It’s all about the Connections!

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I know what I need and want to do now with my situation regarding my family and letting them read my blog that I wrote about here with the help from all of you. The ideas are still swirling around in my head, but I’m gaining more clarity and peace. I can say without a doubt, I couldn’t have come to my decision (which I’ll write about in another post) if I didn’t receive such wisdom, compassion, understanding and a great dash of humour in the comments you left me.

I’d like to share snippets and highlights from each of your comments for acknowledgment and gratitude but also to remind each of us, whether we have a blog or not, that we need a tribe. A “family” who stands by us through dark storms, shines with us when life is good and comes along for the ride when we’re ready for new adventures. Some of us are blessed to have that both on and off the internet and some of us don’t. It doesn’t matter HOW we find connections, rather that we DO have them. So to each of you whether you commented or not, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Susan @ Pieces of Fate said:

Wendy as you know, I have also been very truth­ful about my fam­ily crap…I’ve told my son, daugh­ter and hubby that I talk about them on my blog. Hubby is not crazy about it, and some­times tells me not to talk about him. but i am too hon­est I guess, and i always men­tion it.

Jaimie- Lyn Oldfield @ The Diary of a Bald Girl said:

I know what you mean on the whole not want­ing them (family) to see every­thing. I feel the same way with mine, and ended up delet­ing one blog entry com­pletely that I wish I could have just left up. You don’t have to tell them at all that its to keep them out. Like I said before, you can just say the pass­word pro­tected pages are per­sonal blogs towards other friends, or a con­ver­sa­tion between them. That it has noth­ing to do with your fam­ily. If its a lie, well to bad. We all tell lies to keep the ones we love from being hurt. Thats life. If any­one knows of some­one who never tells white lies to save oth­ers.…. I wanna meet them. Cause I’ve never met one before.

Danni @ The Whimsical Cottage said:

I’ve never wor­ried much about this (family reading blog issues) myself, until the other day when I posted the bit about when and how my fam­ily destruc­ted. My mom would be tremen­dously upset if she read it because she would say a) it’s no one’s busi­ness and b) I’m clearly not remem­ber­ing it cor­rectly despite my brother, sis­ter and father all remem­ber­ing it the same way as I do. No one likes to be made to look like the bad guy, but to help heal old hurts we need to let things out into the open where they can become smaller, more man­age­able and ulti­mately hold no more power over us.

Leanne @ Cottage Tails said:

— lots of folks do not “get” blog­ging & why it can be fun & form friend­ships. — More a mod­ern day of pen­friends is how I see blogging.

Flora @ MomaBear’s Bee Crazy Quilter said:

Wendy dear tell them the truth up front. this is your place to be truth­ful and even hurt­ful and judg­men­tal about, not just your fam­ily but your­self as well. those who will take it badly, would have taken it badly when­ever they found out. it’s often bet­ter to “rip the band-aid off“ sooner than later. and as scary as it is, let­ting your loved ones know more about where the crazy comes from is some­times a good thing. the truth will set your mind more on a heal­ing path. and if you worry about your son not under­stand­ing he won’t. he is still to young to. it may be years before he get’s close to under­stand­ing. Boy’s don’t grow up until they are at least 30 and even that is some­times opti­mistic. (my ex is 45 and is still an emo­tional 10 year old!)

Aine @ The Deepest Well said;

I would just be hon­est and tell them that you orig­i­nally thought it would be a good idea, but then had sec­ond thoughts. I’ve had out in the open blogs and those I keep quiet about and I like to keep my fam­ily and real life friends out of the blog. It makes it so much eas­ier.

Faerie Sage @ Faerie Sage Kitchen said

I want you to be able to share your feel­ings and thoughts no mat­ter what, pass­word pro­tect seems the best and if they want the pass word say it is per­sonal posts, answer­ing per­sonal ques­tions friends have asked that are just for your friend to read, just like how you can post pic­tures that only some of your friends can see on face­book. I know that lots of peo­ple will say just be hon­est, and with say my fam­ily that works, but I know from deal­ing with Mr H’s fam­ily that it doesn’t always work, you are in a damned if you do and damned if you don’t sit­u­a­tion.

Kallan @ The Secret Life of the American Working Witch said;

I hon­estly wouldn’t want my son read­ing the blog after that kind of cri­tique from some­one in col­lege who is tak­ing psy­chol­ogy.. I swear, I’ve seen that hap­pen with every kid who takes psych 101.. they all of the sud­den become the expert in all things of the mind.

