Dealing With The Challenges of Family Over the Holidays
How To Not Get Upset At the Next Family Gathering
We have all heard people confess the stresses of Christmas. One of the most common is all the shopping. However, there is another fairly common stressor that is less talked about.
The Taboo Christmas Stress
Brands run Christmas. There is so much Hollywood, commercial, and social media hype stressing the importance of getting together with family over the holidays. We see families happily enjoying food around a beautifully decorated table, opening gifts, playing games, and laughing. We hear people sharing messages about the importance of spending time with family. We must all want to be with our family over the holidays. Right?
I have heard people secretly share with me their emotions of guilt, confusion and/or dread that they will have to spend some time over the holidays with extended family. In general, it is usually not the family gathering itself or the idea of getting together with family, but the thought about spending time with one or two challenging family members that can easily trigger negative emotions.
The Real Test To See If You Are Spiritually Enlightened
I have attended many talks by well known inspirational people. Just over a year ago, I heard Eckart Tolle speak in Toronto. At one point in his talk, he said, “If you think you are spiritually enlightened, spend time with your family.” Ah, yes, it is so easy to discuss ways to be enlightened and think we are so evolved. It is easy to believe that since we have read so many books or are attending a talk by Eckhart Tolle, we must have it all together, right? Yet the real litmus test on how well we have healed our minds and old wounds often arises when we are in the company of that family member that just seems to irk us.
So why is it that we are often triggered around family members?
Challenging People Are Our Greatest Spiritual Teachers
For many years I believed that people who I felt annoyed or angered by were people who had a problem. A common thought or expression I may have shared would have been, “What’s their problem?” Of course, their annoying behaviour or anger had nothing to do with me, right? How could it? They’re the ones with the problem. Clearly!
Or could it have something to do with me?
There are two parts to a challenging relationship: The other person’s upset and our upset.
If someone is upset around something we said or did, that is their issue, yes. After all, we can’t control how another person interprets our words or actions, nor can we take ownership of what they do with their interpretations. We can’t control another person, nor is it our business to even try.
If, however, we find ourselves upset with things the other person says or does, our upset is ours. We are one hundred percent responsible for our interpretations, thoughts, and the feelings and actions we experience from another person’s actions, including all family members.
This is great news!
What? Blaming ourselves for our upset instead of blaming someone else is good news?
This is not about blaming ourselves. This is about taking full responsibility for how we are feeling.
When we realize that we are responsible for how we are feeling, then we can take back our power. When we blame someone else for our upset, we surrender our power to them.
It is so exciting to know we no longer have to wait for someone else to start or stop doing or saying things for us to be happy. We can now take our power back and be in control of our lives and experiences.
How To Not Get Upset At the Next Family Gathering
Here are a few things to try before your next family gathering…
1. Recognize your mental dialogue about the person who challenges you
The first place to start when trying to stop suffering is to witness your own thinking. What thoughts do you believe about this person?
For example, some thoughts someone could be believing about an unpleasant family member might be:
“She thinks she is better than everyone else because she has more money.”
“He doesn’t like my profession. He doesn’t take me seriously.”
“She always gives me something I dislike. Clearly, she doesn’t care!”
“He doesn’t like me because of my tattoos.”
“She is rude to me because she doesn’t like my partner.”
“He is critical of everything I am doing. He thinks I am wasting my life.”
“They think I am a bad parent.”
2. Stop making assumptions
I was recently speaking with a friend, and in our conversation, he shared that he didn’t like going to a certain gathering because of the people there.
He said, “They don’t like me because I have dreadlocks.”
“Really?” I asked, “Did they say that? Did they say we don’t like you because you have dreadlocks?”
“No,” he chuckled, “But I can just tell.”
“Oh you can read minds, can you?” Then I asked, “They don’t like you? Who is really saying that about you?”
He went quiet and inward, looking for the answer. When the answer surfaced, his eyes lit up, and he looked at me with an enlightening yet awkward smile. “How did you know?”
I find we project our thoughts onto others. We assume others are saying what we consciously or, more often than not, are unconsciously saying to ourselves about ourselves. Our self-critic often shows up in someone else, like a “difficult family member.”
