Starting The Year Right - Family Relationships

Good ol' family dynamics.. always fun to talk about after having just spent the last couple weeks on a mandarin orange and egg-nog turkey binge with them.  The reality is that while many people feel enriched by this family saturated season, others it is fraught with pain and sadness from loss of life or broken relationships.  


Whatever your circumstances, the aim of this post is to facilitate a moment to consider how important these relationships are to you, and how satisfied you are with their current state.  Then, of course, to consider setting some intentions of how you want to move forward in this area.  After all the remember the goal here is to help start taking actions that are consistent with what you value.

Before we begin, a caveat.  This does not include romantic/spousal relationships or parenting (ie your children).  We'll address those individually in the days to come.  That said, lets do some rating.

1.  How important are your relationships with your family of origin?  (0 - not important; 1 - moderately important; 2 - very important)


2.  How satisfied are you with the state of these relationships?  (0 - not satisfied; 1 - moderately satisfied; 2 - very satisfied)


3.  If you consider them important, let's set some intentions.  Here are some primers to get you going:  How do I want to interact with my family members?  What type of sister/brother do I want to be?  What type of son or daughter do I want to be?  As mentioned above this can be an emotionally charged topic, so be gentle with yourself.

Until tomorrow,

Bryn