Finding Peace with Your Loved Ones’ Choices

One of the hardest things to endure is watching our loved ones make poor choices. Their choices may have disastrous consequences and make their lives more difficult. It’s painful to witness. You want to take control over the situation and rescue them. If they’re adults, that’s not the best approach.

Read on for a better way to support them and keep your sanity.

You Are Here for the Evolution of Your Soul. 

Remember the bigger picture and what’s really going on. Each of us is a soul at different stages of growth and development. Our soul’s passion is exploration and growth which is why we love coming to Earth. This free-will planet offers extreme contrasts of Darkness and Light, a mix of young and old souls. Like a painting, these contrasts provide greater clarity and help us see things more clearly. That enables us to make leaps and bounds in our soul growth.

Each person is on a unique journey deliberately designed for what their soul wants them to explore and eventually master. As an example, your soul may choose to develop higher levels of acceptance. You will encounter all kinds of fantastic opportunities to help release your mind’s desire to judge and control, and shift into acceptance and compassion.

Family are especially good at exposing you to things you can’t run away from:  Maybe your spouse watches too much fear-based TV. Your adult daughter is emotionally distant from you. Your adult son uses alcohol and drugs to numb himself from a painful divorce.

Everyone is at Different Stages of Soul Growth.

Despite your mind’s burning desire to fix things and need for them to change, it’s best to remind yourself you are souls who have deliberately chosen to be in the same family. You have soul contracts between you  where everyone has agreed to play the different roles in each other’s lives. You don’t need to see the “paperwork”—I assure you that you signed up for this.

Sure, they could be making better, healthier choices but there are no “right” or “wrong” choices. They are going to learn from whatever choices they make, especially the painful ones. If they were ready for the healthier choice, they would have chosen it but they aren’t there yet.

Everyone is doing the best they can with where they are at their stage of development. Your daughter may not be ready in this lifetime to appreciate and return familial love. Your son may be experiencing powerlessness for his growth. Your spouse may be smack dab in the middle of the sofa to help you get better at accepting behavior you don’t like.

Set Up Health Boundaries.

How are they here to help you grow? What’s your role in all of this? Honor the choices and lessons of others, rather than being dragged down into judgment and negativity. What matters is how you respond to these things, not their behavior. Is your fearful mind reacting with judgment, intolerance and anger? Or are you responding from your heart with acceptance, compassion and unconditional love? You don’t have to like their choices but at least accept them.

That doesn’t mean you have to expose yourself to toxic situations. That’s a “lesson” right there about self-love. Protect yourself by setting limits and healthy boundaries with them.

They Are Here to Help You Master Acceptance.

Pay attention to what triggers you and why. Are you trying to stop them from experiencing pain? Pain is a powerful teacher and motivator. They may need to descend into even deeper depths of depression and despair before they are ready to make needed changes. It may look like they aren’t “getting it” but they are on a subconscious level.

You agreed on a soul level to not judge them, to accept their choices and unconditionally love them. You are here to love them while they learn to love themselves. No easy feat but you’re up to the task.

You’ll find inner peace when your mind stops resisting what your soul deliberately brings to you. Recognize the gift in the challenges your family present to you. Who knows, this may be the lifetime you truly master acceptance.