Stephi @ Hope for the Flowers said:

As for your son…this is just my opinion.…I do not feel that he is ready to read your blog. I hope this doesn’t hurt but he seems like he is look­ing for ways to dis­re­spect you. And he’ll prob­a­bly land up using your blog against you. Once he has the matu­rity and the abil­ity to see you as an actual human being and not just his mom it may be pos­si­ble. Quite frankly…I think he needs to grow up and start respect­ing you more– Sorry! but from where I come from we don’t mod­dle cod­dle chil­dren and respect­ing your par­ents is a big deal. Maybe just don’t men­tion it again and he’ll for­get about it.

Leathra @ Confessions of a Crafty Witch said;

if there’s a post I don’t want them (family) read­ing, I’ll only post it to my real blog. I’ve used sim­i­lar tac­tics with other things in the past, and have found that after an ini­tial check-out my fam­ily really doesn’t seem to check much after that.

Sophia Dawn @ Wandering a Wise Woman Path said;

I do two blogs. One is mun­dane and fam­ily friendly. The other is the one I am on most. nobody in my fam­ily has asked for the URL to my blog but if they ever searched for it, they would find it.

Debra @ She Who Seeks said;

The 2 blog route seems to be the way to go. Just be sure there’s no pos­si­ble way to link from one to the other, e.g., through your blog­ger pro­file or some­thing. Good luck!

Stacy Lynn @ A Life Lived Well…In Pursuit of Abundance said;

My fam­ily has always known I blog, but they have never been privy to my posts…not even when my blog was a strictly Chris­t­ian blog cen­tered on min­istry. I’ve always con­sid­ered my blog to be my pri­vate place to unload, share, etc. Read­ing it with­out my permis­sion is to me like read­ing my diary with­out asking. Like you told me, we have to set bound­aries and we all deserve our pri­vate place. Your fam­ily needs to respect that. It doesn’t sound like your son will get any more bent out of shape than he already is. I hope I can be hon­est, because I appre­ci­ated it when you were hon­est with me about my son.….your son sounds like a self-absorbed brat that needs to grow up and think of some­one other than him­self. Don’t let him bully or guilt you into doing what you don’t want to do and know is not good for you.

Julia said;

And truth­fully if I was asked about my blog and if they could have the link I would say sure you can have it, with one stip­u­la­tions and a warn­ing. Warn­ing: There are things you will find on there that will upset and hurt you. Stip­u­la­tions: They are not allowed to make any mean or harsh com­ments about things they may read on my blog. Yes I know this may make the wedge wider, but as I have learned I have no con­trol over some­one elses feel­ings and I am not respon­si­ble for them. I will not alter my way of think­ing or feel­ings about my life just to make another feel bet­ter. That isn’t liv­ing my life, it is liv­ing theirs and that isn’t what I was put here to do. Like my ther­a­pist drilled in my head, it is healthy and com­pletely your right to put up bound­aries of how peo­ple will treat you. Sounds a bit harsh and mean, but I wouldn’t have sur­vived the past three years with­out being a bit harsh and mean. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about oth­ers, it just means I care about me as much, if not more.

Diandra @ That Witch is True said;

I think that if you try to pre­vent them (family)  from read­ing your blog, they will of course real­ize and feel rejected. There is no way to do so with­out them real­iz­ing you don’t want them to read your blog. There­fore, being in your place, I would for­ward the URL and wait to see what hap­pens. My idea is that if you feel like shar­ing some­thing with the whole (blog­ging) world, you should not be afraid of what peo­ple might think about it. Not even if it is your family.

Jeanne @ The Candy Corn Chronicles said;

Explain to them (family) that your blog is YOUR place to express your­self — your feel­ings, your thoughts about Life, Fam­ily, and every­thing else in the Uni­verse. Tell them that they will find both good, bad and oth­er­wise writ­ten there. And they may read some things that may upset them.
Should they read your blog and get upset about some­thing, then remind them that THEY are the ones that ask to see it. That you didn’t ‘invite’ them to read it. That they were warned about the con­tent. And that you don’t want any deroga­tory com­ments or lectures. A per­son has to set lim­its with other peo­ple — fam­ily and friends alike. If we don’t stand up for our­selves, no one else will either.

