If you have read the earlier Blog Post, you already know what this one’s about. So, I got in all candid about my family members and my upbringing.

You know, I use to research so much on the Internet to find out how to deal with family members who are toxic. There are plenty of stories who are successful people now who had a traumatic upbringing, stories of people who have lived in orphanages and are now millionaires and stories of people who were broke and lived on-road and turned into billionaires.

I could not find any information on how to deal with family members who are toxic when you are living with them and you have high goals and aspirations and you are not someone who would abide by societal norms and rules.  Not even one! Maybe I did not find it because I had to learn it by myself! So here’s mine how I dealt with or rather still dealing with it, let me start with it.

I will get to the point-so in December 2020 when I first began this journey to transform myself, I just knew I had to. The doubt of family members not being supportive did not really come in, as I was too firm in creating the life I deserve to live. There was an instance that happened in Dec 2020, not related to a family member-something external; that had put me in too much anger against this person.

I hardly could sleep because of this event and the memories of the physical abuse by my brother were constantly coming up when I go to bed. I still remember, lying on my bed and saying all I need is to sleep peacefully.

That would happen only when all of this clutter stops in my mind, I had to cleanse them all and nobody is coming to save me from this misery and I had to work on it. So, here are the things that I did to cleanse myself and live that higher version of Sneha with Big Eyes and Big Goals and Big Dreams.

Forgiveness

One of the first things that I worked on was to Forgive these people who have hurt me, there is this Hawaiian Practice meditation for forgiveness called “Ho’oponopono”-that goes like,  I am sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I Love you. You can search on youtube and there are plenty of guided meditations.

Every morning I would play this meditation and visualise all those people who have hurt me and it would bring me tears every time. I also should tell that I was this kind of a person who held a grudge all the time on everyone who hurt me. I didn’t want to let that go, or rather my Ego didn’t want to forgive them.

So this meditation, brought in so much ease because my Ego was getting shut as you are actually saying I love you and asking them to forgive you addressing the people who have hurt you. Hahaha

As I say this, I want you to remember, this is not to acknowledge or give meaning and say, how can you let that go so easily, they have hurt you, they are bad people-all of these are Ego based stories that want you to stay stuck by holding that grudge.

When you come out of it, is when you realise there is no such thing as Good or Bad, everybody behaves the way they do because of how they have been treated or how they have been raised.

Once I was aware of this, it went on smoothly. I was living with these people so ofcourse there were always instances that would hurt me or make me angry so every time I would meditate on it hahaha

Not just on the present instances, even the past ones-My mother, my old friendships/relationships, colleagues in the past had a mental list of people that I had to forgive and I worked on them all.

Not sharing what I was working on with Friends

At that time, I had this friend who I was close to and when I told her that I am meditating every day-she went like, oh! In your house how can you meditate with all of those people in your house? That’s it, I usually often iterate about this, although this sounds too sneaky and selfish, if you share with the wrong people, you will tend to believe their opinions to be right and perceive that to be true.

Another friend, just blindly said-just move out of the house. I was so freaking pissed off at her, this conversation still does make me angry sometimes. Because she knew it wasn’t an easy task to just walk out and get a house in a city like Bengaluru and at that time all I had was my Savings from my earlier job.

It is a totally different situation now, I am not in that lack mindset anymore but you get the point.  See with friends who do not understand what’s really going on and give random advice, it’s better to stay away from them or not share with them; which will allow you to handle the situations yourself better.

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Journaling

Journaling is a game-changer, every time my brother or father made me angry or upset, I would write about it.

Why does my Father/Brother make me angry?
What is that in me I can change during these situations?

This will actually make you see them from their perspective and be aware that it is not about you, but it is them. For example, My father’s constant pressure on me to get married is because that’s how the whole society is conditioned. None of my relatives dares to come and ask me, why am I not married. But I do know, they ask a lot of questions to my father and in the village environment, this is a lot more because they blindly believe that it’s the parent’s responsibility to get the kids married without any consent from the kids.

