Eu00c9N: YOU ARE NOT ALL-KNOWING.
Most of the time, you grew up with your siblings, but that doesn’t make you omniscient. Put the knowledge you have about your own family into perspective. Stay curious. Ask questions and listen to the answer. You can be viciously mistaken about how the other person experienced your years together.
TWO: IT’S MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU THINK.
There are more relationships in a family than you think.u00a0If you have a family with a father, a mother and u00e9u00e9 one child, then you have three relationships: the father and the mother have a relationship, the child and the father have a relationship and the child and the mother have a relationship: three relationships. The more people there are in a family, the more relationships you get.
‘In a family of eight you00a0 there would be fifty different relationships in 2019’
A family with two parents and six children consists of one fifty different relationships. That is a lot. So it makes sense that it’s complicated.
THREE: YOUR INSECURITY IS YOUR INSECURITY.
It is precisely the successes of a brother or sister that can make you very insecure. But your uncertainty is your uncertainty and also your responsibility. Don’t expect the other to shrink or keep quiet, because it makes you insecure when he grows and blooms. Holding back and beating yourself up isn’t good for anyone either. We were made to bloom, and each flower has its own beauty, its own vigor, its own season.
FOUR: MAKE MISTAKES ALLOWED
Leave the responsibility for what your parents have created, the family culture, the manners, with your parents and never place it with an (older) brother or sister. An unhealthy family culture was never created by your brother or sister u2013 on the contrary, he or she literally grew out of it.u00a0 And during your childhood he or she was not an adult responsible person, but a child who grew, discovered, had pain and made mistakes . And making mistakes is allowed.
FIVE: EVERYTHING HAS A TIME.
A time to speak and a time to be silent. A time to seek and a time to find. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to heal and a time to celebrate that healing. Sometimes also: a time to lose each other and a time to find each other again.
SIX: YOU ALWAYS FIT IN.
According to Els van Steijn, author of the booku00a0The fountain, find your place, you always belong to your own family. u201cNobody can take your place away from you, not even your parents. You have that place. That is a law of nature.
“It’s only when everyone in the family is included that everyone feels complete.”
In fact, if people are consciously or unconsciously excluded, it always creates a feeling of incompleteness within the family. Then hidden loyalties arise. Only when everyone in the family belongs and is allowed to have their own place does everyone feel complete.u201d
H2:u00a0WHAT DO BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAVE TO GIVE EACH OTHER?
- Give recognition, especially for what used to be.
- Support each other, especially in difficult times.
- Give the other his or her success, happiness, children, friends, money. And also take the space to be yourself.
- Let the other live his or her life in freedom. Give the other person space.
