Happy Holidays — there’s nothing quite like the festive season to bring out the crazy in our dysfunctional families.
Maybe you’ve worked through the impact of some of their issues with a therapist — a good therapist, an effective therapist, an expensive therapist — and yet, somehow just 15 minutes into the annual family get together, you find yourself asking these existential questions:
How can I be related to these people?
How will I make it through the next few hours (let alone the next few days) without causing someone grievous bodily harm?
How am I going to escape with my sanity, patience or indeed marriage intact?
No matter how effective it’s been with colleagues, your assertiveness training goes out the window the minute your uncle begins his annual political rant.
No matter how much work you’ve done to deal with it, a mere look from your mother can trigger an attack of codependency so severe you end up paying for her next holiday. And no matter how much resolve you had before you arrived, that extra glass of wine is just too tempting to turn down, steadily eroding anything that’s left of your self-control.
These “Happy Occasions” often leave us feeling exhausted, demoralized, anxious or plotting how we might inflict retribution! And for many, the journey home is spent wondering how it happened… again!
Albert Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results — this leaves me wondering… how did he got along with his family?
We expect so much of our families this time of year but do little to prepare ourselves for the inevitable onslaught of these temper-fraying, sanity-sucking gatherings.
Family get-togethers require survival strategies. Here’s three practical, fun and powerful ones that might just help – https://www.charliehughjones.com/how-to-survive-your-family-this-holiday-3-practical-fun-and-powerful-strategies-to-make-it-through-with-your-sanity-intact/
Evelio Silvera
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