It is not by accident that we are born into our particular family. I believe that each of us is born into a family that uniquely matches our own vibrational frequency at the time of our birth – not because we are being punished, not to pay back some old karmic debt necessarily, but because that family holds the set of challenges we need to experience for us t0 access a higher level of understanding. In other words, our family's are designed to help us evolve! Yes, even, and most especially, the particularly dysfunctional ones.
In a nutshell, we come into the family we do to learn the lessons that particular family brings us. And sometimes those lessons are tough ones.
What could one possibly learn from being born into an abusive family? A lot! As incomprehensible as it may seem, even our most unenlightened, abusive families, play a designated role in evolving us spiritually. Reality shows us many examples of how dysfunctional family systems can indeed serve a higher purpose. The reality is that some of our greatest leaders, teachers, researchers, and healers come from just such dysfunctional families.
Most often it is through the personal struggles that these outstanding individuals experienced while growing up in extreme circumstances that later led them to their life-calling. Their difficult childhoods are often what prompted them to radically shift the way they understood life, and thereby made a whole new way of seeing possible.
Might it be just as possible that each one of us is uniquely set up in a family environment that is especially arranged to provide us with the challenges and life-lessons necessary to further the direction of our life path? I like to think so. I have a hypothesis, it is this: we come into this life on a particular vibrational frequency which energetically attracts to us a matching frequency. We are energy beings, after all.
I am not saying we consciously choose our family; it is not a conscious decision-making process that delivers us into the family we find ourselves in. We don't choose to be in a certain family because we are gluttons for suffering, for instance! No, the kind of attraction I speak of here has more to do with the magnetic nature of life that draws us to a particular family set-up – much like the way metal filings are attracted to a magnet.
I am speaking of the way energy moves and responds to vibration through patterns – it's a perspective that says that where we end up in life has nothing to do with what we “deserve,” or with what is “fair” or “unfair,” – where we land is based on a vibrational frequency, and the pattern that is formed by the energy that is traveling on that frequency. The family we come into is not about our quality of being, but about the vibrational frequency of the pathway we are traveling on at the time of our birth.
This idea of our “choice” of a family being a magnetic attraction precludes the possibility of our coming into a family ‘accidentally,' or ‘coincidentally.' No, if this hypothesis is accurate, then we can only land in the family that matches the energetic frequency of our own belief system.
The Veda's teach that the mind-set of a person when they die determines the circumstances they are born into in their next incarnation. Such an idea suggests that if our emotional frequency is fear-based, we are more likely to land in a family ruled by fear and intimidation. If we are governed by a kinder, higher frequency, we will birth into a higher frequency family. What we can hypothesize however, is that we will be born into the family that will provide the lessons that will further us most, and not necessarily, for love, peace, or joy – sake! We come into the family we do because their belief system resonates with our vibrational frequency and thus allows us the opportunity to explore limiting beliefs that have hindered us from realizing a more positive life expression.
When we look at how we came to be in our particular family from such a standpoint it allows us to better align with Reality. We can more easily trust that whatever life is, it is happening for us, rather than to, at, or against us. This means that even the seeming worst things we meet in life are no coincidence, but do in fact, serve to reflect the limiting beliefs that hold us prisoner, for the purpose of liberating ourselves from those painful beliefs.
Again, what we attract has nothing to do with what we may desperately want, or aspire towards, and everything to do with what we expect from life. We harvest in life the consequences of that which we believe is possible, or not possible, for us.
Understanding that simple truth allows us to begin to move away from seeing ourselves, or others, as victims of an unfair, cruel, or even sadistically-twisted family life. When we see ourselves as a victim on any level it produces great pain and sadly limits our life expression – to see ourselves as being irreparably damaged by our life circumstances, for instance, (a view I held of myself for a long time!) in my opinion, causes far worse damage than whatever abuse we may have endured.
Why? Think about it for a moment – who do we become, how do we respond to life, when we believe we are permanently damaged by life circumstances? How does it affect the way we live, and interact with others when we believe we've been dropped haphazardly into a family that abuses us? How does such a belief color our opinion of ourselves, our belief in our chances in life, our future possibilities, or our trust in others? How does it affect our ability to succeed in life when we see ourselves as damaged victims of abuse?
For clarity-sake, I am not suggesting that we make excuses for the abusive ways of our family, or that we deny what happened to us or that we discount our feelings about it. I am simply saying that by bringing an energetic understanding of how these things happen to our perspective, we feel less victim, more empowered, and we find we are in a position that better empowers us.
I've found that a sense of inner empowerment and peace comes from accepting Reality as not only being what it is, but that it is that way for us -in other words there's a good reason! There are no coincidences; every single painful thing that we experience in life can be used to further us. It is up to us and how we see those painful events, more than the events themselves, that determine whether we will be served or destroyed by them. The reality is that all things CAN work for our highest good, even our dysfunctional, abusive family dynamics can serve to empower and refine us!
Blessings, Lynne