Ever feel a sense of dread heading into a family gathering?\u00a0 With so many different personalities and generations entrenched in unrecognized dysfunction, the holidays are sure to make for some uncomfortable or maybe even lively interactions!\u00a0 Once you start getting healthier yourself, how do you interact with the people who helped you to be unhealthy in the first place and not go there yourself?\u00a0 Surprisingly, getting along with your family for the holidays is easier than you might think!<\/p>\n
The simple answer?\u00a0 Self-Differentiation.\u00a0 What I mean by that is a spirit of \u201cI am different than you and you are different from me and that is okay<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 Self-differentiation\u2019s key ingredient is acceptance<\/em><\/strong>. . . acceptance that the people we are dealing with are broken and don\u2019t recognize their own unhealthiness.\u00a0 People that have not been through recovery simply don\u2019t get it \u2013 not because they don\u2019t want to, but because they just can\u2019t see that their behavior is unhealthy!<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 We all developed very primitive coping mechanisms to deal with the unhealthy situations in our childhoods.\u00a0 We then them into their adult lives not understanding how unproductive and hurtful they can be!\u00a0 Once we are able to see it, we can change, but not everyone can see their own dysfunction!<\/p>\n I know it is hard, but we simply MUST stop assuming that when someone hurts us that hurting us was their intention!\u00a0 My experience is that most times, people are acting out of their own brokenness and with unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with their own pain \u2013 not out of intention to hurt us.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 When we can be mature enough to recognize that little fact, we can begin to respond differently ourselves.<\/p>\n The second piece of this equation is about boundaries.\u00a0 Going back to the first part of my definition of Self Differentiation, we have to remember that we are all separate and we get to keep our own power.\u00a0 No one can make us do anything!\u00a0 A lot of times we get very uncomfortable when we feel guilted or manipulated into doing something we didn\u2019t want to do!\u00a0 When we stay true to what we<\/em><\/strong> want, what we<\/em><\/strong> are willing to do or not do, and remember that we<\/em><\/strong> get to choose how we respond to things, we feel less threatened because we are retaining our own power.<\/p>\n Self-Differentiation takes both pieces into account, \u00a0basically it looks like this\u00a0 \u00a0. . . I\u2019m going to do what feels right and good to me (keeping my power), and you (family member) get to respond in whatever way you need to (acceptance).\u00a0 BOOM!\u00a0 It\u2019s that easy!<\/p>\n If you are facing some complicated family situations this year at the holidays, rather than expecting the people around you to change, adjust your own approach instead!\u00a0 Retain your own power and accept that others don\u2019t recognize the unhealthy patterns in your family.\u00a0 They are simply doing what has worked in the past and the only thing that has changed is that you have recognized it was unhealthy and decided to stop.\u00a0 Expect there to be some resistance and let other people feel what they need to feel about that!\u00a0 And while they may not get healthier, over time your family will most likely adjust to allow you to be healthier around them!<\/p>\n Peace is possible to achieve at your family gatherings, but it has to begin with YOU!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever feel a sense of dread heading into a family gathering?\u00a0 With so many different personalities and generations entrenched in unrecognized dysfunction, the holidays are sure to make for some uncomfortable or maybe even lively interactions!\u00a0 Once you start getting healthier yourself, how do you interact with the people who helped you to be unhealthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[795,796,797,798,799,447,800,534],"class_list":["post-3618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage","tag-family-dysfunction-at-the-holidays","tag-getting-through-christmas","tag-holiday-family-drama","tag-holiday-gatherings","tag-how-to-get-along-with-your-family-during-christmas","tag-marriage-counseling","tag-peace-at-christmas","tag-self-differentiation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4245,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions\/4245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}