Family Relationships

The speaker discusses how self-authenticity relates to family relationships. They mention the unconditional love between parents and children and the desire to be in each other's company. They suggest that to have authentic relationships, parents and children need to relate to each other as fully authentic adults, rather than continuing the parent-child dynamic. They also mention the fear of abandonment that parents may have as their children grow up, leading them to spoil their children. The speaker admits that they and their siblings sometimes don't want to become adults and act like children around their parents. The ideal family relationship would involve unconditional love and authentic adult-to-adult interactions. The speaker believes that by being authentic and humble, they can bring something special to their family and elevate the dynamics. They mention past experiences where relating as equals with their family members brought joy. They acknowledge the presence of ego in thei I just wanted to do a talk about family relationships, and in particular how self-authenticity relates to those relationships. When I look at the relationship between my parents and their children, myself and my sisters, what we have is this enormous unconditional love, and that's why we crave each other's company so much, and we want to be in each other's presence, because there's a unique dynamic there, similar to what we have with our very, very good and trusted friends, but different. There's this unconditional love. What happens, I think if we look at family relationships in the context of self-authenticity, what we really want as children and parents is to relate to one another as fully authentic adults, so that means the whole parent-child dynamic that we had growing up really needs to be set aside, and we need to relate to one another as adults. What tends to happen, and it certainly happens in my family, is this kind of circle develops where the parents, their biggest fear, once they get past a certain age and once the children have grown up and left the nest, is that they're going to be abandoned. They worry that they're not going to see their children as much as they'd like to, so they tend to spoil us and go out of their way. It comes from their heart, absolutely, but also there's a little bit of it that comes from a place of fear. They're there spoiling us and preparing everything for us and making our lives easy, and what we do in our ego, and again, that's not to judge that action. That does come from a place of love, but there's probably small elements of it that come from a place of fear and ego. In terms of the children, myself and my sisters, we, in some ways, don't want to become adults. We kind of stay children, we stay a little bit dependent on our parents, and we don't really act like full adults around them. Sometimes we do, but we often don't. So that sort of cycle develops where the parents are the fear, that abandonment, they want us there, they want us with them, they spoil us. We get to, our egos get to lap up the luxury and continue to be children. The dream, of course, the goal of these family relationships, if you could say, what would be perfect? There would be this unconditional love, which is there anyway, that's always been there, and that's beautiful. But in addition to that, the way we would relate to each other as fully authentic adults, we wouldn't continue to act like children. We'd leave our learned behaviours of being a child behind, and we'd relate to our parents as adults, and they would relate to us. They wouldn't spoil us quite as much, and they wouldn't judge our actions, and that's the key. The reason I say that is, whatever happens, I've got a beautiful relationship with my family, and there is that unconditional love, but something is missing, there's something not right about the way we relate to each other sometimes, and I think that's it. I recall experiences where, occasionally, we do relate to one another as full adults. It might just be me catching up for coffee with my sisters to tell them about something, or it might be going out to dinner with mum and dad, and we are just equals, and we're adults, and we're enjoying each other's company as people, and it's magic. So I think, it's just my thought on why I've sometimes felt a little bit uncomfortable in the family context of my relationships, and I think it also comes down to that bigger issue of how we look at ourselves, how we identify ourselves, and quite often, in my relationship with my family, my authenticity is pointing me in the direction of saying, well, you really should do this, you should do this, but it's out of character with my past ego and what aspects of my previous behaviour that my parents and my sisters have come to know. So, because it would sort of surprise them and throw them out a little bit at some level, you know, you don't do it, the ego wins, and you just play your child role, and you go along and you're present, but I think there's so much more, I think I can have an extraordinary relationship with my family, and I can lead, at the moment, mum is the leader, and I can play a role, I can really set an example, not through telling anybody what to do, and not through doing anything in a self-serving way, but just through humility and authenticity, I think I can really bring something special to my family. You know, the few times I've done it in the past, I might have done something a little bit out of the ego, a little bit authentic, like I might organise a picnic down in South Perth, and it blows everyone away, it brings so much joy to our family, or I might do something for my nieces and nephews, and just that authentic giving takes the whole thing to another level, and that's what I want to do. And you know, there's other times, I guess, when I look at the relationships, where it's sometimes hard to connect, you know, maybe with my nana, my eldest nephew's grown up very quickly, and I think it's about having a bit of vulnerability and a bit of courage there to kind of step into that, and sort of say, look, here I am, let me see you, and go from there. But I just think I'm very blessed with my family, there's an unconditional love, but I need to be aware of the ego that resides in all of my family members, in my father, who's had a battle with himself his whole life, my sisters who likewise, like me, they grew up in a very intense environment when we were very young, and they haven't fully gone into the adult role yet, in their relationship with mum and dad, and it's about just being aware of where they're at, being fully authentic, and just, hey, I can do it, I don't need to wait for anybody else to lead, I can bring some of our family dynamics up to another level through my own humility and authenticity, and I think that's the goal, and there's some real magic and beauty right there, waiting to happen.