Family Power: How to Create a Harmonious, Supportive Family System

Did you know that nothing has more impact on the level of performance of an employee, on the level of performance of children in school and in life, and on the on the overall health, happiness, and performance of any individual with a family than the quality of that person's family-life?

A harmonious family-life is not only more pleasant than a disturbing one. When family-life is marred by unhappiness, contentiousness, and strife, each family member loses in a big way, and that loss spills over into our communities, schools, and businesses. The adult goes to work, and the child goes to school, with more anxiety, less motivation, weaker concentration, diminished problem-solving skills, lower morale, a lack of self-esteem. Family strife produces stress that increases the likelihood for illness, and for illnesses becoming more serious. It increases absenteeism. It breeds depression.

Family Power is the power you get from a harmonious family life. And there may be no more potent source of power in your life. You're about to learn how to harness Family Power for the health, happiness, and soaring success of every member of your family.

1. First, make it a priority. Remember that any problem you face will be more easily and effectively handled if you handle it in a way that supports Family Power because Family Power supports you.

2. Now, you support Family Power by relating with, and functioning around, your spouse and children in a calm, caring manner. In contrast, when you react in angry, antagonistic, irritated ways or function in a rushed, uptight, anxious, chaotic fashion you impose upon your home a negative influence of stress that undermines Family Power.

3. A central obstacle to Family Power is unconscious, automatic, habitual reacting to what happens. Pay close attention to how you act, react and relate with your spouse and children on a daily basis to notice when you habitually slip into one of your old fight-or-flight patterns that foster family strife and undermine Family Power. Thus, you can steer away from old habitual reliance on anxiety, anger, demeaning criticism, and other forms of using discord.

4. Obviously, no one can create family harmony, which translates into Family Power, alone. It requires the willing cooperation of every member of the household. That being said, you will no doubt feel at times that you are the only one concerning yourself with Family Power. Your spouse may seem to ignore it; your kids may even seem bent on destroying it. Family Power therefore takes leadership, and to be a leader means doing it first and, at times, doing it alone.

5. The opposite of effective leading is blaming - blaming others for not doing more for you, instead of doing more of what you want yourself. Blaming and complaining fills the home with discord, and that undermines Family Power.

6. As you make unstrained, consistent effort to handle everything at home in a way that demonstrates more of the harmonious qualities of cooperation and support that you want from your family members you automatically lead your family members to do the same, because all of us, particularly children, automatically become like those we spend time with. Another way of stating this is that we automatically lead those around us in the direction that we lead ourselves. 7. Perseverance is another definite requirement for Family Power, because you are bound to occasionally fall back into old, habitual disempowering modes, like harsh criticizing and complaining, particularly when you feel fatigued or pressured. Each time that happens, catch yourself as soon as you can, take full responsibility for your actions, apologize to those you let down (if that seems appropriate) and simply begin again to do your best to function in harmony for Family Power.

8. So, when things go wrong, when your children behave in a way that you find unacceptable, when your spouse makes a mistake in your eyes, remember that NOTHING is more important than how you handle it; because if you react in ways that upset the household harmony, you undermine everyone's best interests.

9. In closing, remember that your relentless commitment to consistently demonstrate the harmonious qualities you want your family as a whole to express provides you and your loved ones with your contribution to Family Power.