What Keeps People Together?

We all come from a family system, but not all of us can say we are a family.

In therapy, most of what comes up is about someone in the family, or with someone in the family. That is how I came to ask myself what it is that keeps people together.

The bond between family members is not made of tradition, custom or habit. The family bond is made of belonging. We belong to our family for the simple fact that we were born into it. The family is part of who we are, just as we have our own rightful place within it. And nothing and no one can change that.

Belonging to your family of origin is not conditional on how you behave, on what philosophy of life you hold, on your religion, or on which corner of the planet you live in. A child who lives in the house where they were born, in their hometown, even alongside their parents, matters just as much as the child who chose to leave and built a life in another country.

It is not duty and obligation towards our kin that keeps us together. The only thing that keeps us together is unconditional love and the acceptance of change as part of life.

When we are able to love ourselves, we know how to take care of ourselves. We become our own inner parent, the one who tells us, in a voice that is either gentle or critical:

You are here because I took care of you as best I knew how. And you survived.

When we love ourselves, the inner child finds the courage to speak and to say that it wants to grow, that it wants to do more than just survive. But for that, it needs to act differently. It needs to do something else. Something new, but in its own way, as it feels it.

The ability to change is an energy with enormous potential for growth. It is stored in the base of inner resources we come into this life with. We carry it within us, and we use it most often in moments of crisis, of stress, of sheer necessity, when there is nothing left to do but change.

But the capacity for change is not only there for emergencies. It is a quality that connects us to ourselves. It is the inner resource through which our authentic Self comes into the light.

In cultures where things have been done the same way for centuries, change is sabotaged and laughed at. In families where tradition is sacred, the one who brings change is labelled the black sheep.

But the world has changed, and it wants to be seen and accepted as it is.

The old saying „Birds of a feather flock together” has become „Authenticity keeps us together”.

Today, being together means accepting and integrating the differences between us.

Being together means allowing the other person to be themselves, and supporting them in becoming the best version of who they are.

Being together means feeling at ease among people who accept you exactly as you are. They do not have to like you, admire you or love you. It is enough that they see you as one of their own: a person who is different, original, authentic.

I invite you to stop for one minute, whatever you are doing. Look around you. What do you see? Perhaps a room full of people working. A classroom of children learning. A gym full of people training. A park with children running. A supermarket with people pushing trolleys. A bus with people heading home. They are all different.

What keeps them together?

The fact that they are human. And people respect one another, accept one another and support one another.