Strategies for Surviving Holiday Dinners, Family Events and Other War Zones
No matter how well we may have weathered our basic training, nothing can fully prepare us for the front lines of family gatherings. We’re in the thick of it, dodging live topless sunbathing beach photos ammunition, and fighting the urge to return to our old, reliable patterns that helped us to survive while we were growing up. We atv dealers of ohio may have mastered our relationship skills in one-on-one relationships. We may have improved our romantic relationships, our professional relationships and our friendships. And we may have even improved our family relationships—one family member at a time. But when we’re sitting around the holiday dinner table or socializing at a wedding reception with our entire family, it’s an entirely different experience.
For one thing, when we’re with our entire family, we have to juggle a number of different relationships at the same time. Our attention is divided at best, and for many of us, our awareness deserts us completely after the first major skirmish. We feel like we’re surrounded and have to defend ourselves from sneak attacks. We often feel that retreat is not an option. When we are cornered, we often believe that the only way that we can survive is to fight our way out, new relationship skills be damned.
While most people assume that General Sherman was referring to the Civil War when he stated, “War is hell,” in fact, he was referring to a particularly memorable Thanksgiving dinner with his family. This also explains why he could send his troops into battle without a second thought, but that the very mention of cranberry sauce would reduce him to tears.
Bearing this in mind, here are some essential tips for surviving your next family gathering.
TIP #1: Go Easy On party bus rental in the bay area Yourself!
The first, and most important survival tip is to remember that navigating and surviving family gatherings takes exceptional skill and often quite a bit of practice. We will not be able to transform our entire family dynamic between the salad course and the pumpkin pie. In fact, we may not be able to change our family dynamic at all—and it’s important that we accept that we don’t need to. It’s not our responsibility to help our family members resolve their issues. We’re only responsible for resolving our responses to their issues. Our objective is to maintain our own safety and validation accounts, focus our awareness, and survive the family event reasonably unscathed.
However, maintaining our awareness while we’re relating to our families takes practice! We must go easy on ourselves. We may react when we would rather respond. We may be drawn into old arguments. Whatever happens, we need to accept that it is perfect. We are doing our best, and that’s all we can ever ask of ourselves. And remember that our awareness that we’re acting out an old pattern is, in itself, a change in that pattern! As we develop our awareness, we will spend less time caught in our
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