A 66-year-old youngest of nine siblings feels like a stranger in her family, connecting only around deaths. Karamo suggests skipping a group reunion and instead picking one receptive sister to call weekly, building trust through consistent contact that might eventually draw others in.
Chapters
I'm 66 years old.
Come on, Pace.
Yeah.
Come on, Spirit.
I am a sibling of 9. Well, 2 are gone now, so there's 7 left. And in my family, I'm on this journey, if you will, of healing. Never felt like I belonged in the family. Never felt like sisterhood ever. So I'm in a latter part of my life. All my sisters are older than I am, and honestly, I want them to value connection. I want them to be— like, we don't even talk to each other except if someone dies, and I'm tired of it. I want healing for— I want healing for my sisters, and I don't know, I'm tired of trying to reach out and being rejected. So I don't know what else to do. And what can you tell me in terms of how to reach out? Do I walk away? Do I, you know, make another effort? I mean, like, another year or so, somebody else is gonna go. I might go.
Yeah, I understand, I understand. First of all, thank you for your vulnerability and for sharing that, because what you've expressed is something that a lot of families go through. And what I know to be true from experiences that I've had when I worked in in my previous job is that a lot of times this directly comes from how the family, your parents raised you. So you're nodding your head yes. So your parents didn't foster an environment where connection was probably important. You know, you can share and tell me if that's true or not.
No, that's true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so what happens is that as you get older, you start to trust less and you start to devalue connection, especially because you don't know if you can trust it. Because why would I get closer to you thinking like maybe you gonna end up leaving me, maybe you're not gonna be there, maybe you gonna talk bad about me, maybe you're not gonna see me for who I am. So let me just stay in my corner and you stay in your corner and then we come together when someone passes. But what you're doing is you're trying to break that curse. You're trying to heal the family. And so what I would encourage you to do instead of doing it as a group, connection works best one-on-one. So I know a lot of times when we wanna be the one to bridge it, we like, let me call everybody. Hey, we all gotta get together. We all gotta do this. But what works best is when other family members see, oh, there's a connection happening there. Oh, they're trusting each other. Oh, they're seeing each other. Maybe I wanna join in. And now 2 turns to 3, 3 turns to 4, 4 turns to 5, 5 turns to 6, and 6 turns to 7. So I'm gonna ask you, is there one sibling who might be a little bit more receptive of what you're asking and doing? Is there one that might have said, you know what, I can, might pick up the phone, might text first. It could be small things that could lead us to something bigger.
Yeah, I would say there is one.
There is one. You ain't gotta lie to me if not.
No, no, no.
Okay, okay.
No, I would say there is one. She's moving away from me, so.
But that's fine.
Yeah.
That's fine because that type of distance we can work through. But what it is is about the connection. That's what we're trying to reestablish. So what I want you to do is I want you to focus on that one sister.
Okay.
So as she's moving, I want you to call in, check on the move. As she's doing stuff, I want you to also set a schedule and say, "Hey girl, every Friday, can we check in for an hour?" Yeah. And what happens is now you're creating a new set of rules and boundaries around how you're building the connection. I promise you, I've seen this many, many times. Other family members will then say, "Well, maybe I can trust the connection." Yeah. Maybe these two will listen to me if I have a problem. Maybe they'll be there for me as well. And I promise you can build from there. Building it on the grand scale when it's been fractured from parents doesn't work. Build one-on-one connections and it'll get better.
Yeah, thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you.
Good luck. Listen, everybody at home, if you got a question, I want y'all to come to my show. I promise y'all we have a good time in this audience, all right? As I always say, you know, you come here, you might get some answers. So as always, You bring the Qs and I'll bring the K. All right, y'all.
