Family Food....and fun

By Carol Harblin (CHHC)

We can't choose our blood family....they say. We all have two families: Blood & Spiritual. We choose our spiritual family...not our blood family.

Even when you may not get along with family or even see eye-to-eye, they are directly linked to you through genes, blood, and DNA. We also share dynamics, and perhaps even issues.

Dynamics are there in every family. It is the way each family copes and handles stress or problems. Do we react in haste? Yell? Cry? Blame? Hold grudges? Scream?

When we live our lives on our own, we think we escape our family drama, but we carry it within us. We may be able to dress it differently when we are by ourselves or with our friends, but we are our family. When we are alone with family, our associations and our communications and our dynamics are still there, but we do not see it as abnormal because we only see our own family norm.

As teenagers, we become embarrassed that we have family and even how we react with them is embarrassing when we are around other people besides the family.

Family Reunions are important to go to, even when we may have something else to do, because it gives us the secrets to understanding ourselves and gives us that unconditional love we seek from the world and rarely get. We are bound to our genetic family - and they are bound to us. We are shadows of each other and we feed off each other.

For those who deny the past are doom to repeat it.

Acknowledge and understand our family traditions and dynamics so that we are able to move forward and embrace ourselves - and even to help change ourselves better.