Sunny Side Up: The power of mutual forgiveness

The cycle of going over the same ground, reliving past hurts, again and again can continue for years, burning out family connections. — 123rf

OVER the past few weeks, I’ve received some questions about how to deal with family conflict, in particular between parents and adult children. As any therapist will say, it’s difficult to give general guidance for unique and often complex problems. How conflict shows up in one family will be very different to how it shows up in others.

One message I was sent focused mainly on what keeps a conflict going, and how to “break free” from repeated patterns. As I thought about this, I contacted Ajahn (Thai for teacher or master) Brahmali, a senior Buddhist monk in Perth, Australia, to seek his guidance on what people can do to address conflict within the family.