QUESTION
Dear Ven. Robina:
I never had the chance to meet you in person, but I have participated in a lot of teachings that you have given. At present, I am facing a difficult situation within my family, and your teachings resonate deeply with what I am experiencing.
My partner’s adult daughters are not all supportive of me. I do my best, but it’s never enough. They don’t live with us, which is fortunate.
How can I improve things with them?
Big love,
R
ANSWER
Dear R,
I’m glad to hear from you. I understand what you say — it must be so difficult.
When it’s family it’s the most difficult, isn’t it? Because you spend time with each other.
The problem, of course — and this is the same for all of us — is that we want to be liked and approved of by people, especially family! So painful otherwise!
We know we can’t change other people, no matter how hard we try, so the only thing we can do is to try to adjust our own approach. Not easy!
But first of all, tell me if you discuss this with your wife. Do you have her support?
Tell me that, and then we can discuss further.
All the best,
Robina
QUESTION
Dear Robina,
Thank you very much for your reply.
Yes, I have discussed this with my wife and she is very upset and is suffering a lot because of this situation. She understands my point of view and supports me.
She agrees that it is too much, but her opinion is that the truth is in the middle, and probably she is right.
To be honest, I am content that I don’t have to interact with them and I hope maybe in time I can adjust my approach a bit.
At a theoretical level I understand that it is about my ego, but when it comes to practice, it is very difficult.
Big love,
R
ANSWER
Dear R,
It’s good your wife supports you.
A couple of things I can recommend.
The first is: try to talk about it to your wife as little as possible. This will help a lot. Keeping the subject alive by talking about it just makes things more difficult. So see it as your own personal practice. This is hard, of course, because you probably want to share everything with your partner, but not talking about it makes a huge difference.
The second is: in your mind, list good qualities about your wife’s daughters: this will paint a new picture of them for you. This sounds small, but actually it’s huge. Definitely it will soften your view of them. It really helps.
The third is: when you’re with them, try to focus on them and their needs. Stop trying to get them to like you; try to forget about that.
These all sound easy, but they are not.
Yes: the problem in our ego in these types of scenarios is, as I mentioned, our attachment, our huge need, to be approved of by others. Not easy to get past this one!
And also, remember: not everybody needs to like us — we can handle it!
You’re doing your best, I’m sure!
Love to you,
Robina
QUESTION
Dear Robina,
Thank you very much for your wise advice!
Big love,
R