When Your Soul Smiles: Re-cap of My Family Reunion

Dr. Martha’s Monday Morning Motivational

Monday, August 1, 2011

When Your Soul Smiles

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending four days with my mother’s side of my family in Lavalette, NJ on the Jersey Shore.  Together I joined seventy members in celebrating life and love at the Murphy-Gleeson Family Reunion.  Every four years everyone joins together the first week of August to re-connect, reminisce, and make new memories.  Every waking minute was filled with love, laughter, and sheer joy!

There is something really special about the bond between family members.  Regardless of where an individual falls on the family tree there is an unspoken connection between each and every person that is not dictated by generation or exact relation.  Within families the genetic connection of DNA creates an adhesion to each others journey and life experience that supersedes the strength of rubber cement or super glue

This year was my first Murphy-Gleeson Family reunion.  Throughout the four days I was there I experienced a full spectrum of emotions from joy to sorrow and excitement to fear.  Regardless of the emotion, I allowed my self to feel each emotion.  I respected each emotion for what it was, a part of the overall experience.  I embraced each emotion and allowed to wash over me, stirring my cells in to motion and as the emotion passed, with an attitude of gratitude, I said an internal thanks to my innate for allowing me to maximize the experience.

There were parts of the weekend that were harder than others and at times embracing the moment seemed easier said than done.   Having lost my mother at two years old meant that her family became distant family.  My ex-step-mother didn’t encourage a relationship with my mother’s family and actually attempted to sever my relationship with them, so until the age of sixteen my mother’s parents, siblings, and there children were more so figments of my imagination.  Being able to drive meant being able to spend time with her family in Chicago and as often as I could I submerged my self in my mother’s spirit by spending time with the one’s who loved her most.

Being disconnected from my mother’s immediate family meant I was also disconnected from the more extended family on my mother’s side.  This weekend marked the bridging of that gap.  This weekend I saw a combination of relatives I had always heard of as well as relatives, which I had never heard of; all of which I was excited to meet.  I was amazed at the similarities we shared and how within twenty-four hours I felt at home and it was as though we had all known each other for a lifetime.

There were many times I just stepped back and looked around and as my soul smiled I attempted to absorb the vibration of love that filled the air around me. As I said this was my first family reunion for myself and I was awed by the love that abounded from my family, not shocked but awed.  I remember looking at my Maudie and PopPop and thinking this is all because to people fell in love and each branch on the family tree representing the joining to hearts and the product of their love.

As I said the bond between families is extremely special and attempting to attach a descriptive word to help describe that bond has proved to appear impossible.  I am not sure there is a word that gives it the justice it deserves without robbing it of its entirety.  But simply stated, when your family surrounds you and the vibration of love is enhancing your cellular function your soul smiles.  It’s an un-describable emotion that provides a high that leaves you yearning for more, giving four years the appearance of an eternity.

To my entire family on the Murphy-Gleeson side who so warmly embraced me this past weekend I want to say, “Thank you”.  Thank you for sharing in the joys that came with being surrounded by those who love me because they are a part of me.  Thank you for listening to my heart and shedding tears of both joy and sorrow.  Thank you for reminding me of how blessed I am and the strength of my family tree’s roots.  And most of all thank you for loving me! The weekend was not an easy one for me but it was exactly where I needed to be.  I am looking forward to next year!

Love. Laugh. Adjust.

Dr. Martha Nessler, Innate Girl