Reconnections
Our siblings are some of the people in our circle of life who can actively share in the joy and the memories of our childhood. Unfortunately, along our life journey, circumstances, some out of our control and some of our own making, can cause a relationship with our brother or sister to break or become fraught with tension, resentment and anger. When we experience such intense negative feelings in our relationship with our siblings it can become very daunting to even approach the idea of healing the rift. It may feel intimidating to start mending fences, but the 'family that was' is the tie that binds us, and through reconciliation it can be very rewarding to have our siblings be a consistent part of our life, as well as our children's lives.
As in all relationships, it takes multitudes of love and effort to make the sibling relationship a positive one. To be able to rebuild the relationship we need to walk away from the history that caused the friction. We can not focus on placing blame, and instead accept that our goal can not be total agreement on everything. Leaving room for different perspectives is very important. The goal of our reconciliation must mean letting go of the concept of being personally right. It is therefore not necessary to rehash all the old, negative feelings - these must be set aside - but in the process we should be ever mindfully aware of meddlesome troublemakers, be they inside or outside of our family.
No family is without it's problems - the blending of different personalities is never easy and accepting to ignore the foibles of others is definitely difficult, but by restoring peace to our sibling relationship we will not only benefit ourselves but will be able to bring harmony into the heart of a parent - mother or father - , who has been torn by the division of their children - children they love equally and want only that they experience the loving sibling connection that was nurtured in their family from babyhood to adulthood - a chain that they never expected could be broken.
Reconnecting with an estranged sibling is possible. Instead of looking back on the relationship and seeing pain, mistakes and heartache we can look ahead and see strength, learned lessons and pride. With the right attitude and communication, the links in the broken family chain can come together again and siblings can move in the direction of a greater closeness.
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