To like your own family

I just had a conversation with my girlfriend about family and "unresolved problems". Things you want to get out in the open and cleared between you and the others. We entered the scope of forgiving and forgiveness, the patterns we have copied, love and the main issue to be addressed.

Open for discussion?
What if your family does not want to address certain topics, because they are too painful, to embarrassing or just something the other finds irrelevant / a dead letter? It's hard. It can be a driving factor empowering you to break through barriers and boundaries, it can freeze you into paralysis regarding personal and other relationships, it can be a frustrating stopping factor in your self belief and your potential to grow as whatever you like to become. And so on, and so on.

Blame, forgiveness and the patterns we copied
What if the things we blame the others for doing are a mirror image of the things we do ourselves? Distorted maybe, but still with enough connections to see the resemblance from a distance. When blaming my mother for being emotionally closed, I should also look into my own live and see how I am expressing the exact same thing in my own life.
Maybe we are more alike than I like. If this is the case, I am and will be making similar mistakes as she does, hurting other people in similar ways I think I have been hurt by her. So adding things up: who am I to blame when I am doing "the same" as she did?

One of the parts of forgiving is to acknowledge that I make mistakes to. One of the parts of "blame" is "I am right/perfect/flawless and you were wrong". But I am human. My own software is far from optimal. Who am I to blame you or my mother when I am "wrong" at times as well?

Forgiving your peers
Forgive & forget? Maybe or maybe not. Let go of things in the past? I definately think so. The biggest "what is in it for ME?" with forgiveness is "to drop the load". Every issue you carry with you is like a stone in your backpack. The more you carry, the more it limits you.

Bindings & love
Why do we keep returning? What binds us as a family? Even when things went ugly in the past? Is it plight that we visit our mum and dad, brother, sister? Unresolved issues? And why do we start certain discussions about things in the past? Because we want to be right? Or is there also love involved? It depends, I guess.
Let's take binding and love. When I asked my girlfriend regarding reasons her sister visited her birthday: "Why do you go to your sisters birthday?" She said: "Because she is my sister... ..because I love her." I asked: "Could it be that she is doing the same, for the same reasons?"

Why repair?
Why would I try to repair my family? What tools would I use? What is my driving factor? What can be solved? Which part is about righteousness? Which part about getting things my way? What am I trying to repair here?
Maybe "reparation" is not up to me when anyone else in my family does not see or recognize the problems I see. What if an important part of my efforts to repair my family are based on efforts to repair myself? Might that change my agenda for discussion?

Clearing a family situation
Clearing a family situation might be a very tricky thing when my own motivations are in the dark. What will I clear up? What will become clear after such a conversation? Is my pain resolved or did it only become stronger?
I strongly believe that it is important to talk, communicate, share, understand, investigate, find out. And maybe the result will be clarification in the story you have made up in the past.