Identity Crisis

Have you heard the expression, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family? Have you ever smirked and said these words, referencing your own relatives? The holidays are coming and this is high time for some good old fashioned bullet dodging and grinning and baring the situation, isn't it Dear Reader? How many obligatory visits are in your calendar and conversely, how lonely are you for even just one of those have-to-get-togethers because you long for the connectedness that the holidays hold as promising? Look at your family history and dynamics, what is missing? What is just right? What do you want more or less of? Who are these people that remarkably resemble you and yet, oddly feel like strangers? It can send one spiraling into an identity crisis and with the chaotic feeling there may be a driving desire to disassociate, disconnect, run far and away from the people you don't want to be anything like. The desire to create our own identity is so strong that with any amount of imagination, we can rebuild ourselves into something brand new, almost unrecognizable. How do you relate to this Dear Reader? Have you been the one, running away from those people, the ones that have the same blood line? Have you made a family from your friends, given yourself the solace of associating with people you can relate to, want the same things as you do, value what you value? Alignment. We all want this wonderful form of affirming alignment. It is a comfort and gives us a sense of being on track, moving in the right direction with people who want to go where we want to go. It is a Goldilocks approach to life, finding the just rightness that matches what we want to believe and feel on the inside, that is just right for each one of us as individuals. It is a right of passage and regardless of the age that this takes place, it is an important stage for personal, professional and spiritual growth. It is at this juncture that you get to decide who you are, who you want to be, who people see you as and what your stated reason for being in this world is? Sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? Sounds like you have to figure it all out, right now? Not so, not at all. We grow in stages, adapt and change, transforming day by day. The you that was is no more and tomorrow you will be different yet again. The family, the ones that have the same blood coursing through their veins, they will always be your family no matter how fast or hard you try to run or change this by sheer will power. There is something significant about your roots...God made them for you and you for them Goldilocks...go find out who you are by all means but remember this, your family of origin cannot be denied and one day, you will be grateful that they waited, with open arms, for your return home.