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At the Holiday times most often you hear people talking about planning events with families. Parents, brother and /or sisters and their families, the children, our grandparents, even those special cousins, or those people who became my family, these are the people we gather with. But as we continue to hear these gatherings may not be times of celebration, or joy. The festivities of holiday gatherings, the joy of the season, can be lost on feelings of anxiety, or dread, or discomfort knowing that the family is gathering and with may come feelings of impending doom. Overstated, you might ask? Perhaps, but much of the literature about stress during holiday gatherings has to do with unfinished family business.
Family gatherings are not only times to catch up with relatives or to sit down again with that favorite sibling, niece, age old family friend who has always been there, or just whoever that person was that raised me. Family gatherings also re awaken conflicts, or bad feelings from difficult times; they provide a face to face opportunity to continue a disagreement or conflict. Family conflicts matters of any kind never go away. There is in the memory of families that awareness, be it conscious or unconscious, the continuation of that issue. My cousin got more in the grandparent’s inheritance. The family member addicted to substance raised havoc in the family and divided the family loyalties on how to help that person. The brothers still don’t speak after one got an opportunity to go to college and the other did not. You, the reader, can fill in these lines to personalize it. What was it that created that fight in your family and still leaves a scar to this day?
Many of the ways that we try to cope with these dilemmas do not work. Trying to forget the issue only serves to increase the tension in the memory where the effort to forget is taking place. At some point the issue will pop out. In Family systems theory and practice there is the concept of cutting yourself off from the family, or that family member. While there are extreme cases, perhaps having to do with violence of some kind, or severe substance abuse, where emotional distancing and physical separation is necessary as survival techniques, the underlying relational and emotional pain continues. That vague feeling of discomfort or depression, knowing that a family gathering is looming on the horizon, is perhaps a sign of something in our unconscious that alerts us to some addressed issue. The DNA, emotional, historical and physical, of family relationships is a bond that is stronger that we realize. One author in Family work wrote a book that in its paraphrase talks about family relationships as the tie that binds. There is a quality of family relationship where we feel chained to each other, rather than voluntarily joined in a circle of friendship.
As you prepare for the family gatherings think about these things. Discern whether it is time to try to address an issue with that relative. Perhaps another venue for the family gathering, or a shorter time, would help to throw the old family balance out of whack. Ask yourself what you can do for your part to change the situation. Maybe you and the other party can agree to disagree. As you get pushed back into your childhood relationship patterns with family members accept the fact that this will happen, look to recognize how it works, and see if you can laugh about it. Finally, look to see what gifts your family has given to itself and to each other. There is a great interest these days in genealogy and where families have come from. There may be great stories in the family history little known that form new ways for families to learn about themselves. Someone said that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives. You will have these people in your lives in one way or another. See what you can do, for the sake of holiday enjoyment and your own happiness, to find ways that these conflicts can heal, if only a little. After all, you deserve you joy of the season as much as your relative. Happy Holidays.
Dr. Paul J. Melrose is Executive Director of the Samaritan Counseling Center of
SE Michigan. He can be reached at www.paulmelrose.com or through 248-474-4701.
The Staff of the Samaritan Counseling Center can be reached at
www.samaritancounselingmichigan.com or at 248-474-4701.
Paul J. Melrose, D. Min, LMFT
Executive Director
Samaritan Counseling Center of SE Michigan
29887 West Eleven Mile Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48336
(voice) 248-474-4701
(fax) 248-474-1518
www.paulmelrose.com
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