November 27, 2019 • 20 mins
It's Thanksgiving week in America and the start of the holiday season all around the world. You know what that means... the annual trip to see family members. If you cringed a bit when reading that last sentence, then this episode is for you!
It's a special bonus edition of the podcast where Dan shares his four strategies to survive your time with your family. If you're struggling to deal with having to be around them this holiday season, Dan will share with you actionable steps to help you not only enjoy the time, but have FUN at the same time!
Really, it's possible!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Dan. What was the year you finally had
an explosion of meaning, money, and freedom in your career?
In life? What if you woke up each morning excited
about the day's work ahead, instead of going through the
motions just to earn a paycheck. What if you had
a tribe of peers who support and encourage you to
follow your callings instead of sitting around with your family
(00:22):
who criticizes you and tells you to play it safe.
What if you had world class mentors who can show
you how to level up in every area of your life.
If that sounds like something you'd like to create, the
Wavelength Mastermind coaching program is the fastest way to make
it happen. It's a group coaching experience for people who
want to stop talking about their dreams and actually start
(00:43):
living it. The Wavelength Mastermind includes elevated conversations with your
coaches myself and Sarah Riley, who was on our last podcast,
will teach you the tools and strategies to reach your
goals faster. You'll have clarity on your purpose and an
action plan to make it. Deal will help you identify
and eliminate your subconscious blocks to success, and you're gonna
(01:06):
have a community of courageous badasses to support you every
step of the way. The Early Bird investment package is
still available right now, including two bonus calls in the
month of December before the program even begins. You can
get info at wavelength mastermind dot com. We've also included
that link for you in the show notes and now
(01:26):
episode how to Survive the Holidays with Your Family. My
name is Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced, battling
depression and feeling trapped in a career where I was
successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the greatest
gift I've ever been given. I use my pain as
a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I want
(01:50):
to share the same tools and strategies which helped transform
my life with you so you can live life amplify.
Comedian Victor Borgo was the person and who said, Santa
Claus has it right. Visit people one time a year,
and as it pertains us to our family, we're coming
up on that time of year when we absolutely are
going to make the visits, and we love our family.
(02:11):
Were grateful to them for giving us life. We're grateful
for the experience that's growing up. But we also know
family can be the biggest emotional trigger that's out there.
So how do you navigate it? How do you get
through the holidays in one piece? This week, I'm going
to give you some of my best strategies. Hello, and
welcome back to a special bonus episode of the Life
(02:32):
Amplified podcast. As I'm recording this, it is November twenty,
the day before Thanksgiving, the busiest travel day of the year,
which already means built in stress, trying to navigate the airports,
trying to drive to get to your destination on time.
And unfortunately that's not where the stress ends. There's so
many other factors that play in around the holidays. There's
(02:55):
the pressure that we put upon ourselves to get it
right air quotations around that, meaning you want to get
the right gift for your family, and if you're hosting
you know, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, you know Hanekas celebration,
you want to get the meal just right and create
a special experience. Then you throw on top of that
(03:16):
the pressure to not engage in political discussion with your
family because that rarely goes well. And just the pressure
and the obligation to fulfill these old family contracts that
were established decades ago. And so many of my clients
that have talked to you this week are feeling that
pressure to be a past version of themselves. And that's
(03:40):
really where the emotional trigger sets in, because all you
wanna do is just sit down, carved a turkey, have
a glass of wine, and enjoy a nice meal. And
at some point, you know one of three things is
going to happen. Somebody's gonna say something political that's gonna
piss you off. Number two, you know that somebody's going
to look at you and make some comment about why
(04:02):
you're not as successful as your sibling, or somebody's going
to look at you and be like, you know, you
look so much better if you just lost fifteen pounds,
and all these things that emotionally send us right back
in time to the age that we were when we
didn't feel loved or supported or accepted by the people
whose love we crave most. If you're not in your
(04:24):
head and you can relate to what I'm sharing, know
that I see you, and I hear you, and I
feel you, and I've been there. You know, I've shared
the story on the podcast before you know, it was
just Thanksgiving up that I went back to go visit
my family for Thanksgiving. I was one year removed from
my soul sucking corporate job that my family really thought
I should have stayed in. I was struggling financially at
(04:46):
that point. As a coach. I had a small number
of clients. They were all getting these amazing life changing transformations,
but I was under charging for myself and I still
didn't know how to market what it is that I
did for a living. This podcast didn't even exist as yet.
So as I sat there trying to show my family
this testimonial video that I had edited together with video
testimonials from some of my early clients, you know, I
(05:09):
was expecting them to give me an ada boy and
a pat on the back and way to go, Dan,
get out there and go chase your dreams, buddy. And
all I got was one member of my family, drinking
like the third glass of Chardonnay, who looked at me
and said, I don't know what you're doing with your life.
