Relationships are a web.

The beauty of cross pollination and blended family

The inspiration to write this article came to me recently when I was walking through the streets in Haarlem, in The Netherlands, with a dear sister, Jen.

We were both reflecting and musing on how we have created lives where there is so much richness and beauty in the complexity of the web that comprises our blended families.

I haven’t always been this grateful for the life that I have created.

In fact, I spent a good two years internally suffering and beating myself up over the perceived mistakes I had made that had led me to being a single mother.

I speak about my personal journey more in my book, The Motherculture Revolution which is now available for pre-sale online, here.

When I first went through my separation with Caerulea’s father, I had to face off with the shock of the loss that came with the realisation that I would not have a family.

Well, that was my initial reaction.

I wanted a nuclear family. I wanted it to work out the first time. The idea of a blended family absolutely repulsed me.

I had to sit with this repulsion in my body for years.

Both at myself, for allowing myself to get swept up in the passion of promises that saw me conceiving and following through with saying yes to having a baby.

The repulsion that came up in me towards men, where I faced off with an hatred that could burn an entire city to ashes; where I had to face my father abandonment wound head on and acknowledge that I had chosen to have a child with someone that could not show up for me or the process.

And my deeper unconscious patriarchal and systemic conditioning programs, that told me that I was worthless as a single mother. That I would never find someone that loved me. That I was discarded, second hand goods. That blended families are broken.

I truly believed this and had to journey with it and live with it in my body for years.

Until, something shifted.

Mostly, it shifted when I healed my connection to the partner of my fathers child - who was involved in the descent and crumbling of our relationship.

When I finally let go, metamorphisis happened within me.

I saw the way that she cared for my daughter and I started to see the beauty in blended families. I started to see how blended families - when done right and when there is harmony between all parties, can actually be even MORE easeful than a traditional, nuclear family.

Why?

There are more hands on deck.

There is more variety.

More inter-relationships and dynamics.

And whilst this can be extremely challenging if you do not have good relationships with all involved - or the skillset to navigate the challenges,

when it works, it really works.

That is the place I find myself in. Grateful for what I have created -

just like nature, which is a beautiful and complex ecosystem, so too are blended families.

Sigourney Belle x