As we get into the holiday season, most of us will spend some extended time with our family, parents

As we get into the holiday season, most of us will spend some extended time with our family, parents, brothers & sisters, etc. Relationships with those “we do not choose” are the most difficult yet essential healing steps for our path. I wanted to offer a short “survival guide”, with 10 tips or ways to approach with more peace and more forgiveness our family, parents, and the family our soul has chosen to come in.

It is indeed the hardest workshop you will attend! Your relationships… A workshop you were “signed up into”, which can allow you to walk your talk as a spiritual seeker in more power, more truth, more growth than any workshop you can ever sing up for!

I like to remind myself that it is easy to think we are walking the path when we hang out with “our choir” but the true test is to come back to our families, to be in relationship, to sit with those we disagree with, to choose listening above talking, to give even when we don’t receive, to hold space for those who can’t breathe any peace anymore.

So here are 10 tips, which should help you tap into your Heart, and keep your “cool” while healing you and your family karma…

Choose peace over being right. What matters to you is to be right or would you choose peace instead? Often not getting into a discussion or argument, while not “checking out” but keeping an active listening is a place of true power.

Remember everyone has shadows (you too!). So when you see someone shadows and don’t understand how they can’t see it, imagine your shadows, that other see but that you cannot see. Equal & Fair game

JDealing with someone who is very difficult. When facing someone who has a lot of anger, judgment, remember you only have to be with that person for a few hours or days, but they have to be with their pain 24/7 and may be all their life. A powerful way to open to empathy and compassion.

The story in your head. Often with a family member or old relationships, we have build a story and have “framed” that person in it forever. Open to the possibility that your story might have missing elements (your shadows, unknown fact, etc) and is often much bigger than the truth. Come into the space with an open heart like it’s the first time you meet that person, give a chance to a new energy.

Enter the space with forgiveness. Decide before meeting that you will give your forgiveness over the past and whatever will happen: “I create a space where you can be angry, where you can disagree with me, and in that space, I still love you and hold your pain”. You will be surprised of the powerful shift in energy when you hold that prayer/thought as you meet others.

Be vulnerable. When we share our stories from a place of authenticity and vulnerability we allow others to see us. But it also allows others to be vulnerable and to be seen. Once someone has been fully seen it create a safe space, no need to “protect” or “fight”. I am offering my brokenness. I allow you to be broken with me.

Understand that there is more between you & them than the story of this life... It might be harder if you don’t believe in souls and in the fact that we have previous lives lived with others. But yes we have often been with our family members in many lives before (and it was not always peaceful & easy!). I have a personal powerful example of a family karmic tension that was almost fully resolved once I learned the past lives I had with them. I totally understood why those tensions were there and I could release the “story” I created knowing there was way more to it than any memories I had.

Release expectation. It’s ok if we disagree. I can agree to disagree. I can agree that we are not going to find a ground of full liberation. It is not my job, even as a healer/seeker/channeler to heal you. I will own my stuff and my issues, but I won’t have to “own yours” nor do I have to be “your medicine”. I release you so you can release me.

Focus on what you have in common. Even with very difficult people, there are subject, places, ideas, we agree on. Can we talk more about those? Can I focus more on the discussions where you and I agree? I will build & reinforce the bridge, even the tiniest one. It is where you and I can start the work and walking with more ease together.

Your way of showing love is different than mine. Your mother, father, brother, sister, uncle, etc have a different way to show love than the one we might “want/need”. I might not tell you “I love you” but I will cook for you or help you to do something. Read the 5 languages of Love and have fun taking the test with your relatives.

There is no miracle solution or perfect relationship. Remember that it is in the area of tension, on the edges, that we grow, that we learn, that the divine comes in. A dear friend and pastor reminded me last weekend that God/Higher Consciousness comes in from the EDGES. Not from the obvious, not from the center. So be curious and interested and see the messages of your guides coming from those areas of tension. I promise you that in the case of family, your soul was not born there randomly and some of the greatest gifts of light come from the darkest member of our tribe.

Finally, surround yourself with an attitude of Love, brings Love in, show Love in your words, your act. Walk your talk as best as you can. And be gentle with yourself, bringing Joy, compassion and humor in a difficult situation will for sure shift the energy. We cannot be responsible for how other react, but we can AND HAVE TO fully own how we show up and re-act. Be Love. Be You.

Oh and a good idea is to bring some sage and smudge the room and people when you get there! First time I did this in my family everyone looks at me “weird” but they enjoyed it so much that they ask me to get them some sage smudge for this holiday! Sage is smarter than us all ;-)

Happy Holy Days, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Yule!

G