If you have family like mine, I’m talking about brothers and sisters here, sometimes they just make one want to scream. The stuff they come up with or the things they get into and then wonder why life becomes so hard. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so tragic. But the truth is that no matter how they try our patients, and they do, you have to love them. I didn’t say you necessarily had to like them, although that would be helpful. The whining and crying can really get on the nerves. Then I think how many times have I done the same thing, but they seemed to listen to me without one word of judgment or condemnation. I suppose there’s a lesson there somewhere.

The lesson just might be in the growing up time. Here we are from the same household, the same parents, and the same mold essentially, but the worldview and perspective on life is so vastly different. How in the world did we come from the same place? Life does have it’s ups and downs and how people, even siblings, accept those ebbs and flows differs greatly. A mom or dad can be the greatest person on the earth to one child, but to another that same mom or dad is like the creature from the black lagoon. If we listen, I mean really listen to what our siblings are saying it just might resonate a little differently.

It is important to take the time to hear what others are venting. There may be a desperate cry attempting to be heard.  By shutting them out because we don’t agree with them can be not only detrimental to them, but to us as well and therefore the entire relationship. We should be willing to at least listen first and be slow to speak so we can hear with our heart what’s being communicated from their heart. This is true in all of our relationships, but certainly with those family members that ya just gotta love.

Mark Ellison, LAMFT
MEllison@ GROWCounseling.com