Maintaining The Family
Realizing the limits on our finite time together on earth and the preciousness of family can us help to soften our hearts, become more forgiving and understanding and show greater affection. The loving, compassionate side of our nature is activated with this realization.
Watching our parents get older and struggle with challenges that aging can sometimes bring is not easy for anyone.
People who claim they have not, at times, felt scared, helpless, frustrated, discouraged or sad in these situations are lying. Giving in to (or allowing) these kinds of feelings, and permitting the cold, hard side of our nature to prevail, is a formula for corrosive family conflicts, fragmentation and, ultimately, heartache.
4 Ways to Take Responsibility
forgiver Family Dynamics
It’s up to us to decide whether we will become impatient and intolerant, or patient and compassionate, sons or daughters. Similarly, it’s up to us as mothers or fathers of adult children to decide whether we’re going to feed and fuel the difficult, insensitive, non-communicative and unapproachable part of our inherent nature that sometimes arises in challenging moments in our families or foster the part that is loving, open and understanding.
Here are four ways to assure that you and your family get better as you get older:
1. Open the Channels of Family Communication (and Keep Them Open)
Nothing ensures positive aging as a family more than good communication. In almost any situation, being truthful, trustworthy, respectful, caring, empathetic and proactive (getting and staying ahead of the pain and conflict curves) successfully opens the lines of communication and love. Forthright communication and active listening affords family members the opportunity to talk through differences and reaffirm the common ground on which they stand.
2. Ask — Don’t Assume You
Know
Since very few of us are mind readers, the best way to make sure that we and our family members will get better, smarter and easier to be with as we get older is to ask perceptive, open-ended questions. Listen. And learn. The human experience of feeling understood is the basis for so much peace, love and progress. By slowing things down and asking your family members what they want, how they feel and what they think should happen next, we build the kind of safe, strong relationship that makes anything possible.
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