she could.
Often we fear a change means loosing something and yet it always invites us to go deeper with love, to learn and to grow.
Nice!
Meaning it is so great that in the end the relationship wasn’t lost but rather it started again with +1.
Your appreciation of what you have uncovered in yourself and your brother is very beautiful. It can be very simple to feel there is space in our hearts for everyone when we choose. No one is greater or excluded when our hearts are open and the hurts are let go.
When we let people into our hearts the whole of humanity becomes one brotherhood. This is when we realize that we are all in this together and that being together is so much more fun that being apart and in separation from each other.
Opening our hearts, truly, so that our families are not just who we were born with but all who surround us is a beautiful thing. There are opportunities for loving relationships everywhere and we just need to let go of the limiting pictures we hold of how things should be. We also need to let go of the comfort of having all our relationships neat and constant and be always ready to accept loving change.
what a beautiful blog, it shows how letting go is helping us knowing that love is the answer. And that family is in truth far removed from our idea of being of the same blood.
A beautiful testimonial family has in fact nothing to do with blood relatives and everything to with love.
I always wanted a brother too. I would put it on my birthday wish list and kept hoping for a long time. About 6 years ago I met on my first trip to Australia one of the students of The Way of The Livingness. I stayed in the house where he and his partner lived and felt: this is my brother! So why was that I asked myself? He felt close to me and without any male imposing. I realized later that this was what I had been searching for with ‘a brother’: a man close without any sexual energy being there. I have found many more brothers in the international student group and they enrich my life with their tenderness and their being.
Jealousy is one of the most common and hard hitting emotions that we carry, and unless we understand the root cause of it, we will keep carrying it. Because there is a lot of stigma and shame around jealousy, we suppress it and pretend everything is fine, when on the inside everything is cooking – it is a sure path to a body in disharmony.
Isn’t it beautiful how things can turn completely around if we can let go of our hurts? We are blinded, not open to hearing and seeing true love even when it is in front of our nose when images and ideals run our life.
Beautiful – you say ‘I now see a fun, light hearted, playful, and sensitive man who I love dearly; someone who was waiting patiently that whole time for me to let him in.’ – It is amazing what can happen when we let go of our own personal hurts and start to truly let people in without any filter or judgment.
That’s lovely anonymous, so often situations we perceive as being negative are actually showing us positive opportunities. It is how we look at the change and embrace it that counts most. And for sure letting people into our lives is just about the greatest thing we can do to make our lives ones that we love to live.
Inviting another person into one’s family is a huge thing to do. It reflects how far we have strayed from where we naturally all come from – one big family.
It is undeniably exquisite to feel how underneath all the identifications and walls which we put up that separate us in life by making us feel unequal and ‘different’, is a potential if not a reality of true oneness and equality that can be lived. This is with every single person regardless of the situation and relationship that is shared with them.
Thank you for your sharing, Your story shows how not dealing with our own hurts can lead to rifts within the family.
“The brother that I thought was missing in my family and I was longing to welcome in, had arrived. Someone I could hang out with, share my crazy and silly sense of humour with, hug with great love and accept with all my heart.” – I cried and smiled at the same time. There’s so much lightness and joy in these words. It made me reflect about both my own longing for sharing as well as it left me pondering on how much I actually let my own brother, sister and parents in.
Having a close relationship with anyone, whether its a sibling or friend is often challenging when a partner comes along and suddenly the relationship changes. This is something I too experienced several times, particularly with friends, and found it very hard to not feel hurt or rejected, and was definatley jealous of the ‘other person’ feeling they had taken my friend(s) away. What I also always found hard was to have a close relationship with a friends partner and the jealousy that then insued as a result of that, and this is still not uncommon today. This is an age old pattern for so many of us, but as you so beautifully share Anonymous, this doesn’t have to be the case. There is so much potential for true love between people who are not ‘married’ or ‘in a relationship’, but it is so often hampered by the jealousy of another. Thankyou for your insightful blog.
