Going after your Heart

When you go after your heart, everyone around you wins, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. 

A couple of years after I got divorced, I bought my family home. I did it to ensure that my parents would always have a roof over their heads, and so I would have a bit of an investment property. The only problem was that is came with the added ties of my brothers, who never seemed able to leave.

Now it is 6 years on and I have long since moved out of the home I own, but the rest of my family continue to live there... 2 brothers, their partners and my parents in the cottage on the back. It is difficult to live there, with constant drama and 2 grown men who don't seem to want to take responsibility for their lives. I had run away from the situation, hoping that it would work itself out and everyone would find their way, but I was wrong, all I had done was enable them to continue to live out of the pockets of our parents, causing undue stress for our father, a man who is already past retirement age, but continues to work to keep the family going.

I know in my heart it is time for us all to move on, it is time for us all to take the next step in our journey; and the only way for that to happen is for me to sell the one thing that is keeping us all tied together... the house.

In the past, whenever I had spoken about changing how things operate with regards to the house, I would be shot down and chastised for not being considerate of the situations of others; I would be told that I did not care, because the boys were struggling and we should be supportive of our family. So now, to want to do this, my immediate thoughts were that I would not be heard and I would not be allowed to do the thing that I know will serve us all in the long run.

Today I took a step in favour of my heart and I went and sat with my parents to explain what I was thinking. I opened my heart to show them the genuine nature of my intended actions, to show them how this is the best step for us all. A move of tough love so that the boys no longer have an easy out to be rescued, and an action to keep the promise I had made in the first place. 

We spoke as adults, with open hearts and open minds, not an unknowing child to a parent, and I was heard, my courage to take the stand that nobody else was willing to take making itself felt in the outcome.

We are going to sell the house; the boys must find their own way, my parents will finally be able to rest and retire and I will be free of the burden of responsibility I have carried for them all. 

My heart knows the truth of us all needing to be sovereign in our own lives, to be responsible for our own destiny and it knows that that often means making difficult decisions that affect the lives of those we love... but the truth will, quite literally, set you free.