Improving Your Relationship With Your Family
Hello lovely souls, welcome to Chai Time Wednesdays! As you may have read in this week’s newsletter, from this week onwards we will have a weekly theme to ensure that our content across all formats (blog, video, and podcast) are bite-sized.
This week’s theme is: Fostering Good Relationships. For Chai Time Wednesdays we will be covering the family aspect of it. The points shared here may be interchangeably applied in other forms of relationship, for example, in a marriage or in friendships. For us, personally, the 4 tips that follow, specifically helped us in improving our relationship with our family. So take the good, and apply it in a way that is unique to you and your relationships.
Let’s get started!
1. Make A Ritual
Designate family time, where you can spend time with each other and give one another your undivided attention.
This can be as simple as creating a weekly ritual. Umair and I really missed being able to make Sehri for the family during Ramadan, because it allowed us to sit down with each other and talk about anything and everything. So, after Ramadan ended we decided to have breakfast together as a family after fajr (dawn) prayers, any day on the weekend.
Similarly, pick an activity that you all can do as a family, and do it consistently. Who knows, it can become something you all look forward to every week to unwind and relax.
2. Maintain The Home Together
Building a house is one thing, but maintaining a home is another ball game altogether. It can either become a chore, or an opportunity to come together as a family and strengthen the bond.
No one person should be burdened with the responsibility of managing the home. It is about everyone doing their percentage of work and completing the 100%.
Help one another. If your Mother is doing the laundry, help her take out the dried clothes the next day. If your spouse makes the breakfast, then help with the dishes afterwards. If you see a family member feeling low or tired, and you are available to help, do their part of work unconditionally.
Just a personal example, if I am making the dinner, my father-in-law helps me with the dishes and Umair helps with cleaning the kitchen and throwing the trash. Divide and conquer. Always.
When you know you have support and help, you start doing things out of love and willingly instead of feeling frustrated. This way you feel compassion towards each other instead of resentment.
3. Creating A Safe Space
Home should be somewhere you feel safe and want to come back to. This is where parents should set precedence. They should create a safe space for their children, so that they know that they can always come back home and pour their heart out. Everyone should feel empowered to share their good news as well as their bad news. Always keep one another in a loop.
Instead of having to find an outlet outside of family, one should be able to have a support system at home first. Because your relationship with your family defines the choices you make in other relationships (more on that in our video and podcast, Inshallah).
4. Forgive And Let Go
Disagreements are inevitable in any relationship. It’s normal. It’s how you deal with these disagreements that truly matter.
Choosing to forgive, then letting go and choosing love over our ego, is what keeps us all together.
However, there are some of us with genuinely difficult families, and in that case choosing to forgive is key. Forgive for the sake of Allah (God), love them for His sake too and fulfill your basic obligations at the least. Because, remember these are relationships that we didn’t choose ourselves, we were blessed with a family by His Grace, so do your best!
That’s it for Chai Time Wednesday's dearest friends! To get the full big picture of this week’s theme, do check out Unwind with the Khans on our Youtube channel this Friday and tune in to the Two Souls One Chai Podcast this coming Sunday!
Till then, take care!
With love,
Rabail and Umair Khan
