Blood Family
We make friends, add them to Facebook, grown distant from some of them, and de-friend some when we give our Facebook friends list a spring cleaning. And yet we never seem to discard our families. We keep them on our Facebook friends list, sometimes creating a special category just for them, we listen to them, notice them, comment on their posts and like their photos. Sometimes we complain about them or ignore them, loose track of them when life gets busy, but yet no matter what they say or do, no matter how different they are to us, we don’t de-friend them, we keep them. There seems to be an invisible thread that links blood together, for it brings together a great many personalities, age groups, ideas, beliefs, and opinions of people who would not normally be our friends in other circumstances.
What comes with those differences is a knowing that we are always going to be there, if only on Facebook (because some people like me live very far away): a consistent friend on the list, no matter what things may happen in our lives. It doesn’t matter if we live half way across the world, or just up the street. It certainly doesn’t matter if we even remember what those cousins and aunties look like, because that thread is there, invisible, strong, it just doesn’t go away, and it can’t really be cut. Somehow it withstands time.
Soul Family
There is another type of family that is a part of our lives. I like to call them soul family. They are the people in our lives who perhaps we rarely see, but yet we are very connected to. Or perhaps these are people we do see everyday, talk to everyday, whether they are near or far, because they are special, they are like us, they get us when others don’t. If we haven’t spoken for ahwile, the only thing that is different is the stuff we have to catch up on: the stories. It’s like time doesn’t exist in the same context, and no matter how many changes take place in our lives, soul family seems to somehow still just get us. They are pillars in our lives that withstand time and change, they are the totem poles of our soul.
My Soul Family – My blood family
This past week I felt lonely. I felt far away, and alone. I had many friends around me, and the loving support of my partner but for once this wasn’t enough. I felt disconnected from both my blood family and my soul family, so I reached out to both. The interesting thing in all of this was that it wasn’t the conversation with them that made me feel better, comforted, it was actually the act of opening my heart, and being truly honest with myself about how lonely I actually felt and why, and taking the step to reconnect and allow. Once I gave myself permission to express myself, my feelings to myself and my families in my own unique unspoken or vocal way, I cleared the cobwebs, the blocking clutter. The strong bonds that link me to soul family and blood family instantly re-appeared. I no longer felt lonely.
Myself
I truly understand now that soul family and blood family is always there linked to us by an invisible thread, but when we feel lonely and far away it is because we are feeling lonely and far away from our true self, a plug undone from the heart socket. Our true self is connected to everyone always and never feels lonely. It’s only in plugging in all the cords, sweeping up the dust, knowing, feeling, expressing our true heart feelings, that we can begin to step back into our self, the self that is connected to all, the self that is acknowledged, the self that remains.
We are family
Loneliness is not a result of the world disconnecting from us, loneliness is a result of us shutting off from the world. So let’s open our hearts, re-discover those connections within us, those invisible threads of love that connect us always to soul family, to blood family, to our self, and so we shall be.
Gathering Inner Wisdom 