#595: Estrangement

Hello, my darlings. Welcome to Flow Dreaming. We have an episode coming up right now about a touchy, prickly, stickly little topic, Estrangement. I realize in all the years of producing Flow Dreaming, I've never really talked about those relationships we have where things just grew really cold, things got cut off, where something happened that couldn't be overcome. And that is what I want us to peek into today. Maybe there is one or two relationships in your life where you really do experience that. That feeling of, I can't make it right. I'll never make it right. I give up. Frankly, I've just cut him out of my life. And maybe you're okay with that, and you feel satisfied with that and happy with that, and maybe you don't. But at the very least, let's take a look and see what leads to that, why it happens, and if it's a good place for you to be in or not a good place. And we're going to hold off making any judgments on that until we get through some of the ideas about estrangement so you can figure out if it's actually hurting you or truly helping you impose those boundaries that you may have initially been shooting for. All right. Welcome to Flow Dreaming. Flow Dreaming. It's a show where we talk about the power of your mind to change your world around you, to literally affect the fabric of your reality. We talk about this feeling of hope and joy and relief. And that is what being aware of your flow does. It gives you a feeling of power again in your lives. Breathe. I'm Summer McStravik, and welcome to another episode of Flow Dreaming. Okay, my friends, estrangement. Is there someone in your life that you have kind of made peace with in yourself? Like, we don't talk anymore, and we're not going to. Let's just pretend. Let's make up somebody. Let's just say it's your brother. I have a brother. I'm not estranged from him. I love him dearly. He and I are so, so different. We are politically opposite. We live in opposite ends of the country. But I love him absolutely. We don't talk very often, but we're not estranged. But let's pretend you have a brother that you are estranged with. And let's just say that estrangement means one or both of you decided that you were bad for each other. Right? There's somebody that you just don't want in your life. And maybe your brother is thinking you're mean and you're selfish, and you're just like, mom, and maybe you're thinking about your brother. You are cold hearted and a liar and I will never trust you. You are bad for me in my life. And that is where things have sat for, I don't know, five years, say five years in our hypothetical terrible sibling relationship. So when you came to this conclusion that your brother was not a good person for you in your life, when he came to that conclusion, and perhaps by mutual consent, or even not, sometimes it's a one sided estrangement. But let's say when you guys came to this conclusion, it followed a real difficult time. Usually there's something that happened, somebody hurt somebody and they hurt them one too many times and someone finally called a halt to it. No more. If we can't fix it, then we're simply not going to engage. So two boxers go to either side of the ring. Now we shift all of this into flow perspective, right? We shift this into the perspective of energy and growth and flow. Fast forward today. How do you feel about that estrangement? Let's say time has passed. There's a lot of what they say, water under the bridge. You're a different person, he's a different person. You don't know who he is. He doesn't know who you are. You still think he's probably a toxic bastard, but you don't really know because frankly, you guys have been doing everything you can to avoid one another, meaning not going to the same Christmas parties or Hanukkah gatherings or whatever it may be. And when you talk with other members of the family, they have to be careful about what they say. They don't want to share too much information. They feel awkward, they feel in the middle. How do you feel today? First thing is energetically, emotionally, I want you to ask yourself, are you still comfortable with the decision that you made five years ago or two months ago or 10 years ago? It doesn't matter. Are you still comfortable with that decision that you made? Do you think it's safer to keep applying that condition than it is to say, oh, I wonder how he's different. I think I might be different. Shall we try it again? This is the first decision that you're making as you evaluate your estrangement to see if it's helpful or hurtful? If you come to the conclusion, I think I've matured a lot. I wonder if he has. He got married now he's got kids and I haven't ever met my niece and I'm curious, could I go back into that? Would I be triggered the same Way as before? Or have I grown enough in the last five years that I might be looking at a completely different perspective of this situation? Totally different. Now, this is only something you can figure out in yourself. I don't know. But I do know you have grown in five years. I do. And he has as well. Maybe he hasn't grown with the consciousness that you have. And I'm only presuming that because you listen to this show. So I know you're into personal growth. I know you're examining yourself and trying constantly to be a better person. And if that's the case, what it might also mean is that you're able to now encounter a past trigger and not have the same emotional freak out that you