This beautiful blog led to a lot of tears. As I’m understandig now how a partner of a family-member is always reflecting something ‘new’ within the family. And that it is God’s law that this is always in ‘perfect’ timing. The synchronicity is simply Divine and is offering us an enormous impulse to evolve, if we would choose to be open, let the ‘new’ one in and be willing to express whatever comes up. Thank you for taking the time to share this blog with us. I deeply appreciate that.
Such a reaction you have described Anonymous is so common and can bring a deeper separation into a family for the whole of their lives. What a great choice to turn it around. Even if not knowing how to work with it at first, the courage to explore it and work through it was super inspiring.
It was great to read Anonymous your willingness to work through your hurts so that you would be able to discover the gift our your brother not an in-law on the other side.
Interesting how we react when we get given what we claim to have always wanted! This blog challenges the images we have about what constitutes a family and how we should relate to others and it is inspiring to read how you were willing to accept responsibility for your reaction and open your heart to love and appreciate the gift you had been given.
The teachings of the Ageless Wisdom, support us to not walk away from situations with all our hurts in tow, but actually to deepen our love for ourselves and for others. How many of us could have taken your situation into a full scale fragmentation of the family full of blame? Your blog has made me reflect on the relationships I have in my family and with friends- what they offer and what is there to learn.
Yes, life is quite amazing when we choose not to react but just be love.
Brilliant blog. Sometimes we need to shift the perspective, the focus, the way in which we are seeing things. Your brother in law did not change in this situation, you did. By no longer seeing him as someone taking away your sister and instead seeing him as the brother you had always wished for, you have not lost one dear to you but gained another. Beautiful.
I love that what seemed like an unpleasant situation which brought up a lot of hurt, was actually a complete blessing. Esoteric teachings turn everything on its head. What could seem like a dead end, is a door to open. What can seem like a loveless situation, is an opportunity to express more love. Every situation that presents itself to us is an opportunity to look deeper and express more. Very beautiful.
Yes, love can come from anywhere and that includes ourselves.
A great sharing of how reactions and hurts which, after all, are reactions, get in the way of us living a life that could otherwise be naturally joyful. A sharing that shows that it is up to us to not only become aware of these hurts but to seek support in understanding and dealing with them; and in all the different places I have gone for help none has been as valuable as that which I have found in the teachings of Universal Medicine and especially the treatments and support of its Practitioners.
When my twin sister first met my brother-in-law I felt a similarity to what you share anonymous. At the time through my own insecurity and hurt I felt sidelined , but it wasn’t long before I began to deeply appreciate the qualities of my brother-in-law and love spending time with him. The relationship with my sister still stayed strong and so I gained massively all round…include two, amazing, beautiful children into the mix and I feel ‘quadrupley’ blessed!
A beautiful sharing of the joy of opening up and letting love in. This is so different to the outcome we live in from our hurts and living in protection and emotions and all we lose out on from this .
It’s interesting when a sibling gets married or suddenly has a relationship and the focus changes within a relationship. I can remember as a young girl being jealous of my sisters relationship and feeling in the way when she wanted to be alone with her boyfriend and devastated when my oldest sister eloped and moved out of our home and all of a sudden she no longer lived with us and I rarely got to see her. These sorts of things should be talked about within our families but not in an emotional way but as a matter of fact.
Western psychology presents models of human behaviour and then presents them as fact. The transition cycle says that when change happens human beings ‘typically’ experience three or four stages: loss, emotional reaction, understanding and acceptance. With new awareness a new paradigm emerges. It suggests, we don’t necessarily have to experience all these stages, we can choose to respond to loss in different ways: instead of reacting we can observe, respond and understand much more quickly, if we choose to. This is made possible if we remain open to change and release long held beliefs and attachments which we believe are fixed but in fact are an illusion. Seeing the potential for re-birth and healing brings purpose to life transitions
Expanding a close and intimate relationship to include others can be very challenging but to do so only expands the love. Healing the hurts behind the jealousy is such a massive healing.
