When I say ‘my family,’ what I am referring to is my immediate family: my partner of 27 years and our sixteen-year-old son. The relationships that we share within our family have changed beyond recognition, and I feel impulsed to share a little about how these changes have come about, because I know that to be in true relationship with one another is what we all so desperately crave.
There’s a dinner that we shared that stands out for me and not, unfortunately, because of how great it was. It was about seven years ago now, and I had started to become very aware of how little quality time we spent together as a family. ‘The boys’ tended to eat separately to me: I would eat my meals in the kitchen in front of the computer and the boys would eat in the living room, in front of the telly.
At the time I put it down to the fact that we generally ate different things and at different times but now, looking back, I can see that it had much more to do with the fact that we were all choosing to check out whilst we ate, rather than to connect with one another. So, spurred on to instigate more quality family time, I suggested that we have a few meals together in the kitchen. The analogy ‘pulling hen’s teeth’ comes to mind, however, reluctantly, very reluctantly, they both agreed.
Sitting down and sharing a meal was, for us, often uncomfortable. On the rare occasions when we did (which was usually only when we ate out), it would invariably end up with our son doing or saying something that derailed the whole evening. At the time my partner and I thought that he was just being difficult, but now I can see that he was reacting to how uncomfortable it was for us to all share a meal together, without the distraction of either the telly or the computer.
So, to make this particular meal more comfortable and to aid the flow of conversation, I assembled a collection of photos that I hoped would be good ‘conversation starters.’ I think I managed to share two of the photos before being heckled into submission. The conversation then reverted to what had become our default conversation topic: ‘football.’
It would have been so incredibly easy to just give up. The inertia in those early days was a veritable force, and one that I would have gladly backed down from, had the alternative not been worse. But the alternative was worse, far worse: it was to continue as we were, living life as three separate human beings, albeit under the same small roof. What’s fascinating is that up until pretty much that exact point I would have put my hand on the Bible and sworn that we were a close and loving family.
But that is the dark side of all beliefs – they blind us from the truth.
The truth about our family relationships was just one of many truths that had been revealed since starting to align to The Ageless Wisdom through Universal Medicine. The beliefs that I had previously encased myself in had started to fall away and, as uncomfortable as it was at times, more and more of the truth was gradually being revealed.
However, although my intention was to bring a deeper level of connection to our family, I often lacked a deeper level of connection with myself. And as it is only by first establishing a deeper level of connection with ourselves that any of us are able to bring about a deeper level of connection to others, it meant that my attempts were thwarted before they’d even begun. The main saboteur to my connection with myself was judgement – I was steeped in the stuff. I didn’t even need to open my mouth for others to feel the scorn of my judgement: it seeped from my pores.
Manipulation and control rode on the back of judgement to produce a nasty combination that ensured that ‘quality’ was nowhere to be seen. For months, my night time routine was to stand at the living room door on my way to bed and sulkily ask my partner if he was going to come to bed too. I, of course, knew full well that he wouldn’t but when he confirmed that he wasn’t, I would slouch across the carpet and kiss him goodnight reluctantly, before slouching off to bed. What a setup. Really, what an ugly setup, and one that guaranteed that my partner would never come to bed because, seriously, who would?
So those early years of trying to instigate change were difficult, very difficult indeed, and for all of us. The boys had their ways of dealing with life and I was trying to haul them away from their tried and tested ways of coping.
The game-changer came in a single sentence during an esoteric healing session. I was talking about my struggle with the amount of time that my son spent on his screens and the practitioner said, “it’s what you communicate with your body that counts.” I knew instantly that what I had been communicating to both my son and my partner was a general air of displeasure, mixed with a liberal sprinkling of judgement and scorn. So truly, what change could possibly come about from that, other than both of them getting pretty fed up with me?
It was from that point on that I started to get honest about what I was really communicating with my family and I did this by getting very honest about what it was that I was communicating with my body, something that I hadn’t, up until then, been choosing to pay attention to.
If, for example, I was about to bowl into my son’s room and interrogate him about what he was watching, then when possible, I stopped myself. When I felt myself ‘too busy’ to stop properly and greet my partner when he came in from work then again, to the best of my ability, I would stop what I was doing and be present with him. When I felt the next thing on my to-do list pulling me away from lingering on my son’s bed, I would resist the urge to jump up and instead commit to a few minutes more of gentle touch. And although my body could not always be convincing in what I wanted to communicate, this stage was a very necessary one.
In some ways it has been a slow process, but in another way it’s been quick, especially considering how profound the changes have been. My family feels completely different now, and both my son and my partner have changed beyond recognition, as have I. What I have come to feel is that change in one person provides others with an open invitation to also change, but only when the change is an offering and never when it is enforced on another.
It feels like we’ve all gone from being one dimensional cardboard cut-outs of ourselves, to newer, fuller and truer multi-dimensional versions of ourselves. The rather dead staleness that I found so suffocating in our relationships before has been replaced with an aliveness that is palpable. An aliveness that starts with each of us, and one that we then bring into our relationships with all others.
