Starting With Myself

Audio By Carbonatix

All of us are in a position where we have the opportunity to mold the people around us. Whether that’s a spouse, niece or nephew, grandchild, or aging parent, these family relationships are places where we will express our wants and needs in ways that are sometimes designed to get other people to do what we want them to do. Even when we’re encouraging people to make right choices, we may be approaching the situation from an unhealthy place inside of ourselves. 

What I want to encourage everybody to do is to start the process of exerting our influence on people by working on ourselves first. Notice the things that are important to us and work to identify the reasons that we want those things. From personal experience, I know that some of the things I want are based on my own relational wounds, whether in childhood or more recently. 

I’m not saying that all of the things I want to see happen for my kids and grandkids are colored by my own hurts and disappointments, but there are some sneaky ones that have worked their way in there without me even noticing it. If you take the time to work on yourself first, I think you’ll see that’s true for you too. When you have a more accurate and objective perspective of your own wants and needs, you’ll be in a much better position to guide others, giving advice that sets your family up to make healthy choices for themselves. When you do that, you’ll all be winning more often at home.