Yes Jonathan Stewart it is the healing of the hurts that allow us to get on with developing a loving relationship that is there waiting with its full potential. It is when we stay closed off from the potential that we harm more than we could possibly imagine.
What a great sharing, I suspect what you have experienced is the same for many people in family relationships. Sometimes they get talked about and sometimes the rift is just too big. Thank you for showing us all how simple it can be and how our family just keeps expanding with brothers and sisters everywhere, related or not, in our family or not.
The walls we build from judgment of another and the hurt, if we choose to remain in it, is deeply painful and creates a further momentum of the sense of isolation and separation from others. Then we set up further ill-choices in blaming and resenting the other people. How deeply healing it is to address the hurts and let the ‘walls come tumbling down’ (also the title of a great song by Jenny James!).to let love in again and live it.
“After a year I knew that this couldn’t go on as my sister began withdrawing from me because I was building a wall of hurt that would not let her or anyone else in”.
Anonymous I know other people who have experienced the same. A mother, for example, feeling a sense of loss, sadness and jealousy when her son announced his engagement. And then with time she was gaining a daughter.
How many times does that thing between our ears rule and try to ruin our lives, with our consent? It becomes an emotional bird of prey with talons. When we choose to be open to the world, it expands before us.
In some cultures the term ‘in-law’ does not exist, and neither does ‘step-son or daughter’ When a man or woman marries into a family they become sister or brother and a child from an earlier marriage or relationship embraced a son and daughter.
Kehinde, that is a beautiful concept.
When we can consider all others our brothers and sisters we can then move towards a one humanity.
A beautiful story Anonymous. What an opportunity there is for learning more about ourselves and our limitations on being open to love, when faced with situations that feel emotionally challenging.
Great article anonymous, reading it I can feel how it is ‘common’ for us to not love our brother in laws or mother in laws in the same way that we would our own brothers and mothers, holding them as different, as not as close, so we may be a little less loving and a little less open with them; it is gorgeous to read how you call your brother in law your brother and how you now love and adore him for who is and hold him as dearly as if he was your brother – this can be true for all of our relationships with people, that we can be as open and loving with everyone not just our own family.
Great to read how you stopped the momentum of ill pictures that you were gaining your perspective from with your brother in-law. We all know deep down, even after the justifying and blame, that something does not feel right with living in that way. Coming out the other side we realise and see how amazing the other person is and has always been. Having pictures has caused me lots of pain and hurt and separation from many over the years.
The momentum of ill pictures is a difficult one to stop if one is not vigilant.
l can relate to that very palpable fear of separation. lt can cause such angst. lt takes deep self-acceptance and reading the situation with honesty to see it truly. Usually you realise it was all just smoke and mirrors once you allow and simply observe and deeply attend to your own self-love. That space allows you to see a deeper love at work.
Thank you for sharing this, Anonymous. What a great story and lesson for us all, about making sure we do not damage our relationships by being attached and focussed on our own needs rather than the bigger picture. When we are trapped in that we cannot feel the joy and truth of what has unfolded for another, and share in the expansion that is not just for them but for everyone. After all, more love in the world is a bonus across the board!
Love what you have written Janet. Being focused on our own needs rather than the bigger picture is not loving to anyone and yes, more love in the world is a bonus across the board. It also reminded me of way back in school when my best friend went and got another best friend – it felt like the end of the world! Thank you anonymous for sharing your story.
So true Lorranie when we retreat because of our hurt and feelings of abandonment we lose out on the possibility of being open to someone else.
I have had the experience may times in my life of holding onto hurt feelings that have only gone on to damage myself and the relationship that I so badly wanted – those hurt feelings and pride, stood in the way of receiving the love that was otherwise on offer. Bit silly really.
So silly I would agree Marianna as I have played the same game leaving both parties not wiling to offer the quality of love to deepen the relationship. What is interesting to observe is that when the relationship moves onto the next level we can look back and clock that there were no hurts in the first place just ideas and beliefs that were fed to stop this great union from forming.