had before because the trigger isn't such a strong trigger anymore. You've sealed up and patched a lot of the power leaks in you. The insecurities, the fears, the childhood dramas, back and forth, tug of wars. A lot of that has smoothed over and been worked out of you, right? You're a little stone being tossed around on the ocean. All those rough edges are off. Maybe that's the conclusion you come to. Maybe you come to the conclusion that I might have grown through it, but my brother hasn't. And if I encounter him and re engage with him, he's going to try and suck me back in. He's going to ask me for money, he's going to blame me, he's going to try and work me over in front of my parents again. He's going to. And I am too healthy in my own self, in my life to submit myself to that. Maybe that's your perspective. Notice how I'm not giving you an answer. I'm actually just opening doors to your thinking. I'm asking you to think about the different possibilities here. The point is, the origin of your estrangement is in the past. And I want you to realize and catch up with yourself right now. If you have not been busy growing since these things happened, what have you been doing? Because the point is for you to grow since these things happened. I don't know if the person you're estranged with has grown or not. But you need to decide if you want to check in and find out or if you don't. Let's talk for a second about estrangement with a family member and the extra layer of guilt that this creates in us. It's one thing to be estranged from a friend. You know, maybe it was your college friend and then she got married and had a baby and Moved off and she doesn't talk with you anymore. And you still feel kind of like you abandoned. Why did you do that? You never really gave a good explanation and you felt really hurt and kind of like she just dropped me like a hot stone. What happened? That was. That was terrible of her. But then you got married and you had a baby and then your job took you someplace else. And it's been a few years and you're realizing, oh, I see things so differently now. Maybe we'll get in touch again. But let's say this is your family. Family dynamics put a little extra special twist on it. Because a lot of us came in feeling like we are obligated to our family. We are obliged to love them and to have their backs. And if we don't, there is something fundamentally flawed and heartless in us. Remember, blood is thicker than water, as they say. So we come in with this feeling like our families taught us this feeling. So for us to say, you may be family, but I cannot stand your guts makes us feel like we are crappy people. And we carry this little guilt around, like protecting myself. I feel guilty for protecting myself. What's up with that? And what kind of energy does that give your flow? It's very confusing and it definitely is a power leak. It definitely draws energy daily out from you and away from you instead of feeding you and healing you. And that's our goal as flow dreamers, right? We want to feed and heal ourselves, nurture and nourish ourselves every single day. So I'm going to give you permission right now to change your feelings about your family. Your family, yes, can be the lifeblood. The people who are your last ditch resort that you can turn to in your life. They were there when you're born and they perhaps will be there when you die. They're the people that you ultimately fall back to rely on. Are you homeless? You out of a job? You suffering? Whose couch do you go spend the night on? Whose couch do you end up moving into their spare room? Now, this could be your family. Could be mom, could be your sister, could be your aunt, could also be your friend. The family you've adopted, created, found my point here is that some family you are born with, some family you acquire. And for you to say genetics biology cells are superior to the family I acquire, reassess having family that come to you. Biologically, you share the DNA. Yes, it means you may share the same stubborn qualities, the same scruffy red beard, the same whatever it is, but it doesn't necessarily Mean that they are obligated to create the meaning for you that family can create. That's why family that you find along the way, the best friend you've had since childhood, right? The partner, the spouse that you marry, they become family. You're not biologically wired to them, yet they're family. So expand your idea of family and at the same time, loosen the mandate. Sorry, guys, I just knocked my microphone. Loosen the mandate that only family are responsible for you in the long run. Who in your life instead can be responsible for you and you for them? They're your true and your real family. So you can let go of the guilt. If there are people in your family who do not act like family, then they are not family. And I know that feels strong for some of you to hear, but they're not family. They're biologically related, but they are not family. And if you give yourself that shift in perspective, you might notice that you can just sigh again. You can stop holding your breath. All right. Feeling better? So getting back to the idea of estrangement, we want to look at the fact that you've grown, that potentially this other person has grown. And maybe you're looking at a decision to keep the estrangement in place or to step back in and test the wind. Well, how do you know what to do? It's not as hard of a question to answer as you might