Some wise spark once said "So, you think you are enlightened… go and spend two weeks with your family," and these words are whirling around my mind at the moment when, after three years apart, I return to my parents' home.
Not three years of desperately trying to separate myself from the family tree, but separation simply through distance and circumstance of living in another country.
Strangely enough the culture shock of finding myself back in the family home, where everything seems smaller than I remember it, especially the mindsets, seems far greater than finding myself in a new culture halfway round the world.
Perhaps you know that sinking feeling that nothing really has changed since you moved out how evermany years ago, roles are there to be played out and you find yourself all too soon teetering on the edge of a teen tantrum just like back in the good old days of 1986.
Your bedroom may have been kept as a shrine to your teenage years or turned into an office, but somehow walk through the front door of your parents' house and you are put immediately into a box labeled 'child,' 'daughter,' 'son,' 'brother,' 'sister.' You may feel like a Peter Pan who is not allowed to grow up.
It takes a strong person to establish a new role for themselves on their return. It takes a lot of life force not to be limited by preconceptions and help the family evolve. Families often get stuck and when you step back in the home, you often devolve rather than move forward! But the beauty of creating a conscious family is the ability for it to evolve, rather than playing out old patterns.
So where does that leave me? So far this week there has been a minor sulk about not being acknowledged as a creative spirit and it being hinted at that I should simply work in a bar for the next few months rather than do the work I am actually trained in - ah a bar job, and I'm back in a box marked 1995. The 'Father Knows Best' attitude is definitely top of the pops to trigger me… Parents like partners certainly know how to push your buttons.
Our family patterns are not hideously tortured, but like most, there is that underlying river of needing to please the parent, show how successful we have been and for them, acknowledging that the path they cut out for you was the right one, in a ‘I told you so' kind of way.
I have always been the cheese to my father's chalk. He worries about the smaller things, while I appreciate the finer things in life. He veers one way, then the other and then totally misses his chance… while I tend to jump on and worry about the consequences later.
My life approach is almost a dogmatic tangent to how my father has led his. But what next? I feel like on some level the buck stops here and part of my life's purpose is to show the man whose glass is half empty how to refill it. A tall order?
Certainly we have the ability to put a stop to patterns that are played out through the generations of our family tree. My father in fact had the strength to stand up to the tyrannical father that stood before him and to provide a supportive shoulder for me.
We all have the ability to put a stop to the past dramas, take responsibility for ourselves, see where our family dynamics and dramas affect us, and to create a stopping point and not take it into the next generation. It is up to us to see how our family moulds itself and us, and, how easy it is to follow the family patterns that are almost as concrete as our genetics.
It simply takes an intention to live your life as a unique individual and take each trigger that comes up as a lesson in our own evolution! Sounds easy… and really it is, intentions are like magic, they can completely change your mindset and your purpose.
I haven't worked out exactly how to tackle the conversations of the spiritual realm with my father and know that he wouldn't appreciate a birthday gift of an Osho book. My plan is more illustrative. By living my life the way I want to, by finding my life's purpose, I hope that this shows how the Universe supports and nourishes. By going with the flow and not sweating the small stuff, how life flows with you. How taking a chance can take you on a journey.
Try this meditation from Yogi Bhajan - A Meditation for Being Enough Just as You Are
Sit cross-legged with your right arm relaxed on your right knee. Your left hand is about six inches in front of the heart centre, palm facing inwards. Say 'I am' and move your hand closer to your check till it is about four inches away, then say 'I am' again and move it twelve inches from the chest. So with each 'I am' the hand moves from four to twelve inches from the heart. As teacher Gurmukh says "with each movement of your hand you are extending yourself beyond all the limits you have set for your body. In this meditation it's as if the 'little me', the finite, limited self, merges to become one with the 'big me', the infinite Self, over and over again. You will have an experience of how great, strong and vast you really are."