Are you emotionally ready for the Holidays and family?

We spend a lot of time getting ready for the holidays physically - decorating, gifts, food. It would be nice if we all could take off work between Thanksgiving and New Years. It might reduce some of the stress we feel that is created by shopping for gifts (I’m never stressed when shopping for myself), planning and executing meals, cards and letters, wrapping, hiding, parties, eating and drinking too much, running around like rats on speed while keeping a big smile, great attitude and sparkling personality. AND THEN… there is dealing with family members. AAAAGGGGHHHH! For some a better bet would be watching every horror movie ever made than to spend time with family members. The only way to get through the holidays is by professionally or self medicating. It is a sad commentary on our culture when the best time of the year becomes something we dread. And it is all brought on by us and the rules we impose on ourselves or others.

Back in the old days, my old days, my husband and I would avoid all of it by taking a long vacation to a warm place. That way we could gracefully say that we would be out of the country. It worked….kind of…

Being with my family USED to be the most upsetting, depressing, agitating, frustrating, experience regardless of the time of the year. Now they have become the people I most want to be with. In fact, I feel safe being with them in times of trouble and lean on them when things don’t go right simply because I know they will love me know matter what I do. They don’t know me as NLP trainer extraordinaire. They know me as Sue, who raked up leaves in the fall and made piles of them to jump over and pretend I was on a horse, or Sue, who thinks she’s overweight when she’s the skinniest one in the family, or Sue, who makes a star-spangled desert from an online recipe on July 4th and makes everyone eat some or Sue, who insists on buying her sister hair color and helps her apply it. They all take my musings in stride. It is a wonderful thing when there is a place you can go where you feel totally accepted, not for what you do but who you are.

So what is the purpose for all this rambling?
Family—for many the curse of the holidays—the fights, the hurt feelings, the conflicts, where to go when, who will visit who, who will cook, who is buying what for whom, wishing that they had no family or pretending like they do, dealing with quirks, and power struggles. This is what makes the holidays so depressing and stressful. All because we think it should be a certain way and people should act in a certain way. This is the bad news.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We make maps of all of our experience. Those maps have structure. Just like a computer program, it can be “debugged”. One of the presuppositions in NLP is that “if we change our maps, we change our emotions”. Even if you have done a lot of therapy around family of origin issues, NLP can help neurologically restructure those early experiences to make you resourceful around anyone, including family. This has been the secret that has completely and uttering change my family experience.

Bert Hellinger, a German psychologist, who developed the family constellation therapy says we take our family and carry it around in our mind so that it becomes “family mind”. Have you ever been conscious of the fact that your recreate your family situation at work? So even if you are unwilling to deal with your “DAD” issues, you can deal with your male boss instead. That way it can affect your income and your happiness as well. Or maybe you are working out your family issues in your marriage. Marry your mom or your dad? Remember that NLP is neurological restructuring, not therapy. Until the restructuring is done, you’ll be able to cope until you reach the limit of your skills and resourcefulness. Then the old pattern comes back.

Because the family ties so deeply affect us and so deeply anchored, when we get around “those” people, we simple get thrown back into old behaviors and act like we were 6 years old again. OR we emotionally detach completely so we can deal with “those” people but never really engage. It’s like going to a party where you don’t know anybody and standing there all night until it is time to go home. That’s the protection mode brought on by fear of being hurt or violated. When you are in fear, it’s not very much fun. And the holidays are fun, if you have the right combination of attitude, skills and resources.

Here is a procedure to help you with the stress:
1. Do well-formed outcomes (if you have taken classes, you have this process). What kind of experience do you want to have this season?
2. Say, “no” to invitations to events that you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to go, it just creates more stress.
3. Anchoring (another technique you know from classes). Anchoring resourceful times with friends or business associates to being with family members. This is one technique I used.
4. Reframing will change behavioral responses to things people do that don’t fit your map of reality.
5. Take more time for yourself and set boundaries. It’s ok to take a spa day or have your nails done, go play basketball with the guys, rent or go to the movies. Take a day trip out to one of the area lakes. Pack a picnic.
6. Cut back on large parties. Keep gatherings small and intimate with a minimum of complicated food. Some people host a party that is like planning a wedding every year.
7. Eat well and keep adult beverages to a minimum.
8. Use your perceptual position skills. See things from another point of view this time. What is their positive intention, what benefit are they trying to get themselves?
9. Instead of doing “my rules for me, my rules for you”, do my rules for me, your rules for you.”
10. Get agreement to stop giving gifts (the retailers won’t like this one). My family has not exchanged gifts for years. Cards and pictures are enough.
11. This is the TRUTH: if you don’t get everything done, no one will die! My cards go out in January, sometimes later, sometimes not at all. To my knowledge, no one has taken me off their card list because they didn’t hear from me. The deadlines we set are self imposed. Send Thanksgiving cards instead or Valentines cards. If people only hear from you once a year, pick another time. They’ll have more time to enjoy your correspondence and you’ll enjoy writing the note.
12. Hire people to do things: clean your house, address envelopes, grocery shop. There are people out there that do this for a reasonable charge and it’s a lot less wear and tear on you.
13. Stop living from what you think is expected of you. Do what YOU want to do. Create your own experience the way you want it. These are your rules, you are the only one that can change them.
14. When changing family set ups, make sure you use your rapport skills and match and pace. Duh.
15. Work privately with an NLP practitioner (like me) to help you restructure your “family mind”. I am available Tuesday through Friday from 11-4 through the holidays excepting Thanksgiving Day and Christmas.

This could be the year you gave yourself the greatest gift -- A FUN AND ENJOYABLE HOLIDAY SEASON WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS. This I wish for you.