3. Stop Proving Yourself Right
Greater self-awareness is always the path to freedom. Many great spiritual teachers offer some version of “Know Thyself” because as long as you are looking outwardly for the reasons you are upset, you will always be upset. Once you start to discover what you believe about yourself, you can begin to recognize your patterns.
In the case of my friend, he struggles with not liking himself. So, could it be that he is starting to create a look that will give others a reason to not like him? He unconsciously has produced proof for his assumption, “They don’t like me. Why don’t they like me? Because I have dreadlocks.” Isn’t it amazing how we can find and even create proof in others to support our thoughts about ourselves?
4. Be Open to Letting Go of Your Story.
What if you approached your family gathering or that challenging relative without your story behind what they are thinking? What if you were open to seeing them differently? I call this the act of Forgiveness. Forgiveness is not something we DO; it is something we EXPERIENCE once we set the intention of seeing a painful situation differently. When you set the intention of experiencing forgiveness towards a challenging person, you will always receive information, or have a profound “a-ha” moment where you see their behaviour, and more importantly, that person, in a whole new light that no longer results in so much pain.
5. Question your thoughts
The best way I know how to free ourselves from a painful situation or person (or in this case a family member) is to question our minds. Byron Katie teaches a great strategy called “The Work,” which involves asking ourselves four questions when we believe a painful thought like “They don’t like me.”
The four questions in “The Work”:
1. Is that true?
2. Can I absolutely know that it is true?
3. How do I feel when I believe that thought?
4. Who would I be in that situation (at the family gathering) if I could not believe that thought?
The answer to the fourth question could be something like, “A very happy and peaceful person enjoying festive food and family.” The challenging family member didn’t change; the circumstances didn’t change. Only your thinking changed.
You took your power back.
6. Let go of agendas for other people
We can hang on to our stories so tightly, especially if we have been carrying around a story about that cousin, aunt, nephew, parent, or grandparent for a long time. In the process of healing our minds, we may think, “So that means they get off the hook for being a jerk?”
We may start believing thoughts like:
She shouldn’t say...or she should say...
If only they didn’t… did…
He shouldn’t have married her…
They should make their kids behave…
She should apologize…
He should stop drinking…
She should stop always thinking about herself first…
I am not speaking to him until he apologizes...
As soon as we have an agenda for another person, we are going to suffer.
Waiting for someone else to get their act together for us to be happy means we could be waiting for a very long time for peace. Let go of an agenda for your family members. This can be very difficult, especially if you are certain you know how to fix them. They are on their paths, getting the results of their beliefs and choices just like you.
7. See Past the Behaviour To See the Real Person
How can you be with someone and not their behaviour? When you realize that our behaviour is a result of what thoughts we believe about ourselves and others, you can now separate the person and the behaviour. When someone is acting in a way that I don’t appreciate, I can remove myself from them or stay. If I leave, his or her behaviour almost always stays with me in my mind. Therefore, the only means in which their behaviour does not impact me is to get curious about what thoughts they must be believing to say or do those things. I recognize the painful things I have done or said when I believed painful thoughts. I see their innocence when I can first see my own. I too have acted in less than ideal ways, often without any awareness or hurtful intent.
8. Listen For the Sake of Listening
As humans, we almost always listen to decide if we agree or disagree. Chances are one of the things that irks you about that family member is you often disagree on at least one of the big topics that seems to always come up like religion, politics, or that chronic repetitive issue they complain about every year. Most of us listen to respond. This holiday season, try to just listen with no agenda to agree, no agenda to change their minds, and no agenda to fix them in a way that would please you. Just let him do his life, let her do her life, and you do your life.
These steps are not easy. I have been working on healing my mind for many years. Just when I think I am done with self-sabotaging thoughts, I hear myself believe that thought, “I have been working years at this, I shouldn’t be upset by that person anymore!” Yes, just like our physical health, our mental health is an on-going process. We are never done working on our mental health. It takes regular “mental workouts” to say healthy.
Use this holiday season as an opportunity for personal growth. Be open to seeing the gifts in challenging situations. Be open to seeing the gift in that challenging family member. Recognize that your upset is an invitation for greater self-awareness and self-empowerment.
Thank goodness for family members whose challenging behaviours trigger us and lead us to find the way to spiritual enlightenment.
Remember, the path to peace is always inward…