As long as I don’t have any set ideas about how our family should look, and as long as I keep being honest about my contribution (what I bring with my body), then I know that the quality of our relationships will keep refining and deepening.
And one of the wonderful things about it all is, there is no end to where we can go in our relationships with one another.
Published with permission of my son and partner.
By Alexis Stewart, disability support worker, yoga teacher, massage therapist, mother, partner, self-appointed cheerleader for humanity, woman whose identity as an individual seems to be fading fast
Further Reading:
True Relationship with Self
Honouring the Purpose of Family
From Family Madness to a Miracle Re-union
423 Comments
” The rather dead staleness that I found so suffocating in our relationships before has been replaced with an aliveness that is palpable.” I can so relate to this its what I now have as the very basic foundation to my marriage and our relationship and with that also with our kids, work and family.
‘ The main saboteur to my connection with myself was judgement – I was steeped in the stuff.’ hummm I can relate, and also to the dropping of judgement of myself is also a huge blessing for everyone around me too.
‘The rather dead staleness…’ This feels endemic in life as a whole, this rather dead staleness. I love how you and your family have chosen to rise up out of this dead staleness, Alexis, to begin replacing it ‘with an aliveness that is palpable.’ Goes to show how even when we have fallen into the trap of accepting that the dead staleness is just the way it is, we can choose to choose again.
It is very revealing when as a family it feels uncomfortable to sit down and share a meal together, revealing in how our relationships with each other really are, it is a moment when it is kind of in our face and we cannot ignore how we have been living with each other (or of course we can choose to ignore it … which is why it is uncomfortable eating dinner together in the first place!). But as you have showed here, when willing anything can change and be healed.
“My family” – is anyone aligned to love.
Does that rule out everybody that’s not?
Wow, Zofia. This blows the standard definition of family to pieces. I know ‘families’ who are anything but aligned to love yet still insist they are family because of blood ties. Your comment brings family into the true meaning of brotherhood where blood ties have nothing to do with the alignment of love.
We are all here to hold and cherish everyone else. No doubt when we do we see there’s no divide between us all.
No divide and no separation, only what we put in place to keep others out.
Boom! Not until we lay our arms down can the utter truth of your words be felt and heard, Ariana. ‘No divide and no separation, only what we put in place to keep others out.’
It is so true we are all communicating constantly with our movements they can either be open to others or communicating our judgements.
Movements also convey whether we are moving in step with God or out of step with God.
I love this simple statement that ..”it’s what you communicate with your body that counts.” We don’t always appreciate how much non-verbal communication we put out, our movements are so important as the body is always communicating without even opening our mouths.
In fact keeping our mouth shut can often speak volumes in itself, especially if we pay attention to the shape of the person’s lips who’s keeping their mouth (tightly?) shut.
We can learn so much about our state of being and what we’re communicating by being more aware of our body.
Agreed Fiona and it is precisely because we are so unaware of our bodies that we are so unaware of our state of being.
Gorgeous to read the truth that is possible in families. We can all too often be masked my the roles of family before putting first the fact that love is not about being nice or controlling but about being able to deepen each other through honesty and true relationships.
‘There is no end to where we can go in our relationships with one another.’ Beautifully said, the moment we think we have got ‘it’ then we have limited the love we are. I know for me this is then where complication comes in as essentially we are saying that’s enough, whilst at the same time the Universe is expanding meaning if you want to be love you to also have to and so to stay the same means the level of love essentially lessens. And it is a joy when each day you can awake to your partner with the sense and feeling that you love them more deeply today than yesterday.
I know very deeply that what we all desire is to be in true relationship with each another. We can feel such a tension when we don’t express clearly or in full, and or hold one person above another, family member or not. The great thing is that it is possible to start building deeper relationships with each other and this does spiral out to all and every relationship.
Man it’s great you had your own healing of your own hurts in this process. Imagine if you didn’t. No wonder domestic violence and abuse is so rife in this world at the moment.
Thank you for your honest sharing about your family. Judgements on others will never bring true change, it makes us hard and we will hold on to what we believe needs (our need) to change. True change will come from us accepting what is there and being aware that a change comes from within. It should be always an offering. What I’ve learned in my family life when we come from judgement we are imposing on others what we miss in ourselves.
Believes about family, or any topic in life, are often illusions: they keep us in doing things that are often not right, or truthful. Often when an illusion is cracked, I feel really uncomfortable, but I now that is part of evolution: falling out of illusions.
It would be great if we were all taught at school about energy and how it plays out. But failing that, just discussing the factor of judgement would be so empowering. It’s everywhere in this world and while we cannot get rid of it just like that we can see it for what it truly is.
That will be the day when schools would teach us about energy. It is something I clearly missed out on and am learning about now in my adult life. Bringing it up as a topic with others whether grownups or children gives insight in what happens in between us and provides an opening for understanding and a deeper connection.
And ultimately there will be the day when schools won’t need to teach us about energy because we are masters of it already and we will be choosing to live in a way that doesn’t interfere with our natural and innate understanding of it.
