Family Bonds



Lenses

There’s a few metaphors for life that I like. One is that life is like a dolphin breaching the ocean's surface. We’re these meat bodies that arise from the primordial. We’ve got enough time to do a few beautiful tricks before our meat suit dissolves back into the primordial.

Another is that we are shot out of the womb like a cannon over a cliff. Without choice or instructions, we’re falling. There are billions of us falling. We’ve got a handful of womb dwellers within your reach. These are the people we know and love. We’re all destined to meet the ground.

The last is that we are a 7 billion headed wave. We’re collectively going somewhere no individual can change. We have the chance to surf the wave until it crashes or we can drown. Like the falling womb dwellers, we’ve got a handful of souls around us that we get to mingle with for the duration of the ride. If we get our bearings, we can help them surf too. Or they can help us.  

And it’s this that brings me to my point. Choose your tribe.

Genetic Loyalty Program

Most of us have an unconscious loyalty program compelling us to keep around our genetic kin. Even if our kin are abusive, psychic vampires, or apathetic culture zombies. We wear these connections like golden shackles. We’re proud to forfeit our soul’s true calling for our kin. We’re proud to let the failings of a brother keep us from chasing our dream.

Jesus had something to say about this (I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be quoting scripture sincerely but I had very blatant synchronicity around this quote and it’s what spurred the entire post.)

“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those in his own household.”

First, peep the fucking lyrical fire of that last sentence. Poetry. Anyways, the passage here highlights the idea that, if you, the individual, are going to really understand life for yourself, you have to sever your shackles to your family. This doesn’t mean you abandon them. This means you need to withdraw to a high enough vantage point to see the very flawed humanness of your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters.

Are they good for you now? In this moment, energetically, are they giving you energy, taking energy from you, or are you two mutually feeding each other? Let this linger for now.

Nuclear Family

The idea that a family is composed of a mother and a father, and a couple of children is an evolutionarily new convention. It’s an economically driven convention. A capitalist country wants a deeply fragmented society because every family unit will need a fridge, a car, a home. The more fragmented, the more plastic and steel the country can sell. But this has fragmented our psychological development.

There are a lot of heavy psychological events happening in the child’s psyche that are beyond the scope of this post. One that can be focused on is that the child looks to the parents as guiding lights for behavior. The obvious fact is that no two humans can adequately embody the spectrum of possible human personality. Sadly, most of our parents were pretty mundane or less then. We need mentors.

This need for mentorship is corrupted by our genetic loyalty program. The more unconscious of us think that we inherit our mentors. They believe that mom and dad are the paragons, the saints, the sole mentors. These people tend to not make it far in the game. To be great, you need great mentors.

Honestly access your genetic loyalty program. Family is inherited, tribe is chosen.

Tribe

Our twenties are about getting away from the protective womb of childhood and exploring. Figure out what we are. We need to loosen our family ties just enough so we can know who we are. If, after coming to some self-knowledge, you feel that your family connections are good for you, cultivate those relationships for the rest of your life. Nurture and love them. If you however come to realize that some family ties are shackles, remove them. Go find the connections that are like the ropes of a hot air balloon, those people who lift you up and inspire you. You are not obligated to be chained to the earth. 

Exercises

Make a list of your family members. Write a paragraph for each exploring how they limit and expand you. Do you feel guilty or shameful doing this exercise? You’re detecting your genetic loyalty program.

If you knew you would succeed, and money did not matter, what would you do with your limited life here on earth? Who, dead or alive, has accomplished this goal or something close to it? Read everything you can find from and about this person.

Advance exercise


Once you have found a mentor, every morning read their work for at least an hour for a month. Get to know them so well that they become a software running in your consciousness. Imagine talking to them over lunch. Ask them questions. Ask for guidance. Resurrect them.