THRIVING around your family during the holiday season.
I’m excited to share with you today some tips for not only surviving, but THRIVING around your family during the Christmas season. As a Licensed professional counselor, this topic comes up a lot around the holidays with my clients. It is so common for us to experience a sense of dread or fear when going to family get togethers, as usually it is being around our family where we get most triggered- triggering is a term I use to talk about when an event brings up our unresolved issues and it makes us reactive—where we are not our best selves.
So in some ways, family can bring out our WORST selves. It can bring out our anger, fear, feeling helpless and/or our defensiveness. Often these reactions are a natural way that we try to protect ourselves from an impending threat- like we would if we were anticipating danger in our environment- because getting around family can bring up old thoughts and feelings of not feeling good enough, or feeling overly responsible for others, or not being loved well. So the threat isn’t necessarily a physical threat or danger (though this may be the case for some), but more of a psychological threat- it brings up uncomfortable emotions and thoughts. Everyone is different. If this is the case for you, I want you to know that you are NORMAL and you are not alone.
The tips I’m about to provide are not a substitute for working through these deep unresolved issues with a professional, but can provide some supportive structure for moving forward in a mindful way through the coming month.
1.) OBSERVE YOUR HABITS.
Looking back on your previous behavior while around family can provide a lot of information about your way of surviving around your family. Without any judgement, just observe, or allow yourself to become aware of how you’ve responded. Do you get aggressive/angry, defensive? This is more of a fight stance- a way of protecting ourselves from others.
Or do you get distant, and check out. Maybe you drink a lot to keep yourself away from your own pain. Some of us avoid our discomfort by getting overly involved in fixing someone else. Do you focus on other people’s issues and mistakes? Totally makes sense, just OBSERVE what you do without shaming or blaming yourself.
I am convinced that everything we do have a function to it, we just have to understand how it’s helping us.
2.) ACCEPT THINGS AS THEY ARE.
There are things about our lives that we would like to change, but don’t have the power to change them. Our family members are often not who we want them to be- and often WE are not who we want to be, if we are being honest. Find a space of allowing yourself to HAVE the uncomfortable feelings around your family. You do not have to make those go away in order to interact with them the way that you want to. Work with the idea that you can accept that you and your family are not perfect, or even close to perfect, but will work with the piece of the puzzle that you do have control over- and that is yourself.
3.) ASK YOURSELF- “WHO DO I WANT TO BE?”-
We only have control over our own choices- and the beauty of it is that when we change our actions, overtime, this changes INTERACTIONS that we have with our family. Own your power to change and shift by owning your actions. So this is about moving away from your habits and into new patterns. What can guide your actions? Clarifying your values and asking the question “who do I want to be?”
4.) VISUALIZE-
After you’ve gotten clarity on who you want to be, work on visualizing it. Literally run a scenario of being around the dinner table with your family, envisioning yourself holding true to who you want to be, acting the way you want to. Visualize what you look like, visualize how you are feeling inside (maybe confident and calm), visualize your mom or dads facial expression that usually triggers you and how you thoughtfully respond to it, recognizing that it does not have to drive your behavior. Maybe you need to visualize yourself as being calm in the face of anxiety- maybe you need to visualize yourself speaking your truth or being yourself in a respectful way among people who don’t approve of you.
Whoever it is that you desire to be, run that scenario in your mind over and over.
5.) BE KIND TO YOURSELF-
We are always in between who we are and who we want to be. It is a life long journey to becoming the kinds of people we want to be, and it requires a lot of patience and compassion for ourselves. You will mess up. You will get reactive, you will stumble, and won’t do this whole thing perfectly. Give yourself the space for that and learn to bathe in kindness towards yourself—because it’s bathing in this kindness that gives us the energy to get up and try again. And little by little, we grow, and then years from now, we look back and say “wow- look at how far I’ve come- and I only made it this far by taking it one step at a time”.
That’s it for now!
May your holidays be full of learning and love and growth.
Grace and peace, friends.
Sarah