A beautiful sharing about how we can change our family lives by bringing in the quality with everything especially our movements and the effects this has is beautifull to observe and be part of and very inspiring.
“it’s what you communicate with your body that counts.” How different the world would be if we were all aware of this and then actually lived it.
We do know it, we just choose not to be consciously aware of it because if we did we’d be calling ourselves out for choosing to move against the grain of God.
So true Alexis, and there is so much that we do know but often we choose to play a game where we convince ourselves that we don’t know much at all. For example, when we don’t know who we are or who God is and we might even travel the world looking high and low and most likely getting lost along the way. The truth is we have access to a greater intelligence all along.
Everything is constantly changing especially our relationships. When we remain relating in the same way we are often not challenging each other to go deeper and we lose out at experiencing more intimacy.
Sometimes patterns of behaviour in group dynamics like families can be so ingrained that it can seem impossible to overcome them, but not so. As you have shown here what it takes is changing the energy and the reflection and a good helping of patience.
I have just shared a few days with my immediate family it is something we have been doing for a few years now. Everyone looks forward to the time we will spend together, we go for long walks, go shopping and visit the local attractions in the area but most of all we enjoy each others company. We have come a long way from the bitchiness and spitefulness, jealousy, envy, comparison that got in the way of developing a true relationship with each other. We know that we all bring something different to the family get together and these qualities are to be valued and they are. I know in my heart that this deep level of sisterly love and understanding would not have been remotely possible if it wasn’t for the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine they have supported me to know myself and in that knowing I can relate to not only my family but all others in a much more loving way.
How beautiful Mary.
‘…there is no end to where we can go in our relationships with one another…’ this is so brilliant and inspiring… for every depth of openness and engagement we have with ourselves or someone else, there is the all that is still to be explored. I love it.
Connection with ourselves and the quality and way we live in our family and relationships is everything and the more we build and claim this with ourselves the more beautiful it becomes .
Agreed Tricia, the ‘connection with myself and the quality and way that I used to live’ was very much like a dried up and wizened old tree root but through the constant nourishment of self care and now self love that dried up old tree root feels like it has flourished into an abundant tree.
It is so fantastic to know how we have been in our families to understand how not to be like so in the future. When that penny drops, we can then live this observation and not enjoin it.
True Gill and from there miracles can happen.
What we currently refer to as ‘miracles’ are set to become everyday occurrences.
Being aware of what we communicate with our bodies – we register so much more than another’s words, and if their body language, the way they move, doesn’t match the words because they’re not being lived by that body, it’s easy to ignore or dismiss what’s being said.
Absolutely, we can register so much through what is communicated through our body. We can sit in a conversation and not open our mouth and people in the conversation can feel if there is judgement coming from us or an openness and acceptance.
Our body is the only part of us that registers anything.
The start of bringing a big change can often feel so slow that it is easy to give up as nothing changes but it is worth it to hang in there and keep uncovering the next steps as the more we keep going the more easy it gets.
Yes, that’s true. In the beginning it felt similar to a very old slow locomotive train that could hardly move and yet now there’s a little bit of a rhythm, a bit more of a clickety-clack of the wheels on the track and it feels like it’s slowly gaining momentum all the time.
So true and always make it about the basics and the other things come around with them.
Alexis, this is really important; ‘it is only by first establishing a deeper level of connection with ourselves that any of us are able to bring about a deeper level of connection to others.’ I have found that I need to care for and love myself first in order to care for and love others and so working on my connection with myself then naturally allows for deeper, more honest connection with my family.
I recognize this too Alexis: the illusion that we are doing the right thing, holding it as a strong belief. And indeed sometimes takes another to destruct such an illusion. For me that can feel very uncomfortable, as the belief gave a sort of certainty, but the in the end I always welcome this destruction. So I remove this block to move on and evolve further to a life based on love.
The awareness offered here can be applied to all sorts of situations in life. Reading this for example has been an inspiration for how I can be with those I live with, those I share a building with, those I work with. The possibilities of application of the wisdom offered is huge.
When you really stop to think about it, it is a very interesting thing to consider that you can coexist under the one roof and not really be connected to one another.
What’s more incredible is that so many people coexist under the one roof and hate the people who they live with (and I’m definitely including family in this statement).
It is not an exaggeration to say that often our time at the table is when we all are in the same place at the same time, if we do not do that as a household, we would miss out on that connection. This would have a major impact in our relationships, it is super lovely to all catch up and take time to reflect on how we are going and learn from our day.
Everything that we see, we see through the eyes of ourselves.
Love in one person promotes love in another because love will always recognises itself.
I have an amazing and deeply loving family – but I value them only as much as I value myself. When I am truly honouring myself – I can see my family for the amazing strength and love they all are.
“As long as I don’t have any set ideas”. This has been such a killer for me and can still get me. Who painted those pictures in the first place anyway – so why on earth am I being so loyal to them? It’s crazy—and deeply damaging.
So true Otto. There are so many set ideas and pictures around family that it is hard to define what is true and what is not until we start to unpick them, and then we begin to find there are hundreds, each with the potential to be deeply harming