When I was a little girl, I had this idea of what family looked like. Back then, family was a married mom and dad and some kids. You went to grandparent's houses for holidays, played with your cousins, hugged your grandparents and went home. You fought with your siblings and were ready to kill them because they bugged the crap out of you. It was the most "normal" family you could have back then.
As I grew up and my parents divorced, my idea of family expanded. It was step siblings and step parents and step grandparents. It probably should have made me sad at some level but it didn't. It was more family to love. You split how you spent your time but now you had two great families to spend it with. Even better!
Over the years, there have been in laws and ex-in laws. There have been almost step brothers and step sisters. There have been nieces and nephews. There have been a lot of changes made to the family and it always looks different. It always strayed from this picture I had in my mind of what a family was supposed to look like. It started to be a problem in my mind and heart.
In order to fix this problem, I had to re-define family. I'm a geek so I do it with lists and research and other geeky tools. One of Merriam Webster's definitions of families is " a group of things related by common characteristics." THAT was my jumping off point. What I wanted my family to look like was a "group of things related by common characteristics." Note that they don't have to be the exact same item; just items with common characteristics.
By default, the next question is what I want those characteristics to be. That is a bit more of a challenge. You can't change people's characteristics. Making such a "list" might mean having to let go of some of the people I've held as "family" all of this time. This was a hard step for me and one that I had to really think and pray over. It was hard for me to let go of the concept of family I'd set up as a child and give new life to what "family" meant to me. What characteristics do I want to see in family? Kindness, compassion, forgiveness, humor, support, and love. Those were the six that sprung to mind immediately. Added later was appreciation. Those seven characteristics were what I wanted my family to summarize.
But what if the people around you don't have these characteristics? That question is a hard one to cope with. That depends on the person. For me, allowing myself to have a healthy heart, mind, soul, and body means that I try to keep toxins out of my life. What is a toxin? Merriam Webster defines it as "a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism and is usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues, and typically capable of inducing antibody formation " Let's break this down a bit. A toxin's characteristics are that it is unstable, toxic when introduced to tissues and capable of antibody formation. If we were speaking for representative purposes, we could say that a toxic person is someone who is unstable, particularly toxic to our hearts and capable of producing drama within a family group or group of friends. Just like I attempt to keep a lot of toxins out of my body, this is how to protect my heart that same way. And just as I loved desperately some of the toxins I kept out of my body, I knew it was for the greater good to keep them away. This is how I needed to approach things with my heart.
My next step was to find out who the toxic people were in my life. Who made me feel bad when I was with them or talked to them? Who did I feel bad about just thinking of them? Who did I constantly struggle with feelings of helplessness in dealing with? Who had I tried to fix things with and it just didn't happen? Who were the truly toxic people in my life? Who were the people that were going to cause drama in my family group or group of friends. Who were the unstable people? Some of the people on my list did not SURPRISE me but they tugged at my heart strings; the ones that were in place from childhood telling me that I HAD to love them .
Nearing the end of this process, I began to eliminate the toxic people one by one. Some of them were easier. I chose those people first. Some of them were incredibly difficult and I'm still working on the ones that were the hardest. What I found, though, is that as I eliminated a "toxin" from my life, I began to feel healthier as a person. What I found is that the elimination of "toxins" made me feel whole again. It made me feel like me. It freed up space to allow someone or something else to be.
The last step of the process is truly letting go: letting go of the assumptions that I made as a child about what a family should look like, letting go of the people who continue to be toxic to me, and letting go of the old definition of family. It also involves accepting: accepting new and healthier concepts of family, accepting the people that I once held at arm's length to protect myself, and accepting the new definition of family.
Oddly enough, most of my family is not biologically related. This is a hard concept for some people to grasp. The reality, though, is that my "sisters' are not about blood relation; they are about people who are there non stop and share the laughter, tears, and every imaginable emotion in between. The reality is that my children get to see a true concept of how to treat people and aren't trapped in a biological web of how you HAVE to accept someone's behavior just because they are related to you. They are learning to treat people with dignity, respect and love because that is what they want in return. It's an invaluable lesson.
My journey is not for everyone. My definition of family is based on the characteristics that are important to me and a healthier life for me. That isn't going to look the same for every single person. I don't imply that everyone should dump their biological families in search of something better. I don't imply that everyone should define things as I do. I simply stand firm in the convictions that sometimes you have to make healthier decisions to have a healthier life. THAT is what family should be.
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