It’s finally autumn in Texas. The weather has mercifully cooled down. We’re deep enough into football weekends to know whether we should be getting our hopes up about the post-season. And along with the anticipation of approaching holiday revelry often comes a feeling somewhere between apprehension and dread about upcoming opportunities to gather with family. It is a truth universally acknowledged in our field that the holidays are the busy season for therapists.
Our holiday apprehension may have obvious targets, like Uncle Bob, who has no qualms about re-litigating the election, or Grandma Sue, who never fails to offer itemized opinions about your marriage. Sometimes, though, we have a more nebulous sense of unease that feels tougher to nail down.
If we stop and think, it often turns out that the person we’re most afraid of encountering at these family gatherings is actually just an earlier version of ourselves.
You may be a confident, capable adult who can withstand intense questioning from your corporate board only to find yourself shrinking away from even mild conflict with a parent. You might slip easily into the role of the family peacemaker, smoothing over tension before anyone asks you to and erasing your own needs in the process. Or perhaps you notice that you’re trying desperately to impress someone whose approval you convinced yourself years ago you no longer needed.
It’s easy to wonder why, after all these years, it can feel so automatic and even inviting to slip into these old patterns. Returning home has a way of calling us back into familiar roles. We may have grown and changed considerably, but when family comes together, the old dynamics exert an almost gravitational pull.
These roles aren’t necessarily a sign that something is wrong with us or our families. Many developed for valid reasons. As I frequently tell my clients, the role you took on in your family may have been the most adaptive way you learned to navigate those relationships at the time. But a pattern that once helped us get along in our family of origin may no longer reflect who we are today or what we would like these relationships to look like now.
The good news is that recognizing a pattern gives us a little more freedom to choose what happens next.
Before your next family gathering, consider a few questions:
- What role do I tend to fall into around my family? Virginia Satir identified four communication stances family members adopt under stress that can make genuine connection more difficult: placating (people-pleasing), blaming, computing (relying on logic while distancing from emotion), and distracting. Can you see yourself in one of those?
- What am I hoping will happen this year? We may imagine that this will be the Thanksgiving when my family finally recognizes that I’ve built a good life, even if it looks nothing like the one they imagined for me. Or this will be the family dinner when they finally make room for my opinion in the conversation. It’s worth getting clear on what we want even if we can’t control how our family members behave.
- What’s one thing I could do differently? Once we know what we’re hoping for, we can ask what is in our control. Maybe it’s allowing someone else to manage their own disappointment. Or summoning the strength to remain non-defensive when we feel hurt or overlooked. We can’t dictate whether other members of our family will show up differently, but we can have the courage not to slip back into patterns that no longer serve us.
You don’t have to invite that earlier version of yourself to Thanksgiving this year. The person your family remembers isn’t the only person you get to be, and you can honor the person you were without having to remain that person now. So, pause when you notice an old pattern start to take over. Give yourself credit for recognizing it. And then give yourself permission to choose what comes next. You might be surprised what changes when you stop playing your part.
Written by:
LPC Associate
Supervised by Mary Sanger, LPC & LMFT Supervisor