Jinny @ Lil’ Babycatcher said;

I think what may be best is to have cer­tain posts pass­word pro­tected and if some­one that you don’t want read­ing those posts asks you to see it, you then have the option of being com­pletely hon­est and truth­ful or sim­ply stat­ing those are more pri­vate posts that you would rather not get out to the world.

Abi @ Abi Monroe said;

If you want them (family) to read it and be involved, but only the posts you do want them to see, then block them from those bits and do the pass­word thing.
And yep, maybe they will for­get about it before you have to decide… if you haven’t already. Can I say one other thing? I am per­haps way out of line, but I’m going to say it any­way :O) give your son a good kick up the behind… I hate hear­ing kids being dis­re­spect­ful to their parents.

Laura @ Laura and her Favorite Things said;

Some­times it’s best to just come clean and tell them either that you don’t really want them to read it or just say I’ll give you the URL but that they need to real­ize that it is a place where you can vent and that they need to not hold any­thing you have writ­ten or will in future write, against you.

Birgit @ Swapping Howdies said;

As for meet­ing peo­ple online, well, I have writ­ten let­ters to peo­ple from all over the world since my early teens (when my Eng­lish was good enough to com­mu­ni­cate). Over the years, I have met quite a few of them in real life — either here in Munich or some­where abroad. Through let­ters and later emails I might have got­ten to know them on a deeper level than mere acquain­tances around here. So, yes, real friend­ships can start in such a way.

Jeff @ Outcries & Asides Revisited said;

The fact that you can talk freely about Alex’s short­com­ings, and that you can argue openly with him in com­pany, sug­gests to me that you’re not in awe of him. Nei­ther should you be; you know that, I’m sure. The prob­lem is fear – fear of being rejected if you hold your own ground and just be who you are. I don’t see how you’re going to get over this ongo­ing sit­u­a­tion with your fam­ily until you get over the big dilemma – equat­ing the con­cept of car­ing for your fam­ily with the fear of los­ing their appro­ba­tion and acceptance. I think we’re all aware of the image we know peo­ple have of us, and the great thing about a blog is that we can be totally free to project a truth­ful image and let these dis­tant peo­ple stay or go as we wish. The ones who stay even­tu­ally get closer, and they do so in the knowl­edge of who we are. Those who have known us per­son­ally for a long time have an image of us that has been essen­tially more ‘man­i­cured’ by what we’ve been pre­pared to reveal and what we haven’t. Frankly, I don’t see how you can allow them to read your blog unless you fully con­quer your fear of them reject­ing you. And your blog mustn’t be cen­sored. The free­dom to say what you want is prob­a­bly the best ben­e­fit you get from it.

And Theresa @ Welcome to my World said;

I am rather sur­prised at some of your son’s con­cepts of blog­ging and email con­nec­tions. I have made some WONDERFUL friends in this way. In fact — I actu­ally met my hus­band ONLINE. Yes, indeed. And I didn’t imme­di­ately speak with him — but instead forged a con­nec­tion imme­di­ately through the writ­ten word. Some peo­ple can more effec­tively and inti­mately express them­selves through the writ­ten word. I agree that per­haps a password-protect is the best route. You can explain to your fam­ily that your blog is also kind of a like a diary — and that some pas­sages are very pri­vate and that no one has access to them except for your­self (even though that might be a slight fudg­ing of the truth)

So there you have it, some snippets of your comments that have given me new insights, strength and laughter, (the comments about Alex, cracked me up!). This is how we form a tribe that supports and nourishes us, posting our truths, commenting with honesty and compassion on others blogs and walking with integrity in our everyday life.

I hope you’ll visit each others blogs and see how incredible and unique each person is and the gifts that each of us has to offer. Leave a small comment if you can, just to let others know that what they say is being heard and valued.  And if you need advice and help; ask! You can agree or disagree with what you hear, but you’ll know you’re not alone and that you’re important to others.

If you don’t have a blog like my blog reader, Julia, connect with them through email, FaceBook, twitter or any other way you can. It’s all about the “Connections” as I keep repeating. I look forward and planning on meeting some of you someday and talking to you on the phone; and screw the blog etiquette that says we “shouldn’t meet people in person that we get to know over the internet.” The above comments prove that the internet is not the means to an end, but the opening of a door full of possibilities and magick.

Again, I humbly thank all of you for who you are and what you offer to me.

© 2010, Wendy S.. All rights reserved.

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