How to Find your Chosen Family: The First 3 Steps
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
Do you often feel like an outsider at family gatherings? Maybe you are the truth teller in the family, and don’t understand why people aren’t talking about the elephant in the room. Perhaps you feel like you are constantly holding your tongue, when what you really want is to be able to be your whole authentic self with your family.
Many people healing from family betrayal feel this way. They yearn to be surrounded by a family who sees them and loves them, just as they are. While we can’t all live in a Shrinking episode, we can find the people who will love us as our whole selves. These people are our chosen family, and they are a critical piece of healing from family betrayal.
In this post, I will walk you through the first three steps to finding the people who will love your authentic self. Your Chosen Family.
Believe that you Deserve a Chosen Family
There is great cultural stigma around prioritizing friends over family. The old saying, blood is thicker than water, is an idea so pervasive in our culture that it can make you think that finding a chosen family is a waste of time. To find your chosen family, you need to start by expanding your definition of what family can be. Finding people that you feel authentic with doesn’t mean that you have to cut off relationships with your blood family. It just means that you can have different people in your life for different reasons.
Believing that you deserve a chosen family also means challenging some of the messages that you may have received growing up. Things like, you are not worth it, no one will want you the way you are, and you are too difficult, too sensitive. It may be that for your family, you were too sensitive. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find people that feel that your level of sensitivity is just exactly right.
It also means choosing yourself and what you need in a close family relationship over the one that has been awarded to you in the genetic lottery. Until you believe that you have a right to find and enjoy a chosen family, you will struggle to find it.
Take Stock of What you Have
Next, consider the relationships that you have already, and put them in categories. First, are the people that you already consider chosen family. Many people have one or two close friends that fit into this category, but if you really want to create a family-like group, you are going to have to think bigger than that.
To start thinking bigger, look at all of the relationships you have, and the communities you are a part of, to see which aspects of a chosen family you may have already, without realizing it.
Here is a personal example to show you what I am talking about.
For several summers, I worked on a local farm. I did some planting, harvesting, and watering, but mostly I worked in the farm stand, chatting with consumers and selling baskets of Persian cucumbers. I loved every part of it, from the tomato smell that sticks to your fingers to answering questions about how to cook fiddleheads. Most importantly, I loved the people I worked with. While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes a group of people come together so well, it had to do with a shared purpose, a love of the work, a willingness to share ourselves, and probably working through COVID together.
At some point, I realized that these people were part of my chosen family. Not because we spent holidays together or shared a past, but because of how I felt when I was with them. These were people that I could dance around the farm stand with, and also tell some of my deepest fears. We celebrated birthdays together, and I could also tell them, No, I don’t want to do what you are asking of me, and it was respected.
The word I use to describe how I felt as part of that group is cherished. The dictionary definition of cherish is: to hold dear, to feel or show affection for. I know it’s a bit of an odd word to use for a group of work colleagues, and that is exactly how I felt.
I think we sometimes get caught up in believing that only our family of origin could ever cherish us. Or love us, or show up for us in the hospital. Building a chosen family means challenging that idea.
The blood is thicker than water crowd will tell you that blood family is around forever, at least in theory, whereas work groups like the one I had at the farm are often temporary. Which can be true. After a few years, the farm changed hands and I was no longer able or interested in working there. Yes, I did grieve that loss. Deeply.
AND, I can tell you that when I have a sad moment now, a moment when I need to feel cherished, I close my eyes and imagine that time. I picture the people, the fields, the smell of the tomatoes, and the music in the farm stand, and I can feel cherished. I hold that feeling for as long as I need to. It really is that simple.
Building a chosen family means deciding on the feelings you want from that family, and then figuring out what people you have in your life who already help you to feel that way. There may well be gaps. That’s where the next step comes in.
What Do You Want?
Before you can find something, you need to know what you are looking for. Here are some questions to consider to help you figure out what you are looking for in chosen family members:
How do you want these people to make you feel? Are there specific needs you hope they will fill?
Are you looking for individuals, or do you hope to find a group to be part of?
What kind of interactions feed you the most? For example, I am most content in a smallish group of 5-20 people. That is my jam. Smaller than that and I don’t feel there’s enough energy and variety, bigger than that and I get overwhelmed and am prone to hiding. What size family is right for you?
What are some of the qualities that you hope your chosen family members will have? These can be things like honesty, integrity, vulnerability, and also encompass things like, a love of adventure, the outdoors, travel, the arts, or even Minecraft. It’s important to consider both the internal and external attributes.
Building a chosen family can bring you the feeling of being both surrounded and supported, as well as completely free to be who you are. This is what love looks like. And you deserve it.