How Does Your Family Influence You?

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not;

remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

                                                                                                  -Epicurus

At this time of year our families become more fully on our minds. The days are shorter and cooler, we begin to spend more time in doors, and we begin to think of holidays coming up which have large family connotations like Thanksgiving, and then Chanukah and Christmas are on its heels. As I am greatly influenced and inspired by nature, I become fully aware of the smell of falling wet leaves and the silhouettes of trees making their reappearance. 

When I was a child, I dreaded this time of year as I would be more engaged with my family and for me, this wasn’t a good feeling. I looked for ways to get out of the house and get involved in outside activities. Through my work of Body Presencing, I have learned to, and I help others to gracefully move, in our souls, from our deep core wounds as limiting us, to using them to be able to live in the present, and then to shape our future. These family influences and early wounds become our greatest strengths from our early weaknesses. As we learn to work with our wounds, they still get triggered and inflamed, but, instead of staying trapped within them, we use our hard gained knowledge and awareness to influence us in a new way and to help others.

I was speaking with a friend the other day, and we were talking about how we let other’s get to us and influence us in negative ways. We were wondering how this happens. First of all, it is important for us to become aware of our learning styles. Do we learn more visually, kinesthetically, or auditory? For me, my learning style is more visual and auditory. So, people get to me through their eyes and what I see, and what I hear. My friend is vulnerable through the feelings others invoke in her. As we learn these hooks, we then look at where these styles hook us. They hook us through our core wounds or weaknesses or faults. Many of us work hard to distance ourselves from our family. Even if we don’t, we still have the most difficulty being ourselves when we are with them. Maybe we are merged with our mom or dad, or maybe we get hooked by them and their ideas and beliefs. Our early wounds often began with them, and so they have more power over us when we are with them; no matter what our age.

The key here is for us to know our deepest wounds. Many of us feel not good enough, or are encased in anger or rage, or have embraced being a victim from our early victimhood, or are frightened, or feel deep shame or blame. When we are aware of these weaknesses, we learn how to work with them, and then we learn how others hook us through our wounds. If someone looks deep into my eyes and says words they know consciously or unconsciously that get me, I now know how to deal with it. Maybe I don’t look back into both of their eyes, and I catch myself getting pulled so that I can pull out. Maybe I also listen to words of my wound that tell me how I used to act, and I instead act differently; for me that might be saying no and risking someone getting angry with me and the feelings that brings up in me. I know it is my weakness, and so I do something else like say no anyway. There are many tools to work with our wounds and what pulls us into our tailspins, and as we get more adept, we become more and more the full, whole, vital people we are at our core. 

Shift Your Story Shift Your Life:

Through Body Presencing, which you can read more about through my web site, www.bodypresencing.com, and through engaging in my hologram to have an experience of this work, I teach tools to work with our deep and shadow sides so that we can come out on the other side with more strength and wholeness and health than we had previously. 

One tool I speak of above; learning how we learn.

Think of what gets you triggered….not being heard, not being seen, people who get too close and don’t recognize boundaries, etc.

Next, how do you learn? Are you auditory, and pick up signals and ideas and thoughts from listening? Are you visual and need to see something to really understand it? Are you both?

Are you kinesthetic and feel things in order to understand them?

Once you know your style or styles, recognize how they impact you in being triggered. Was it how they looked at you, was it what they said and how they said it, was it how it made you feel? 

Next sense what happens inside of you. Did you start to feel bad about yourself, did you get angry, did you start feeling guilty, etc?

As you can recognize these two things, you have your finger on the pulse of how you can control and work with how you are impacted by others. 

For example, if you looked into their eyes, don’t, or look in one eye. If you reacted to what they said, listen differently. If you felt it, step back metaphorically and look at the feelings they engendered and actively stop yourself by recognizing what happened and that it is not your feelings, but theirs. 

Now, see how you feel. Did it stop the escalating of your trigger, or not. If not, try it again until you feel some relief.

Again, I love to hear from you about how this helps you or if you have any questions. Just email me at gail@bodypresencing.com.