Taming Family Members is as SImple as Owning Your Power

“Man with no relatives has few problems.”

Sidney Toler (as Charlie Chan), Charlie Chan in Panama

I don’t know if this quote from the 1940s Charlie Chan series of movies is actually ancient Chinese wisdom or simply Hollywood pop-psychology. But it certainly rings of an eternal truth. No one causes us more headaches than family members do. In fact, most of our problems in this life began with the dysfunctional parenting abilities of our mothers and fathers. Their dysfunction quickly spread to every member of our nuclear families, and was often reinforced by the dysfunctional “wisdom” of our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Yet the one family member who has probably done us the most damage is ourselves. Think about it. When we feel powerless around other members of our families, it’s because we have chosen to continually give our power away to them. We may blame them for victimizing us, but we are the ones who have actually victimized ourselves by not setting proper boundaries with our family members.

For example, let’s say we’ve decided we no longer have faith in religious institutions and we will no longer go to church on Sundays. When Mom calls and wants to know if we’ve been going to church, we have a choice. We can either cow-tow to her shaming words, taking on feelings of guilt and shame; or we can stand our ground, tell her that we are adults now and that we will make our own faith choices. We can then ask her to respect our decisions, clarifying that our choices are not a reflection upon her, but are simply what we have decide is right for us. If she chooses not to respect our choice and continues to bombard us with shaming words, we can choose to not be affected by them. We can choose to realize that they are her beliefs and feelings and they are hers alone to own—not ours. We do not have to take-on her feelings as if they belonged to us.

The same is true for dealing with the issues of any family member. If a sibling has a habit of getting him/herself into a financial bind, we do not have to bail him/her out every time. We are not responsible for their behavior: They are. And we are likewise not responsible for the consequences of our siblings behavior. We don’t have to own their issues and take them upon ourselves to solve. Let’s allow their problems to be theirs and our problems to be ours.

It’s also important to remember that a family members negative or nasty disposition is ALWAYS about them and where they’re at—not about us. When a family member is treating us harshly or in an ugly manor, it’s about their own brokenness and dysfunction. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be sucked-in by their behavior. We can choose to allow them to own and be fully responsible for their own words and actions. In doing so, we can allow any ugly behavior to roll off our backs by feelings sorry for them instead of taking their words and actions personally.

Yes, the person with no family members may have fewer problems, but we have to remember that we also need family members. Everyone has a need for a sense of belonging, and family is the first entity unto which we belong. As with everything in life, we need to take the good with the bad and family is no exception. We just have to learn how to set and enforce the proper boundaries with family members if our souls our to shine!