💜Our Loved Ones💜

 

💜Our Loved Ones💜

Well Hello, There!

It's great to have you back 😀 I do appreciate your loyalty, it's so encouraging, reading your feedback expressing how much you are enjoying being part of the community Gen X Lounge.  (Or is it feedforward now? I will have to ask a Gen Z!)

Now that you have read last week's blog, about making time for ourselves,  it seems appropriate to consider the time we put aside for our loved ones.

We are all born into different scenarios, I have quite a large family and naturally, I manage to see some family members more than others and keep in touch on a more frequent basis. 

I recently had the privilege of a full two-week stay with one of my aunts. We get on very well and have many similar interests and perspectives on life. During my visit I asked her to teach me how to crochet, she is wonderfully creative and a real inspiration. We spent hours laughing, drinking tea, chatting and soaking up the Barcelona sunshine whilst getting to grips with a crochet needle. I enjoy learning a new skill, having previously failed to master crocheting via YouTube, I found this experience much more fun. Being face-to-face with a real person was a completely different experience.

Over the past few decades, I have been challenged to juggle kids, work, family and friends. It's always the bearing that squeaks the loudest, that gets the oil. I have to say speaking from experience, 4 children are pretty loud🤪.  As a mother and a primary caregiver, I was very conscious of putting my children's needs first alongside a very demanding husband and workload!

I do know, that I always found time to make and keep a good set of friends. It was important to me to have a support group where you can offload and be there as a listening ear when required. Many an afternoon has been spent on a sun-kissed terrace with a chilled wine in hand, while we put the world to rights.

Many of us are constantly surrounded by different people, some we keep in touch with, and some we let go. Then there are the ones who pop up from time to time as if they never left.

All our connections are there for a reason and are fluid. There are times when we are there to give support or to receive. Overall a healthy relationship is a give-and-take balance. 

Occasionally we experience a friendship where we feel drained and where the other person is zapping our energy, knocking us off balance. Have you experienced this? I know I have!

Consider the people around you, who do you feel in balance with and who is off balance?

To help you determine your answer here is an activity that will just take a few minutes of your time and all you need is a piece of paper and a pen. 

This helped me tremendously, clarifying my relationship with each person around me either by choice or circumstance. So gen X ers, investing a small amount of your time to give this a go, may well be a game changer for you. 

Draw a centre circle on your paper, approx 10cm in diameter, then draw 2 further rings outside this. In the centre ring write the names of the most important people to you and who you see often. The next ring out is for the less frequent people and the last ring is for the people you don't see often at all.

Then rethink as there will be people you have forgotten!

Look now at each name, ask yourself do they give or take your energy? Then consider where they are sitting in your circles, are they in the space you want them to be? 

If they are in your inner circle and you want to move them out draw an arrow from their name to the next circle. If you have a person who gives you energy and they are sitting in your outer circle use an arrow to show which inner circle you would like to bring them into. 

On a visual like this, you can choose how you would like your friends to be a part of your future giving you the inside to progress accordingly.

A simple but powerful exercise. You may be surprised but the results. It's a useful tool to make you aware of the current situation and how you can influence a change for the better. 

Catch up soon X💜X