Returning Home: Reflections on Family and Self Through Sound
Spending time with family is never just about the visit—it’s about the history, the patterns, the quiet moments that stretch between conversations. It’s about returning to a version of yourself you thought you outgrew, only to realize how much of it still lives in you.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how being around family can be its own kind of meditation. There’s something about sitting across from your parents, seeing your mannerisms reflected back at you, hearing a familiar tone in someone else’s voice—and realizing, that’s me too.
The Mirror of Family
Being home—physically or emotionally—means stepping into an environment that shaped you. It can be comforting. It can be challenging. Often, it’s both. You catch glimpses of the traits you’ve carried forward: maybe a stubbornness, a certain way of handling stress, a deep sense of care. And then there are the things you’ve tried to unlearn, the parts you’re gently rewriting in yourself.
It’s not about judgment. It’s about awareness. Noticing the echoes of your upbringing in your adult self and asking, Do I want to keep this? Or do I want to shift it?
The Practice of Patience
Family dynamics aren’t always easy. Old stories resurface. Roles we thought we shed reappear without warning. But what I’ve learned is that these moments, though sometimes difficult, are invitations—to slow down, to respond rather than react, to extend the same compassion we offer to strangers back to the people who raised us.
In that way, being with family becomes a practice, one not so different from meditation: sit with it, breathe through it, notice what comes up, and let it move.
How Ambient Music Mirrors This Process
There’s a parallel for me in the ambient music I create as Six Missing. So much of ambient composition is about space, patience, and reflection. There’s no rush. No hard start or stop. Just the slow unfolding of texture, the subtle shifts that ask you to notice rather than chase.
Just like in family relationships, there’s room for tension and release, for moments of dissonance and deep harmony. Sometimes a single drone or melody line will repeat and shift so slightly that you don’t realize it’s changed until you’re fully immersed in something new.
Creating this kind of music has taught me to listen more closely, to be with what’s present without needing to fix it—a skill that’s just as important when navigating the nuances of family.
An Invitation to Reflect
If you’re spending time with family, or even just thinking about your roots, I invite you to approach it like you would a quiet piece of music:
Pause. Notice what emotions arise.
Listen for what’s beneath the surface. Not everything is loud or obvious.
Allow space. Sometimes just being together is enough.
And if you need something to help ease into that reflective space, I’ve curated a playlist called Meditative Moments, full of ambient tracks that hold space for introspection, including subtle field recordings and gentle textures that mirror these emotional landscapes:
🎧 Follow & Save Meditative Moments
Whether you’re sitting with your parents at the kitchen table or alone with a memory, know that the process of noticing, reflecting, and evolving is sacred. And you don’t have to rush it.
Until next time,
Your fellow human just being.
Six Missing
