Becoming the Family You'd Choose

I am a huge believer in family.

The slight nuance to my belief is that when I talk about valuing family, I’m not being impartial.

My value of family recognizes that if you’re fortunate, the family that you choose may also be the family you were born into. Though recognize that there are many cases where the family we choose and the family we are born into, are mutually exclusive.

Often it is the path of healing, growth, and self-discovery that leads you to draw on this distinction.

In taking accountability for our own personal healing and inner alignment, we start to recognize the source of the wounds we’re healing from. It is the case for some of us, that embracing ourselves means drawing that line in the sand, and bring those toxic, generational cycles, inherent in our birth families, to an end.

Yet, we were only ever halfway there.

Even in severing ties from those we deemed were toxic family members around us, it is crucially imperative to also sever the ties that have laid their roots within us.

Inherent in aligning to the family you choose is being the kind of family you would have chosen. Being born in toxicity doesn’t condemn anyone to repeat it. You wage war when you make the choice to break free from generational cycles. As the dust settles, it is important to go inwards, identifying any traces of that history within us and to address it. It is for us to face any inner demons head on and intently invite them to leave.

Are you the family you would choose?

Without excuses or defence, without preamble or pretence… are you the kind of family you would have chosen, or are inclined to choose right now?

Recognizing that we are all perfectly imperfect.

Answering only from a place of self-love.

Healing is hard.

Normalizing toxic patterns of behaviour, to me, is decidedly harder.

The focus is less on the other, or the external. This stage and phase in healing puts the spotlight on self, and requires that we each go inward.

 It is in healing that we begin to recognize the standards that aligned with the behaviours that we normalized. It is in developing emotional awareness, and a sense of boundaries, that we realize that the bar was always set too low.

But… let’s not miss the mark.

If our standard for others is changing, then the standards that we hold ourselves to must also change.

It is in knowing and acknowledging the behaviours that hurt us, that we can root in our own journey the foundation of change. When we raise the bar for ourselves, we are now able to raise the bar for the people around us.

Those of us who are well acquainted with pain, cannot claim ignorance when confronted with the pain that our actions inflict on others.

We know what behaviours we’ve healed from.

And there is a responsibility that we carry to not carry the injury forward.

Rather, in healing, we hold ourselves accountable. It is for us to be intentional and mindful, not just of the people we surround ourselves with, but of the person we chose to become.

The person that our daily actions, choices, and behaviours reflects…

Because one individual that will not be overlooked as we begin to distinguish what family is, and how family behaves is ourselves.

If you had to choose between yourself and your family, because of toxic patterns of behaviour, you were your first explicit choice. You represent the family you’ve chosen.

In making that choice, commit to being the kind of family you could choose, without question.  So that when it comes time for your family of one to expand, there would be no hesitation.

There is something unspoken and deeply special, when reflecting on the families born of choice and connection, rather than circumstance and chance.

In the commitment to be healthy for ourselves, I enabled ourselves to be healthy for the families we choose… and that is the power of choice.

So, choose wisely, and be chosen with thoughtful care and consideration.

#Family #BreakingToxicCycles #MakingtheChoice

Becoming the Family You Choose