When you are trying to bring together a family that has broken apart, all members must be willing to heal the divide.
Getting to this point is no easy task, but you can use group affirmations as a way to unite and mend the foundation that has been broken within your family.
Group affirmations are affirmations that are written and spoken aloud together in the "we" format. They are typically written in consensus and used as a form of therapeutic communication and prayer. There doesn't need to be a shared religious or spiritual belief between family members for this to take place. It just requires a willingness to bring the family back together and improve the relationships overall.
Examples of group affirmations:
We agree to love each other.
We do our best to accept each other.
We promise to feel with our hearts, think with our minds, and heal from our spirit.
We acknowledge that we are perfectly imperfect.
We bring ourselves together with hope.
We unite through compassion.
We appreciate each other and what we bring to each other.
There are five crucial keys to writing these affirmations beforehand and ensuring their success.
Agree to a baseline of no more than ten affirmations
Having an initial agreement to the number of affirmations and working with each family member as a unit to make these decisions is vital to your success in becoming a stable, healthy group. Taking the time to discuss this at length and making sure every member is heard is another way to ensure respect and compassion all around and deal with any issues that come up in the process as a family.
Decide which one is the core of the family
Once you have written and agreed upon your affirmations, you can decide which one is the central defining affirmation of your family. Keep in mind that affirmations are meant to be simple, so a defining group affirmation can be as easy as "We agree to love each other" without needing any further explanation.
Discuss how each family member manifests the core affirmations and give appreciation
When you have agreed upon your core defining group affirmation, take time for each member of the family to discuss how that affirmation defines them individually and how they contribute to the family as part of that core affirmation. This part is crucial for it allows for each person's personality and hardship to be taken into account and opens up space for how that person's role manifests within the family. Some of your family members may even be surprised at their answers, and that can be transformative as well as healing.
When new family members are brought in, renegotiate all the affirmations or add one to the list
It is essential to recognize that when new family members are brought within the family member, they are welcomed as much as they are to be held accountable for their behavior and actions. A new family member can be an in-law, friend of the family, or a child when they reach a certain agreed-upon age of accountability within the family. This practice allows for flexibility and the ability to embrace change when needed.
Create a family event where the group affirmations are spoken aloud.
This can be as simple as a family dinner. It can even be a group meeting over zoom or another chat platform. It can even be agreed upon for parts of the family to say them aloud together when they meet. Doing this helps in larger families where not everyone lives in the same city or state. Be consistent and agree to whatever works best for the family as a whole.
In some ways, you can look at the exercise of group affirmations as a type of family philosophy that is built as part of a family agreement. It is a task that rebuilds trust, love, and unity without the need for united religious or spiritual beliefs.