I love the way my immediate family has grown as my sister and I have both got married – the love from one relationship joins so many others.
I love this Michael, “the love from one relationship joins so many others”. As a child I grew up with 4 much older brothers and to my dismay at times, no sister or siblings my own age group. Between the ages of 7 and 13, I had been gifted 3 older sisters (in law not), 2 younger brothers (nephews) and 4 younger sister sisters (nieces). I truly appreciated the extended family I grew up with as they all came with so many gifts and I did truly let them all in. Of course beyond the age of 13, the family grew even more.
Family life was forever changing and still is. For me it’s also about making family wherever we go as I have often lived large distances from my blood family, but found there was always a family wherever I live. It’s about being open to all relationships and loving and letting love in.
A beautiful reflection that family is anyone you love. When we feel the love of who we truly are and this same love is in everyone of us then we are all one family.
Mary what you have shared highlights just how far from the truth we are choosing to live. We live in a world where we are actually all borne from the same one source and that source is love and yet the fact that we are able to attack and kill one another is nothing short of a travesty and an undeniable marker as to how far we have strayed from the truth.
I can see many familiar traits in your blog anonymous. When change happens and the image of how we think things should be gets shattered, I have resisted in the past. If we keep resisting we stay stuck in the hurt. Great that you were able to see past your hurts and realise you have not lost a sister, but gained a brother. Very cool.
It sounds very trite but a change is often also a great opportunity!
The resisting only holds another at bay to the potential one can offer each other.
I remember when one of my sisters got engaged and the jealousy I felt at the time… I was aware it felt awful for us both, but unconsciously I started to withdraw. I look back now and see that at the time I was hurt, not only that I didn’t have a relationship myself at the time and that she not only had a boyfriend but was getting married before me (!) but because I thought the change in her relationship status would mean that ours would also change. Of course, our relationship did change in a physical way because we weren’t living in the same house, but I realise now it didn’t have to change the way we were with each other. It took me many many years to realise this and to let go of my own hurts, and to be able to be more open to a relationship without comparing and being jealous.
So beautiful if we are able to see the bigger picture Anonymous and experience that time in fact does not exist. You now have your brother you where longing for that long and can celebrate your life with.
Thanks Anonymous, your sharing is so simple but so huge at the same time, because really anyone can be that brother or sister or mother or father to us at any time. Its only how we choose to see them in the limitation of the role we choose to put them in.
When we take away the role and come back to the person anything is possible.
I agree, Elizabeth. We limit ourselves and others by identifying with roles or defining family by ‘blood-relations’.
Family is so much more than blood ties – and I have many surrogate aunties, sisters, brothers all of whom I love deeply. In fact if you think about it – our blood is all the same so we must all be from the one family anyway!!
This is an amazing blog. So obvious, so simple, so touching but I didn’t see the punch line coming!
A beautiful story of getting out of our own way and letting love in. Thank you for sharing it.
I agree with you Gayle, this is a wonderful story of how we can make life complicated by holding onto hurts and a picture of how we want things to be. There is nothing more liberating that letting love in.
Yes and not relying on another to complete or support our levels of love for ourselves.
Thank you Anonymous for such an honest and heartfelt blog about relationships.
It reminded me of my own relationship with a close family member, which was very close, but I felt I had a dependency issue. When the other married, I felt a deep loss and felt empty within. I could feel these unresolved hurts affecting my relationship with my close family member and partner.
It was not until I dealt with my hurts with the help of esoteric practitioners that my life has changed and there is a deeper acceptance of them both in my life.
A beautiful sharing Anonymous and feel that when we go into reaction and the emotion we may feel in a situation such as this we lose the clarity that we can truly bring to everyone, no matter wether they are family or a person off the street. Letting go of the reaction or judgement brings us back to the honesty of our connection and it is from here that we can start to build real loving connections with everyone. That’s pretty cool.