Okay, this reminds me of this instance, in our house warming ceremony many years ago I was surrounded by my aunts who live in the village and continuously pestering me to get married and this guy-another relative walks in and asks what is happening, so this aunt of mine says I am asking her to get married and this guy goes like-you should not ask, you should just get her married. See, how deeply it is rooted in them!

Selfless

When I was working through all of these, one day this voice came to my mind saying-sneha, if you learn how to heal by living with these people, you are going to win at everything that life throws at you. This calm, gentle voice made me the better person that I am now.

So here is what I did, sometimes my brother would leave the clothes for dry and go to work, so I would pick them up and fold them and keep them in his room or make his bed.

I am not sharing this to show off because I did have off days many times and I still do, all I am saying is I was attempting to do everything to shut my ego and bring that Selfless person out in me.

I wouldn’t say there was a radical change in him, but there was to an extent on the way he speaks to me.

Gratitude

Being grateful that I have a house to stay in and food on my plate, I have a roof over my head and Trust in the Universe that these situations are thrown at me for me to evolve and grow.  Every night I write 6 things that I am grateful for in a day, so every time I had a fight or an argument with my father or brother, I would write that I am grateful to have a supportive family. One is I am not letting my Ego play around here and ask how can you write that, two if that can be manifested, why not, let it BE.

Mind you, things did change after a few months when my Father did come and support on few things that I was required to do for my business.

So when I look back in my old Journals, I have always written to manifest this specific amount of money and that actually was my Ego self who wanted to escape and leave this house ASAP.  I would also like to share that there was an instance where my Father wanted me to leave the house and I borrowed some time. The turn of events that happened right after this, to my freaking goodness my trust in the Universe expanded like a billion times.

In my earlier post-Learnings & Musings of 2021, I have spoken about this incident of a family member getting covid just a day before the launch of my business and that family member was my Father. So, this happened and since he had to be quarantined the doctor advised him to stay in the village as it’s healthier there.

This is another thing, that I was too scared to share as it sounds so selfish but I just want to share it with anyone who is currently living with their family members who are not supportive and toxic, I want you to know that if you hold your belief in yourself so strong that you can bring any change and the circumstances will change, it WILL. There is no way it cannot, it HAS to, Trust in the Universe and let it go.

Surrender to the Universe

There are many times in the past year, things have gone in the opposite direction. It was not always fruitful, especially with my Father and Brother there was always some sort of a fight and ofcourse for me to see that it was disturbing.

My father did tell me things like,  he is not going to receive any happiness from his children and its karma.

I also do wanna mention a little note on Karma here, so after I started to dwell a lot deeper on Spiritual practices, I use to read a lot about Karma, I still do. So here is what consoled me a lot more-we all are in the physical human body as an experience with many lives in the past.

So whenever the thoughts of my mother or father comes back and hurt me, I would think maybe I did something to them in my past life. Maybe I was a rude parent to them or a kid or a sister. Who knows!

If this is all sounding a little wohooo, I get it, because 2 years ago if you had told me all this I may have brushed it off. But I would still like to insist and give it a thought?

It does make a lot of sense to me because as a kid I always wondered why was I born in this family and not in some rich family who takes care of me very well. Hahahah

We all have some Karmic lessons to be learned from everyone who is passing by in our lives, specifically the ones who have hurt us.

I personally don’t want to carry on this grudge and hatred in me to my next life, forget about the next one, I don’t even want it in this life as I have a long way to go and I want to forgive whatever comes my way.

So that’s it you all, most of it that I have mentioned here-it is not about the other person, it’s about us. Flip the story inward, ask questions like what can I do and learn from whatever has happened to us.

Easier said than done, I know. Especially when Family is like this and you barely have anyone to share with, consider that as a strength for you to grow and learn. Hey, and not to worry you have me like I said in the previous blog post.

Even now, the situation in my house is not that great, All I kept telling myself since morning today was, I have handled this before and I can handle it now. What worst can happen? The universe will not send me any situations that I cannot handle so bring it on!

Yours Consciously

Sneha