Episode 31: Navigating Holiday Family Drama
“Everybody has something to offer that´s why all beings exist. But if they are your family members, they have something special to offer to your particular story and to your particular being.”
-Isabel Keoseyan
Episode Summary
There’s that famous quote by Ram Dass, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” It is an almost universal condition that spending time with family at the holidays can be triggering like little else, even for avid meditators.
In this episode, Isabel and Kristen explore their own journeys with relating to their families and how they handle walking into family gatherings which they describe as “a true testing ground for your consciousness state.” So, before you go venturing back home and unpack all the emotional baggage that goes along with that, we hope this broadcast puts things in a higher perspective for an (almost) drama-less holiday season.
Highlights
1.14 feeling connected to others but not to family
1.30 A lot of our stress comes from family triggers. “If you think you are enlightened spend a weekend with your family.” Ram Dass
1.50 “Family is a true testing ground for your consciousness state.” Kristen
2.30 Unstainable patterns become hard to tolerate
4.00 Family dynamics changing with meditation
6.00 Evolving faster than those around you
9.00 Meditators pulling and shedding a light on those around them “meditation by proxy”
12.00 Allowing people to learn meditation in their own time
15.00 Choosing our parents based on what we want to learn in this lifetime
“What meditation gives you is understanding the different states of consciousness and understanding that they (our parents) did the best that they could with what they had. And when you truly get that, you forgive. And then it´s up to you to see how you can heal from that. Knowing that and healing from that eventually can give you that liberation.” Isabel
17.22 Reparenting ourselves through the vedic perspective
19.50 “Some people´s parents have died and they still are looking for validation from their parents. A validation that isn´t coming from that human being. But that validation can come from your own state of consciousness if you are able to expand it enough and tap into that divine source of divine mother and divine father.” Kristen
20.30 Reparenting your own parents – your consciousness can move past theirs
22.30 Having accurate expectations is what will get you through the holidays (and in life)
23.40 Putting our attention on something that is lovable
25.00 The small things that don´t matter
26.30 Remembering to relax and enjoy those moments with family
28.00 Quality vs quantity time
28.20 “Everybody has something to offer that´s why all beings exist. But if they are your family members they have something special to offer to your particular story and to your particular being.” Isabel
32.00 Setting boundaries - relationships that need to be severed
34.50 “People have to make themselves relevant to what you are becoming in your evolution and that includes family members.” Kristen
27.00 Co-dependency and the actual kind thing to do
40.00 Guilt trips
44.00 Witnessing our triggers and our progress
48.00 The perfection is in the disaster- it´s a different kind of beautiful