• Home
  • Blog
    • Healthy Lifestyle
    • Relationships
    • Health Problems
    • Social Issues
  • Comments Policy
  • Links
  • Terms of Use
  • Subscribe to the Blog
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
Everyday Livingness
Family, Relationships 428 Comments on My Family

My Family

By Alexis Stewart · On September 30, 2018 ·Photography by Joseph Barker

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

Share

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • More
  • Email
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Share Tweet

Alexis Stewart

An absolute lover of life. A woman who plays for the sheer joy of it. A perpetual ponderer, who's constantly piecing things together. A woman who is at last claiming herself in full.

You Might Also Like

  • Parenting

    Turning Single Parenting on its Head

  • Male Relationships

    The Bulldozer, and the Butterfly

  • Communication

    Expressing the Unexpressed

428 Comments

  • Mary says: May 9, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    This is a great sharing
    “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 often when we sit down with people we talk about the weather, the day we may have had or a particular incident from the day. It’s not often that we can sit down and actually express what is going on and how we are feeling. We don’t really say anything and keep life at a superficial level. It’s a bit like the analogy of having a big White Elephant in the room and everyone is determined to ignore it and pretend it is not there. So to expose what sitting down and sharing a meal together was like is the first step in unpicking the fabric of life we have fallen for.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: August 29, 2019 at 7:12 am

    When we walk in the appreciation of our essences then every relationship will become more intimate as we can never be appreciative without intimacy!

    Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: August 30, 2019 at 5:30 am

      and we can’t be intimate without also being appreciative. Intimacy and appreciation knit each other closer together. How beautiful is that?

      Reply
  • Mary Adler says: August 19, 2019 at 1:55 pm

    Thank you Alexis for the inspiration to deepen our relationship with every conversation we share.

    Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: August 20, 2019 at 5:29 am

      And thank you Mary for reminding me this morning that every conversation that I have is an opportunity to go deeper in my relationship with myself as well as with the person I am conversing with. My body can be a tool to take things deeper or I can use it to maintain the status quo and fortify the illusion. It is my choice and it is one that I am making in each and every moment.

      Reply
  • sueq2012 says: June 5, 2019 at 4:11 am

    ” “it’s what you communicate with your body that counts.” This is such a great reminder for me. Reflection is everything. Our body speaks louder than our words.

    Reply
  • sueq2012 says: April 14, 2019 at 1:49 pm

    Yes . It is said we communicate far more with our body language than with our words. Our movements say so much. When we learn to read energy again – as we did when young – we pick up so much.

    Reply
  • sueq2012 says: April 14, 2019 at 1:44 pm

    Loved re-reading your blog Alexis. “it’s what you communicate with your body that counts.” I’m about to visit my grandchildren – And yes absolutely – my body and my movements speak louder than my words

    Reply
  • Alexis Stewart says: March 22, 2019 at 5:47 am

    In short our movements reflect our relationship with God. At any point in time we are all either moving in sync with Him or out of sync with Him. We can never move without Him, as He is in us always but we certainly can move against His natural rhythm. Therefore what each of us is acutely aware of, albeit unconsciously is those who are moving with God and those who are not.

    Reply
    • Mary says: July 17, 2019 at 4:03 pm

      Alexis your comment is to me like a bomb going off
      “In short our movements reflect our relationship with God. At any point in time we are all either moving in sync with Him or out of sync with Him. We can never move without Him, as He is in us always but we certainly can move against His natural rhythm.”
      And this is what we do, we move out of rhythm with God which keeps us in the separation to him so that we can create our own rhythm which is individuality, just because we can. This is the bomb going off because it clearly shows to me our arrogance and lack of responsibility as we are Gods living as un-Gods.

      Reply
      • Alexis Stewart says: July 19, 2019 at 5:19 am

        And Mary it takes constant effort for a God to live as an un-God and the crazy thing is we refer to that constant effort as ‘our life’ including all of the so called ‘good bits’. The things we champion, the things we celebrate, the things we strive for are actually all the things that keep us out of rhythm with God. It’s absolutely crazy when you really consider what’s going on.

        Reply
  • Vicky Cooke says: March 13, 2019 at 5:39 pm

    Isn’t it amazing and also incredibly sad that we can live with people or a person yet there is no deep connection or expression of how we feel or are feeling? It is like people living in the same space but just doing their own thing. I have a feeling this is currently a bit of an epidemic! We have so much to learn, explore and heal with regards to all of our relationships.

    Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: March 14, 2019 at 9:14 am

      I couldn’t agree more Vicky. We are living in an energetic ocean of what amounts to the most intimate of relationships and yet we are keeping pretty much everyone at arms length. This is a tragedy that most are consciously unaware of. We are One undivided energetic mass of God and yet we behave like separate fragments.

      Reply
    • sueq2012 says: April 14, 2019 at 1:47 pm

      Yes. Seeing couples and or families together, yet they are often all on their screens. No meaningful communication at all. No connection. Sad

      Reply
      • Alexis Stewart says: April 15, 2019 at 6:02 am

        Sue, this is something I’m very aware of too. But I’m also very aware that I can very easily go into judgement and also sadness when I see people on their screens and judgement and sadness are just as destructive as checking out on a screen.

        Reply
  • LE says: February 28, 2019 at 7:37 am

    I reconnected tonight with members of my family I have not seen for years, it was at a funeral and many of us have not seen each for a long long time. The love felt between us all was undeniable and reinforced what I know to be truth – that time is irrelevant when it comes to love

    Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: February 28, 2019 at 7:50 pm

      The timelessness of love is a beautiful thing indeed.

      Reply
    « 1 … 6 7 8

    Leave a reply Cancel reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Search

    Subscribe

    Recent Posts

    • Turning Single Parenting on its Head
    • My Evolving Relationship with Movement
    • The Bulldozer, and the Butterfly
    • How I Have Come to Not Be Owned by Social Media
    • Building a True Relationship with Food

    Categories

    • Health Problems (6)
      • Dementia (1)
      • Digestive Issues (1)
      • Eating disorders (3)
      • Fatigue/Exhaustion (1)
      • Migraines (1)
    • Healthy Lifestyle (92)
      • Drug Abuse (3)
      • Exercise & Sport (25)
      • Healthy diet (29)
      • Music (1)
      • Quitting alcohol (13)
      • Quitting coffee (2)
      • Quitting smoking (4)
      • Quitting Sugar (4)
      • Safe driving (2)
      • Sleep (4)
      • TV / Technology (12)
      • Weight Loss (2)
      • Work (2)
    • Relationships (147)
      • Colleagues (2)
      • Communication (11)
      • Couples (33)
      • Family (29)
      • Friendships (18)
      • Male Relationships (7)
      • Parenting (28)
      • Self-Relationship (40)
      • Sex & Making Love (6)
      • Workplace (10)
    • Social Issues (51)
      • Death & Dying (9)
      • Education (14)
      • Global Issues (7)
      • Greed/Corruption (1)
      • Money (3)
      • Pornography (1)
      • Sexism (14)
      • Tattoos & Removal (2)

    Archives

    • Home
    • Blog
      • Healthy Lifestyle
      • Relationships
      • Health Problems
      • Social Issues
    • Comments Policy
    • Links
    • Terms of Use
    • Subscribe to the Blog
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.