Family is never just "blood family." "Chosen family" isn't always easy and filled with joy and feelings of empowerment. Over the course of our lives, we all make a variety of choices about who we call family. Sometimes we choose away from the people we grew up around. Sometimes we choose to stay close to the people who raised us and who we raised. Sometimes for a range of reasons we insert ourselves into certain peoples lives, struggle to accept the people already close to us as they are, need to double down on setting firm boundaries, and judge ourselves and others for how we and they "do" family. What is something you would like people to understand about how family goes in your life?
[image description: A heart sits on the top of a wooden post in a wire fence and looks on with a quizzical facial expression at a large young cuckoo bird being fed by a small older meadow pipit. The cuckoo is having the anthropomorphic thought, "You must learn to rest in chosen family." Text reads: "Cuckoo Meditation."]