Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

30/11/24

‘Blood is thicker than water’ is a phrase often used to imply that the bonds of a biological family are deeper than, and should be prioritised above, those connections made outside the family.

There’s an idealised version of families where we believe there will be unconditional love, endless positive support, and lifelong bonds.

In my experience, this frequently leads people to feeling disconnected and lonely when their familial relationships are not the best.

The full quote is this:

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb

from the novel Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott

This has the exact opposite meaning to the way the phrase is applied today.

It’s more logically true to me.

Bonds formed through mutual choice and desire, based on attraction to each others’ personalities and behaviours, are likely to be more meaningful than those that happened purely through accident of birth.

Bonds of choice offer unconditional acceptance, not the mythical unconditional love.

I know calling unconditional love, ‘mythical’ may come across as cynicism or a jaundiced view, but I just honestly don’t believe it’s a real thing.

I mean, even with the whole loving your kids unconditionally thing, which is what parents are told they should do – I’ve never, ever seen it in action in real life.

People still hope the kid will love them back, that the kid will want to stay involved with them as they grow and become adult, perhaps hope the child, and potential grandchildren, will take care of them as they age.

Love frequently gets withdrawn or withheld when children don’t conform to parental expectations. Or when partners don’t conform to expectations.

Love just seems to always carry some desire, hope, or expectation of some form of return.  So, yeah, not unconditional love.

I want to be unconditionally accepted. 

Unconditional acceptance means someone believing totally that I’m a good, decent person; enjoying and valuing the essence of me and never losing sight of it.  It’s fully accepting me, as me – not requiring me to change, rein myself in, or confine myself. 

It’s not about never seeing my fuckups, or blowing smoke up my arse and telling me I’m perfect.  It’s about being willing and able to compassionately set me straight when I need it; that’s how we keep growing. However, there’s a big difference between that and bullshit judgements from hostiles.  

It’s about allowing for the fact that I’m human and I make mistakes. It’s about holding, supporting and cheering personal growth, but not making the acceptance conditional upon any of it. 

It’s about being with me as I am, and not holding me to being a character I once was (or was perceived to be); holding my hand as I keep walking towards who and what I want to become. 

Altan gives me unconditional acceptance, but he’s very much an outlier.

He must be some kind of gift from the gods or something, because his existence in my life continues to give me faith that what I’m seeking actually does exist. I refuse to believe that of the bazillion people on the planet, he is the only living soul with whom I can have this type of connection.

The fact of the matter is, before I start roaming the globe looking for people to be in my tribe, to help build my village, I need to unconditionally accept myself.

The constant aim for this recovery and healing, is to get myself to a place where my self-acceptance is absolutely solid and unshakeable; where deep down in the core, centre of my being, I’m never so much as ruffled by other people’s projections and perceptions. 

I believe I’m on my way , and I am going to get better at it, particularly the keeping boundaries part. 

All the time I’ve been spending with Little Jess, healing the child part of me, gently removing emotional control from her grasp, is definitely starting to pay off. It’s particularly noticeable in my altered responses to various family members, no longer being drawn in to decades old patterns.

My inner voice runs very differently now to the way it did in January. Back then there was a shockingly vicious internal diatribe running. I’d never speak to someone else the way I was talking to myself then.

I could never just make a mistake, I was always (in my mind talk), fucking stupid, a clumsy bitch, a dirty cow, a fake….

Since research made me realise how incredibly debilitating that kind of internal negativity is, I’ve decided to go with the mantra:

“There’s enough people in this world willing to put you down – don’t do it to yourself“.

The other thing that’s really helped is imagining how I’d speak to one of my grandchildren in the circumstances.

If they spilled a drink I wouldn’t tell them they were stupid and fucking clumsy; I’d tell them it’s ok, I know it wasn’t on purpose (or, ‘by purpose’, as they adorably say), we all bump into things sometimes, we can easily clean it up.

Now, when I catch the old abusive thinking sneaking in, I imagine one of the grandchildren, or Little Jess being spoken to that way. Visuallising the fearful, tear streaked, baby faces really helps make that change to much kinder, self-loving thoughts.

When unconditional acceptance of self is comfortably how I function, I believe I’ll be more likely to draw my tribe to me.

It just makes sense doesn’t it? If I don’t like and accept myself then I can’t be genuine in any form of relationship. The type of people I want for my tribe wouldn’t be drawn to non-genuine relationships.

As I’ve known all along, I have to be healthy in myself before I can have healthy relationships.

Little by little, inching myself towards it.

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP