Family Roles

Once you have an awareness of something you cannot become unaware of it. Your awareness follows you everywhere. You are aware, you are enlightened. Once you know something, you cannot un-know it. In the last month or two, I have the awareness of many important people in my life not taking me seriously. This shows up when people interrupt me, criticize me, don't listen to me, and lecture me. Once I became aware of it, I noticed it happened all the time. 

Among my family this is just a pattern we've established, the roles we fit into, the family dynamics that make up our family system. My sister keeps the peace and I'm the the little sister, the one that needs babying. I've always been the one that needs to be lectured, no one takes me seriously. These patterns were established over 20 years ago and still stand to this day. Even though we've all evolved past them and we've all changed. 

For example, I'm hosting a BBQ for my dad's birthday. It's actually happening this afternoon. I am perfectly capable of hosting a BBQ, yet my dad and his wife apparently do not think so. A few weeks ago, I was bombarded with text messages from my dad's wife trying to plan the get together. Frustrated with her budding in, I invited them over to sit down and plan the BBQ. We established that I would be in charge of burgers and everyone else needed to bring side dishes (potato salad, chips and dip, etc). Come to find out the other day, my dad and his wife are bringing a Tri Tip. They are completely disregarding the conversation we had, the one where I established I would be in charge of burgers. If I wasn't so frustrated with no one ever listening to me, the situation would be comical. I wonder if people don't listen to me, don't trust I can take care of things, don't take me seriously, or don't think I'm going to follow through, cause heaven forbid we put Briana in charge of the main course. This is just one example of a litany of experiences I've had in the last few weeks where I've been made to feel extraordinarily incapable. 

I'm coming to see my family dynamics from a new perspective. While I get this new perspective I am trying to see myself not as a victim, but as capable of changing my role within the family to help my family be more functional. A good way to view how my family functions now is that if my sister makes a mistake the family sees it as a "learning experience". I could make the same mistake and I'm a huge fuck up. 

 In her book, Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher describes authenticity as “an ‘owning’ of all experience, including emotions and thoughts that are not emotionally acceptable.” To me, authenticity means being honest with myself and acknowledging how I feel in any given situation. It means trusting that my Wise Mind knows what is healthy for me. It means I trust myself to be genuine and act in accordance to my current emotional state. It means standing up for myself and following through.

I've had a few experiences in the last few days where I got to exercise my authenticity and stand up for myself. I sent messages to people that needed to be sent. I stood up for myself in my work environment. At the BBQ tonight, I hope I can continue to stand up for myself among my family and continue to reshape my family dynamics so I no longer have to be the incapable little sister.