Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 205 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thanks for being here.
So, I don’t make enemies. By that I mean I don’t create them. Everything I do every day is generally from a place of love. Love for myself and love for others. Now. I’m not perfect, so something happened this last week that tested my resolve to be the best version of me which includes being only kind and doing everything from a place of love. So I have talked about my middle sister who has basically cut us out of her life (sometimes I wonder if I talk about it too much but I think we can all relate to family issues).
I haven’t really talked to her or been able to love on my niece and nephew for over 3 years now. I don’t dwell on it because I don’t control it. I know I’ve done nothing wrong. I have accepted this as a part of my journey, not a part I like but a part nonetheless. Now. I have a big family. There are 5 of us kids. So we often are on group texts minus my middle sister.
So it’s my Mom, Dad, my older sister, my brother and of course my baby sister Molly. Now my mom god loves her and refuses to accept that My middle sister has cut me and two of my other siblings out of her life so she likes to include her in group texts. There’s a point to this story, I promise. Anyway she will sneak My middle sister into a family text stream whenever she can. My dad on the other hand cannot tolerate one second of conflict so he just doesn’t include Her on text streams he sends.
Now, they have a good relationship with My middle sister because they are all in the same religion. This may be confusing if you’re new to my podcast, so I’ll run down it quickly. My middle sister shunned me and my husband and my brother and my baby sister because we are not part of her religion. My mom and dad and older sister are also part of that religion but have said they don’t agree with what she’s done. That’s it in a nutshell.
So my parents were on a trip to Florida with just the two of them. And my dad had been sending pictures and we had been all texting (My middle sister is not on this text stream of course because it came from my dad) but he’s been keeping us updated about their vacation all week. So fun. One of the pictures was of my mom laying in the sun. So when my mom saw he had sent that picture. She decided to take a picture of him laying in the sun and instead of just sending it on the same text stream she started a new one…you guessed it..she added My middle sister.
Now. I realized that she had done this because it was a new stream and I saw My middle sister’s name in there. The not so loving, not so kind part of me wanted her to know that we had been on a fun text stream without her all week so I considered sending a text back to that new stream about how fun it’s been having this group text and how much I have loved all the pictures. But I stopped myself because I thought “is that authentic? Is that kind? Is that me showing up as the best version of me? No. To all of those questions. So I simply went back to the old text stream that didn’t include My middle sister and we continued our chat, no drama.
Now. Acceptance is the best that I can do here because I’m not ever going to feel great about the situation with My middle sister so I just accept if it isn’t changing any time soon maybe never and I don’t control it so I accept it. . But I also accept that part of me that wanted to be not so kind. It’s human nature to react when someone hurts you. I don’t beat myself up for thinking about sending that text, I realize that’s part of my journey and I’m really proud of how far I’ve come because I realized that wasn’t how I wanted to show up.
My brain wanted to create some drama there but I overruled it.
I’m proud of myself for that. We trip ourselves up so many times because we are just humans doing the best we can every day.
There are things we can’t control like my sister shunning me but there are also things we can control like our response. Fighting against it may be what someone else wants but accepting what you don’t control is what YOU want to do.
Now that doesn’t mean you just roll over all the time. I was talking to my mom a few weeks ago and she started down this long glowing report on My middle sister and what she’s doing…I don’t want to hear about her. Now, I constantly check on my niece and nephew but I’m simply not interested in wasting energy hearing or thinking about Her or her husband. That’s a boundary for me and I control that boundary so I simply told my mom, I love you and I know you’re in a hard position here but I don’t want to hear about My middle sister. I’m just not interested. It takes too much energy. I set that boundary and I do not allow anyone to cross it. I’ve told my older sister the same thing.
My mom’s intention is pure, I know that. She wants to act like nothing’s wrong there because the happiest she ever is is when all of her kids are under one roof with her. Well that isn’t possible for her right now.
I accept that my dad avoids conflict, I accept that my mom will constantly try to shift Sarah back into being part of the whole family, I accept that and love them anyway. I accept that my sister has shunned me…I certainly don’t control that and I love her because she is a human being worthy of love that’s the best I’ve got there, and that’s an advancement…for now I even accept the part of me that has unkind thoughts. They are getting fewer and farther apart the more I work on my mindset, but I’m never gonna be perfect and neither are you. Accept and love yourself anyway.
My meditation guide said this week “Acceptance is the ultimate act of loving kindness”.
The serenity prayer states that so beautifully. Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
There’s a lot we cannot change in the world right now. Can you work on accepting the things you don’t control in the best way you know how? Really think about it, if something is out of your control and it’s causing you a lot of problems…understand that you DO control your response to it can be life changing and then work on having the courage to change the things you can control…maybe setting and keeping those boundaries…whatever ones are going to give you peace. The boundaries I set with my mom are for my peace of mind. It wasn’t comfortable saying it but it’s more uncomfortable long term for me to not set them.
My challenge to you this week. That big thing that is really bothering you. Do you control it or do you need to accept it? Only you know. I love you guys. Talk to you in a few days.
