When you think about spending time with your family, how do you normally show up? Do you feel like you can participate in family gatherings or events and be totally open and allow your true self to shine through? Or do you find yourself participating in the same patterns, falling into the same old roles, and replaying the same dramas time after time? Many of us feel like we are expected to be a certain way around our families and feel like we don’t even have a choice about it.
For most of us, creating the idea of who we are and how we show up in the world is one of the main goals of becoming an independent adult. In order to do that, many of us have rejected patterns or roles we felt forced into as we matured. We may have grown up as the scapegoat of the family and dedicated our adult lives to being independent and free from others’ stories, yet when we come back home we find ourselves right back in those roles once again.
We may start to resent or resist even spending time with our families because every time we participate in these predefined roles, we feel our sense of self threatened. We resent the idea that others aren’t able to see, appreciate, or respect our growth. We may feel like we have made progress in our self-improvement only to take 3 steps backward after a weekend with our family. Childhood patterns of sibling rivalry, conflict avoidance or provocation, codependency, care taking, and self-sabotage will often take center stage in these interactions, sidelining the new patterns of independence, self-respect, and self-acceptance you may have been cultivating.
Often times it feels near impossible to honor the new self in the face of all the people who helped us co-create patterns we’ve been trying our whole lives to unravel. These family expectations can be linked to trauma patterns, old beliefs from childhood in this life or past lives, and subconscious wounding around abandonment, rejection, belonging, and survival. Imagine a life where you can totally honor who you are NOW, hold space and loving acceptance for your family, and create a new dynamic that honors all parties equally. Join Master Accelerator Bonnie Serratore as we shed family expectations and open the space for more authentic and loving connection!