If there is one skill that we need in life, it is the ability to draw the line. Many of us are like chameleons, we take our colour from the people around us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in complicated families.
The smooth running of complicated families requires many chameleons.
Usually there is a hierarchy of needs. One person's needs are catered for sometimes almost exclusively. All the other family members silently conform to the hierarchy. The conformists often don't even know that this is what they are doing. All they can see is that someone else is running the show, taking all the attention. Chameleons become comfortable in their invisibility.
They fear the cost of stepping up and standing out.
There is a little bit of a chameleon in us all. Our yearning to belong causes us to conform to standards that are not ours. It causes us to give away our power. It causes us to cripple ourselves. It causes us to place ourselves in hurtful, harmful situations.
Being a chameleon starts in little ways. We give up our favourite clothes because our husbands don't like them. We give up a friend. We give up singing around the house because it gives someone a headache. We give up a dream career because Mom and Dad wouldn't approve. We hide our true pleasures because someone will laugh at them.
We have all done it.
And we all need to stop!
Because we can never be happy until we learn to draw the line...
The smooth running of complicated families requires many chameleons.
Usually there is a hierarchy of needs. One person's needs are catered for sometimes almost exclusively. All the other family members silently conform to the hierarchy. The conformists often don't even know that this is what they are doing. All they can see is that someone else is running the show, taking all the attention. Chameleons become comfortable in their invisibility.
They fear the cost of stepping up and standing out.
There is a little bit of a chameleon in us all. Our yearning to belong causes us to conform to standards that are not ours. It causes us to give away our power. It causes us to cripple ourselves. It causes us to place ourselves in hurtful, harmful situations.
Being a chameleon starts in little ways. We give up our favourite clothes because our husbands don't like them. We give up a friend. We give up singing around the house because it gives someone a headache. We give up a dream career because Mom and Dad wouldn't approve. We hide our true pleasures because someone will laugh at them.
We have all done it.
And we all need to stop!
Because we can never be happy until we learn to draw the line...
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