Holiday Immaturities

As much fun as the holiday season can be, it can be equally stressful and emotional. Returning to your family home, even thinking about returning to your home, can cause heightened blood pressure and eye twitches. Even when there is a lot of love and there are many positive activities, deep, dark emotions can bubble up to the surface. 

Most of us can be proud of our development into adulthood. We have come a long way from our childhood. We are sophisticated, wise and mature. But somehow, when we visit parents and siblings, the gravity of going home sucks us into a vortex and we become our former selves; we become 16 again. Our old vulnerabilities surface and we become reactive. As dysfunctional as this phenomenon is, it is normal. In fact, the "vortex" is probably working on all members of the family simultaneously. I'll bet you think your other family members are always this immature, but chances are they are more mature and charming when they are not in family gatherings as well. 

Family system experts explain that there are unseen forces that pressure us to keep the status quo in the family. Even though time may go by and people may change, when the family gets back together it's business as usual. We fall back into old, outdated roles and ways of relating. Lifelong rivalries, grudges, and cliches play out. 

But they don't have to...

• The first step of breaking free from your childhood role is to become aware of it. Take just a little bit of time to recall your position in your family. What did people rely on you for? What were some of the untold rules? How did people react to emotions growing up? 
• Take time to reflect on who you are currently. What are your strengths and potentials? How have you changed and broken free from your role growing up? I like to use visualizations to strengthen this sense of self. I recognize and validate the mature, strong parts of who I am today, when I am not in the family setting.  If you want to try using visualizations, try enhancing your self-image by adding in your senses. Add smell, taste, detail, and sound to the image. Get a good strong sense of your maturity and the strengths in your body. then concentrate on remembering the feelings and image. 
• Next, prepare yourself for the certainty that the vortex will try to pull you down to your teenage self when you get together with family. This is the antagonist, your opposition.  
• Then, visualize yourself remaining mature when you are with your family.  Take the time to imagine holding on to your sense of self while in their presence. Imagine successfully responding maturely to typical emotional triggers. The more details you can incorporate, the stronger it will be, acting like a dress rehearsal for the actual event. Play these successes out in your mind as if you were watching a movie. Try out a few different scenarios. 
• Practice recalling this mature image of yourself often leading up to your visit and throughout your visit. When you feel the urge to act immature trying to take over, give yourself a little break.  Take a walk; run an errand; or, if you must, shorten the visit.  
• Allow others to respond with their newly matured selves too. Remind yourself that the pressure of arrested development is at work on everyone. Don't hook them into the same old song and dance. 
• Expect more; seek out positive changes in your family members; and get to know them, looking for the areas in which they also have changed for the better.

A family that can tolerate change is resilient. The ability to laugh and play together while being free to be oneself is the hallmark of a happy, healthy family. If this has not occurred in your past, do not despair. It can occur in your future! People change and so do families. 

 Stephanie Patterson, M.S., LMFT
 (805) 284-0724
 1190 Marsh Street, San Luis Obispo, CA​