Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life.

Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family. Oh, that quote by Ram Doss is so funny because it's true.

You were likely told as a kid that family is the most important thing in the world,

that family comes first and loves you unconditionally when others may not.

Heck, I thought the same thing until my own family disowned me for living a life different than the

one they had planned for me.

I shouldn't have been surprised now that I think about it,

because cutting off family members was common practice with my parents,

be it estranged brothers and sisters,

or my parents making up their last name before they got married because my mother

wanted nothing to do with my father's side of the family, let alone carry their name.

In fact, my sister and I weren't even allowed to meet anyone from my father's side of the family

which shows you just how deep and petty a grudge can get if left unchecked

so family wasn't all that important in practice as it was in theory.

We've made up since then, but we're not the Brady Bunch by any stretch of the imagination. We're more like acquaintances with blood relation. And that right there is an important distinction.

For years I confuse the word family with the word relatives.

Your family isn't necessarily blood-related.

It is the people in your life who want you and theirs, the people who

accept you for who you are. They are the ones who would do anything to see you smile and

who love you no matter what. Blood makes you related, but it's loyalty that makes you family.

In Hawaiian culture, for example, it's common for children to call neighbors, friends, and even complete strangers, uncle or auntie.

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