Creating Ease With Family with Kayla Leung
Relationships with our family members can be complicated, but what if they don’t have to be?
In this episode, your host, Leandra Costa, talks with Relationships Done Different Facilitator Kayla Leung about how the tools can transform your relationships with your family.
Kayla previously struggled with her family members and believed she would always be the black sheep. However, through choosing the Access tools, she has transformed her relationships and has allowance and gratitude for her family members.
Key points from this episode’s conversation
- How can Relationships Done Different change your point of view on relationships?
- Our first relationships are with our families
- The tools can change your family relationships
- Choosing from Possibility
- Stop Reacting
- Being grateful for our families
- Ask for advice
- Give compliments
How can Relationships Done Different change your point of view on relationships?
Kayla used to avoid committed relationships and preferred short-term, non-committal ‘situationships’. Kayla is a Doctor in Psychology and specializes in family and marriage therapy. She saw many clients who complained about their relationships falling apart, which reinforced her belief that relationships would only cause trouble for her. She had an “I’m better by myself” mentality.
When Kayla gained access to the tools and read Simone’s book, “Relationship, Are You Sure You Want One?”, she had a realization that there was a space or a possibility in relationships that she had never considered. People tend to go into the rightness or wrongness of being or not being in a relationship, but what if there is a space beyond that, where relationships can be just for fun? Even if you’re in a relationship, it doesn’t mean you have to be in it forever.
Through this awareness, Kayla became open to having and choosing relationships.
Our first relationships are with our families
The first relationships we all go into are those with our family. Often, they can be complicated, but having peace with your family, you shouldn’t have to fight, defend, make yourselves small or fit a certain mold to meet their expectations. You shouldn’t have to fight for your individuality.
The tools can change your family relationships
Kayla previously had terrible relationships with her family and believed she would always be the outcast, the black sheep of the family. Over time, with the tools, so much has changed.
Her parents had a difficult marriage, which influenced her points of view about relationships and marriage. She used to avoid committed relationships because she thought they would lead to future problems. When Kayla began going into allowance, she realized that their relationship didn’t belong to her, and her points of view began to change.
Many children grow up in similar situations, and feel they have to ‘choose a side.’ They tend to see one parent as the ‘victim’ and the other as the ‘villain’, and try to protect the ‘victim’ by making the ‘villain’ wrong. That becomes a part of their life story.
Kayla realized she wasn’t choosing relationships because she was trying to avoid having the same relationship as her parents.
Choosing from Possibility
Kayla was choosing from probability, not possibility. Probability is trying to predict whether or not you will follow or copy your parents’ relationship. This is not Choice. Possibility is unpredictable and allows you to choose something different.
When Kayla started choosing for herself, she noticed that her sibling relationships began to change too. She had previously had a very difficult relationship with her older sister but when she chose the way she wanted to live and honor her family, things began to shift.
Even if a person treats you terribly, they are still a gift, as they show you that you are strong enough to handle that treatment. You may have difficult times with someone, but when you are choosing from a space of not making them wrong, you allow them to be, while still being you.
Now, Kayla and her sister are best friends. They accepted each other’s differences and acknowledged their strengths. When you admire someone, you can no longer judge them. And when you are grateful for them, it changes everything.
You may have a person in your life that likes to control or manipulate you. Give them the allowance to act in that way, without accepting it for yourself. Remove yourself from their games and politely tell them to behave that way with someone else. Say it with a smile and don’t let them affect you.
Stop Reacting
This may sound easier said than done, so what can you do to get yourself to this space?
When you find yourself reacting, stop for a second, and ask yourself:
“Is this something I am not willing to choose or be? Or is it something I secretly really want to do, but I judge it so badly as wrong?”
The thing that really makes you react is often something that you judge as wrong. Maybe you really want to do it but have decided that you can’t, because then you will be like the person you’re judging. When you go into the space of, “I can choose it, if I want to,” the judgement loses its power.
Being grateful for our families
Be grateful for your family and what they can contribute to you, as everything that we are today, they contributed to. We learn so much from our families, and they shape our world and our perceptions (whether we want to admit it or not!). Your family usually serves as the first guide for your life.
When you go into a space of anger and annoyance at a family member, ask yourself:
“What gift are you to me that I have not been able to perceive and receive?”
Ask for advice
Often the last person anyone goes to for advice is a parent. There is so much love, hate, judgement mixed up in our familial relationships, that we don’t want to ask. However, asking people for advice actually melts so much tension! It dissolves many of the disagreements and shows you are willing to receive from them.
Whether you receive the advice or not doesn’t matter, but it’s a wonderful tool to dissolve that separation.
Give compliments
Everyone loves to hear how great they are! Acknowledge the strengths and successes of people you’re in relationships with. A little bit of acknowledgement goes a long way, and when your partner is happy, your life is greater.
Relationships Done Different
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/relationshipsdonedifferent/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RelationshipsDoneDifferent/
Website: https://www.relationshipsdonedifferent.com/
Book: Relationship, Are You Sure You Want One?
Guest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkayla1234/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drkaylaleung
Website: https://www.kaylaleung.com/