think. If there is a part of you that feels a little softer, you know, like butter that's been left out on the counter for a few hours, there's a part of you that's softer. Part of you that's curious. Part of you that's resilient. A part of you that's feeling like I don't think I'll be hurt. If I'm disappointed again by them, then that is an argument, perhaps an idea for reaching out. However, if there's another part of you that instead says, I'm good, I don't really need them, maybe there's a little bit of guilt that's left, and that's all I want to get rid of, then I think we've done that. You've given yourself permission to say, they're not family, and I'm okay with that. And I only surround myself with people that appreciate me, understand me, adore me, are gentle with me, are generous with me, and I also am that way back to them. And I found those people, or I'm finding those people, and that feels really good. In that case, you've also solved your problem and Here is a third scenario. I don't have anybody estranged in my life. Why would I do that? If that's you, I'm so glad. You're very lucky, and that's really wonderful. And let's hope that you never are estranged to anybody. But, you know, if your heart is still hurting and you're still feeling sad, let's take care of that. Let's not keep holding that. Let's find out where you stand. Let's see what your boundaries are. Let's see who's changed and who hasn't. And you can even make a commitment to yourself that I will check in every couple of years and see if things are different. And maybe there will come a day when you can all get together at the same family gathering again. Maybe there will come a day when you can say bygones are bygones, right? And you can say, I forgive you for that and I forgive you not, because I think what you did was right. I don't. It was terrible. It was awful. But it's more awful to create a divide and to put everybody else in a weird position and an awkward spot because you and I see differently. I'll tolerate you and you tolerate me. Please come to a thought, come to a. Come to a rationale, come to an understanding, Come to a decision. If it's estrangement, be blessedly estranged. Get what I'm saying? Be blessedly estranged because that's allowed and that's real. And sometimes it's necessary for your own emotional health, for your family, for your children. But if you can't be blessedly estranged, then come back in and patch it up and feel differently. Now, one last tip, and that, of course, has to do with flow. A great way to approach this, especially if you're going back in after a long time, is to do something I call pre paving a conversation. Pre paving a conversation is a way to emotionally energetically connect with someone prior to. To ever encountering them physically. It's a way of basically sketching an outcome, sketching a field of potential around the encounter so that flow and your future and your spirit knows what to set up for you. Now, I teach pre paving conversations in MI school, and it's kind of a bigger thing than I can do here. But you can still take advantage of the same principle. Because in my flow dreaming shop, I do have several flow dreams. Forgive your family or forgive your parents and release the past. Right? Heal my relationship. There are no more family drama. Right? Those are just three flow dreams I can think of offhand that will lead you into the pre paving conversation state of being. That will help you walk through your feelings about this estrangement and will help you reach the other side. Because remember, whenever there's a low point in your net, whenever there's a rock in the net that's floating in the ocean of you, that low point brings all the rest of it down. And it doesn't matter if this low point is shoved away, sealed in a box, you know, stored up in the attic of your heart, it's still there until it's completely washed through. So it's well worth re looking at it coming to clarity and coming to a light place inside yourself. So let's go get to it. Let's heal this estrangement, get in your flow and bring this to the next level. Now if this helped you, please email me contactlowdreamming.com and that email. Yes, I do lay my eyes on those and I'd love to hear and know if this was helpful to you at all. Especially moving in the new directions as I have been. If you'd like an example of what a Flow Dream is and I used to do them every show, but now I have such a buildup of them in my archives as well as on my website that I don't do them every show. But go listen to some of my past episodes and you'll get a feel for what a Flow Dream is. Or go to the shop and I give you samples. In fact, there's a free kit that you can get right there on my website and that will help you too. Okay everybody, I love you all and I will see you all next time for another episode of Flow Dreaming. That's a wrap for today, but if you want to keep things going, then download my free Flow Dreaming apps. That's right. Right. There's two of them. The first app allows you to listen to this podcast anywhere you want on your mobile device, as well as search and favorite episodes. The other app hooks you up with my Manifesting Store, which includes an oracle to help you see what direction you most are in need of right now, and advice. You can also sample all kinds of Flow Dreams and put together a library of your own. So to find these apps, just search Flow Dreaming in itunes or on your Google App Store.