Tiny Changes Connected Home

we've, we're running. We got: 1020

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hearts desire to occur?

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And I understand in the middle of chaos that there's so many other things going on in the home the you know, you might have somebody in active addiction, you might have somebody who's just coming into early recovery or just stopped for a little bit, but there's still that chaos and tension in the house, coupled with the Hey, we still have to get the kids to school, or we have to get pick up the kids from practice, or what other other family obligations you may have

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that it's like, Hey, I don't want to make another decision.

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I completely understand that, and my encouragement for you is that it doesn't have to be a huge change. It can be something so small. Of course, you've heard me say multiple times one of the biggest shifts is, can we get at least back to the table for one meal a day a week? Whatever it may be, will be that small change, something that I'm already doing in my life that will have great and long impact to the entire family. So I'm thinking, I was thinking about a family I worked with, and, you know, the the dad was the one who was, you know, having the struggles and and mom was very concerned about the family being disconnected. And, you know, we kind of sifted through some ideas of, okay, what are really the goals of the family? What are the things that are really speaking to your heart that you would like to see changed? And what were some of the barriers? And one of them that rose to the top was communication. You know, mom felt that, hey, listen, really losing communication with the kids. And you know, we want to have this foster this environment where they're open to communicate, and where that we can talk freely with one another. And we know, we looked at, you know, we did a little bit of a deeper dive and saw some of those things that were like, Okay, what are the barriers? What are some of the things that are occurring in your home that is going against what you're trying to create? Well, as we discussed it more, we found that, you know, the kids would often retreat to the living room. However, it would be a place where they'd actually shut down. Sometimes it would just be focusing on a TV, or it was just just sit there and be in silence, or so kind of looked at, okay, well, what does the living room look like. And we took even a bigger, deeper dive into that. And what we started to explore was, okay, what would it look like to shift the room around a little bit? Didn't want to leave lose the focal point of like the television, right? Television is in the living room, and people find that for entertainment and movies and. So we weren't going to remove the TV. We want to still keep that there, because it was something that, you know, the family still did movie nights every once in a while. So okay, what would this look like? So I kind of broke some things down, and kind of looked at the the environment in itself, and said, Hey, listen, if we just shift around, some of the chairs, a little bit couple other objects in the room really created this environment where people had to see each other a little bit more. So, you know, it kind of lended itself to having to look at other people. And the idea was that this was going to naturally create the opportunity for people to connect a little bit more. So, you know, that was taken into consideration. And of course, if you're listening to this, you know, make sure that you're talking with other people in your family. And because that could, you know, you've if you're rearranging something, you know, some people want a lot of control. And, you know, they're not okay with their environment being changed. And of course, people are going to feel a little uneasy when an environment has changed a little bit, but for the most part, I mean, I think, you know, with all that being aside, you know, just you can make these little, subtle changes and and that's what we did. And the next thing the the mom did was she started being the one who would, you know, after created the environment, made those adjustments, she was the one who came in and she would sit in the living room, she, you know, she'd bring in a book, or she would just kind of be hanging out there, you know, doing a little bit of work once in a while, and, you know, and what she found is that naturally, the kids were coming in there, but they were even starting to come in there a little bit more often. And it became a place not that they just turned on the television, but where the because the chairs were kind of facing one another or not, and not directly facing each other, but just an environment where you could see one another and and it opened up that space so that the conversation started to flow. And, you know, as the weeks kind of progressed, and we kind of talked about, you know, hey, different things you could be doing in that area. It became this place, this this safe place, this fun environment, where people would come in and laugh. It wasn't always heavy discussions. It was just kind of just, hey, what were, you know, we worked on open ended questions and things like that, so that it naturally became a place where the kids were going anyways, and everybody started communicating with one another. And it brought this, this this happiness and this joy into the home, really, this connectedness of the heart. And, you know, one of the things that they found was they were still doing, you know, their movie night, you know, a couple times a month. And at the end of the movie, it was only natural for them to, like, kind of talk a little bit about the movie afterwards. You know, I had something that connected with them, something that they appreciated at the with the movie. And again, it was such, just like a a small shift, that inch, that millimeter shift, that all that little bit of that inch of a shift that changed the dynamics of the family, and the family connected, and they grew together. And you know, over the time of partnering with them. It just became this great place, you know, where even, you know, dad felt comfortable, and they felt comfortable with dad being in there and, you know, just that fostering, that jokingness And some of the things that they had been longing for and had missed for so long. So, you know, when I think about these things, you know, hopefully that sparks something in you. And because there's, you know, there's hundreds of things you can do to create, you know, a little bit of a different environment in your home, or to make these changes in your home. And you know, I think of things like check ins or board games or, you know, showing appreciation for one another. You know, schedules some people put in, you know, cell phone free zones. Like, there's so many things that we can do, but each family is different, and I really say that that's that's so important, is to be able to realize that, hey, listen, our family is unique in itself, and we don't know what that one change is that's going to help with our family. But when you explore a deeper dive into taking a look at what are some of those things that. Are important to us, and that will foster a place where we can connect, because we're constantly wanting to connect. And I know that I've always, you know every time I speak with folks like we're communication is one of those things that is so difficult. So we want to be able to foster environments that and do that. And again, I want to go back to this idea of easy. Does it? Like, look, there might be, you know, you might be feeling overwhelmed right now that there's no way I can make a little bit of a change. It would just be too much right now, I'm going to encourage you, like, hey, reach out to me. Let's get connected. Because if we make just a little bit of a change for you that something that you're already currently doing, something that already currently exists in the home, and we make that change, you're going to see that you'll connect to the hearts of the people around you, which will ultimately create the environment in the home that you're looking for. So I want to thank you all for being here with me today and until our next episode, remember, sobriety is a family affair.