Have you ever noticed there are people in your life who just drive you nuts? There are people who do not seem to do it the “right way”; the people who just seem to be so different from you and at the same time are a part of your family. What do you do?
Love them anyway. Okay, but what about the part where they do not do it right, whatever right is? Do you judge the individual or individuals for being different and if so, by whose measuring stick are you doing the measuring?
Do you distance yourself from the individual and create a deeper separation from family that eventually becomes a loss scenario with the potential for long term disconnect; or do you love them anyway? Think about this for a moment.
What life scenarios have the potential to create detachment between yourself and someone else? The list is endless. Consider if the following resonate with you or someone whose situation you are already aware of; addictions, domestic violence, marriages sometimes create distention and detachments from others.
Hmmm, when someone dies a separation can be created between family and others for different reasons. Ponder the times you heard of the matriarch or patriarch in a family dying and then the rest of the family falls apart. Mental illness scenarios can cause misunderstanding or lack of understanding and assumptions made on both sides that can affect how people interact or don’t.
The loss scenario’s potential is huge for you and the other individual(s). Do you try to make the individual come around to your way of thinking? What if you are the one who others think is different?
Do you have the strength and courage it takes to make the first move if distention has occurred in your family? Do you have the strength and courage to say in your heart or out loud “I love you anyways”? I do not have all the answers. I do know what I am writing about and what you are reading at this moment exists in many families and can last for generations.
Approval, respect, being appreciated, being loved and more are earned not forced. Love can happen from afar and in some cases never leave the heart. If you are or have experienced detachment with family can you “love them anyway”?
What does it take to do this? Perhaps you are never acknowledged for what you truly feel or understand, but deep inside you the decision to “Love them anyway” is yours to be made.