I just celebrated my 45th birthday at the beach in NC with my family (partner, mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and two adult nieces). If you told me five years ago that I would have willingly and eagerly chosen to spend a long weekend with my family for my birthday, I would have laughed you out of the room. In fact, on my 40th birthday, I was having my pictures taken by the Eiffel Tower as trips far away from family had become the de facto way I chose to celebrate special occasions.
You see—spending time with my family has always been like rolling around in an emotional landmine where you’re guaranteed to set off at least one or two and come out scarred. Add in two special occasions like this one (Mother’s day and my birthday) and the stakes escalate. Top that with a shared beach house that we all stay in for three days and nights… catastrophic meltdown, almost guaranteed. Until now.
What changed?
About five years ago, I started working with a coach who helped me completely transform my life—including my relationships with my family. She did this by helping me:
Learn how to set and honor healthy boundaries
Heal the gaping emotional wounds left by unhealthy interactions with my family
Learn how to identify, honor and express my feelings, and
Learn how to identify and meet my needs
I set and honor healthy boundaries.
When I first started my healing work, I was boundaryless. I struggled to say no when I should have. I allowed my values to be trampled over regularly. I let people take advantage of me in all manner of ways.
Yet, week after week, I learned to draw boundaries and honor them. I learned to say no when my family made requests that I couldn’t or didn’t want to meet. I learned to stand up for myself when they violated a boundary.
The stronger my boundaries got, the better my relationship with my family became. I grew to feel safe with myself, and ultimately with them, because I had learned how to take care of myself in a way that no one had in my family’s ancestral line.
I healed my wounds (with support).
My coach used a technique she had developed called Feel Better Letters to help me heal from all the pain I was carrying around with my family members. These letters—that were just between me and my coach—allowed me to get everything I was angry and sad about until I had expressed every last bit of beef I had with them.
It felt so good to finally unburden myself from all that baggage.
She took each letter and stepped into the role of each family member’s higher self (the version that wants to take accountability for all their actions) and wrote the world’s biggest apology for each and every issue I raised from their voice.
She gave me a dose of the best medicine by helping me understand what I should have experienced instead of how I had been treated. This medicine opened me up to the possibility of actually being treated that way going forward.
She provided me with understanding for why they had behaved the way they had. This understanding helped me stop personalizing their treatment of me and recognize that even though their behavior was toxic, it was the best they could do based on the way they had been treated themselves.
Lastly, she stepped into the role of each family member and read the apology letter to me which allowed my system to dump all that pain and heartache once and for all.
Each letter had profound results including:
Eliminating my negative self-talk (turns out those voices were the voices of my family)
Feeling lighter and more free in my body, mind, and spirit
Getting to experience them taking responsibility for their poor behavior without me having to say anything to them
Shifting my resentment towards them to empathy and love
Transforming my relationships with them from distant and strained to much more connected, healthy, and honest
The results I experienced are nothing short of miraculous.
I honor and express my feelings (no matter what).
Instead of shutting down or exploding when I was feeling big feelings because of something someone said or did, I learned to express my feelings to them directly. On this trip, I experienced some pretty big feelings as my mom shared how hard it is for her to leave the house because her vision is so poor and her neuropathy is so far advanced.
Rather than swallowing the emotions, I shared with her how sad I felt that she wasn’t able to engage in life the same ways she used to. And I admitted that I had been experiencing waves of deep grief over the last decade as her health has declined. She hugged me, and together we wept over the harsh realities of life and death.
Because I shared my raw and real feelings with her, I got to receive the comfort of her embrace and support as we both mourned the time when she’ll no longer walk this earth with me, and she got to receive the truth of how much she means to me.
I ask for support to meet my needs.
Instead of trying to take on the impossible burden of meeting my needs all by myself, I now feel comfortable asking others for help. One of my needs as a highly sensitive person is to be in an environment that feels good to me. Because of some of my childhood experiences, my family home doesn’t feel good to me. When I visit my family, I typically rent a place at the beach and invite them to come to me or drive to visit them.
However, this time, rather than taking on the full financial burden of renting a place, I asked my sister if she thought the family would be open to sharing the cost of a place so that we could celebrate my birthday and mother’s day together. As it turns out, they were. Everyone chipped in, and we got to spend a beautiful weekend at the beach making memories together and continuing to heal the generational trauma that’s in our family line. (More on the miraculous healing that occurred another time).
Our weekend together was so much more meaningful to me than any exchange of gifts via the mail could ever be. I’m so glad I took the risk to ask for what I really wanted.
Reflecting on the present.
As I reach this halfway point in life, I am filled with a myriad of emotions:
Grief for all the positive experiences I missed out on because I didn’t know how to take care of my feelings and needs in a healthy way
Pride for all the progress I’ve made in learning to live a healthy, authentic life AND for becoming a certified Feel Better Letter coach so that I can help others transform their lives, too
Sober with the knowledge that only half my life remains and time is of the essence
Excitement for the adventures that lie ahead now that I’m making choices that support my dreams instead of making choices from a place of fear
A toast to my future.
May the next half of my life be full of love, connection, adventure, growth, vulnerability, authenticity, inspiration, and awe.
Cheers!
Ami
P.S. If you’re interested in healing from your past experiences like I have through one-on-one coaching and Feel Better Letters, you can sign up for a consultation with me beginning in late July. I will be taking the next two months off to focus on my writing and other creative projects.
P.S.S. If you’re interested in more immediate support, you can join my coach, Teri Wade, in her group program Repattern where I am an active member continuing to do the work to pursue the life of my dreams. Use this link and the promo code: MOREBETTER to receive 50% off the first two months. I hope to see you there!