You need to get a real job. And I felt
so small, and it automatically just sent me back to
(05:29):
this twelve year old version of myself, you know, that
wanted so badly for, you know, to get my family's approval.
And there I was again feeling like I wasn't enough,
that I wasn't making them proud, that I was never
going to amount to anything, and all these old thought systems,
and in that moment, it was just like a twelve
year old version of me was there for the rest
of the trip. So we want to talk today about
(05:52):
how you avoid this. And number one, you're not going
to be able to avoid the crappy comments. You know,
Grandma is gonna say something racist. Somebody's going to drink
too much, and they're gonna say the exact thing that
hits you right in the heart. And perhaps the biggest
thing that you can do this holiday season is give
(06:12):
up the need to control that. When you are trying
to control other people and how they show up and
what they say to you, or how they feel about you,
or what behavior they do or don't do, you know
how much they're drinking. The minute you're trying to control
other people, they're actually controlling you. So it is perfectly
(06:33):
fine before you go engage with your family to sit
in reflection or meditation and perhaps journal about who do
you wish that they were, What is it that you
wish that your family would do, How would you like
them to support you and show up for you? But
then you also have to make a commitment that you're
going to accept them for who they are. And it
(06:55):
doesn't mean that you're going to approve of what they say.
It doesn't mean that you're going to co they're crappy
beliefs about what's possible for you. It simply means that
you're going to focus on what is in your control,
which is how you show up and how you choose
to react. You know, this is coaching that will serve
you fifty two weeks a year, not just at the holidays.
(07:17):
But if you have a blueprint for happiness that is
completely based on circumstances outside of yourself, you're never going
to feel in control of your life. You can go back.
We talked about this in depth in episode of eighty
four with Sarah Riley about how you can run your
life instead of it running you. So you can take
this with you at work if you're trying to control
(07:38):
your coworkers or your boss, or in your romantic relationships.
So often we're trying to control our spouse to get
them to do what we want, and that just robs
us of the ability to be the decider on how
we feel in any given moment. One of the big
dynamics that comes up in my family. And I know
that this is relatable because I've talked about this with
so many other clients. You know, I've got some family
(08:00):
members where it's very tough for them to be emotionally
present and to be emotionally supportive. That has been a
struggle for them in the past, and a lot of times,
the way my family likes to show love is through
gifts or presence, you know, really substituting presence p r
E s E n t s for presence p R
(08:22):
E s E n c E, which is what most
of us crave and our closest relationships. And I finally
got to a point, and I think the moment that
things really started to change in the dynamic on these
particular relationships is when I adopted this mantra. I said,
I can accept the love that is there without judging
(08:42):
it for not being the love that I wanted. Every
time I got that present or a gift or a
card with money you know, rather than being resentful about
this is the way the family shows love, but they're
not really there for me. I was just able to
accept it gracefully and graciously and releasing my self from
all those emotions about trying to change the way that
(09:03):
they show up for me, and it really started to
change the dynamic and some of my family relationships. I
just had my father here visiting me in San Diego
for four days and we had a wonderful trip together,
had some good conversations, and it's actually ironically open the
door where my dad and I can have deeper, more
emotional conversations without it being a trigger for either one
(09:24):
of us. And part of that is how I'm showing up,
you know it, just in terms of not trying to
force things. My goal on all interactions with my family
now is to speak my truth from a place of love,
not from blame, and then just releasing the attachment to
the outcome, not even worrying about what they do with it.
I had a conversation with one of my clients this
(09:45):
week where her father's alcoholism has been this unspoken thing
for most of her adult life, nobody's ever really addressed it,
and she wanted to go in at Thanksgiving and really
confront him about his thinking. And that's not the right
approach when you're going to your family, If you're talking
about their behavior and what you want them to change,
(10:08):
you're already losing, you know. The best approach is for
you to talk about your needs and what's really coming
up for you and just honor yourself. There's a big
difference in the energy between approaching somebody and saying, hey, dad,
you drink too much and it's making me angry, versus
just addressing the real underlying emotional need, which is, hey,
(10:29):
I'd like to have a deeper, closer relationship with you.
And that's the advice that you know, I gave to
my clients. And I'm really excited to see how this
plays out, because when you're talking about yourself and honoring
what's true for you, you can never go wrong. When
you're going at somebody about what they're doing, it's coming
from a place of control and it's just gonna cause
(10:51):
tension in your relationships. Strategy number two to help you
survive the holidays with your family set boundaries easy in theory,
so difficult to do, especially with your family, and especially
if you're in that wounded emotional place where a twelve
year old version of you is running the show. But
in order to set boundaries, Number one, you need to
(11:13):
know what your needs are. You know, one of the
big things that happens, especially when we're traveling or even
if you're hosting and you have a house full of people,
is you start falling out of your routines. All of
a sudden, you're not waking up and going to yoga
or soul cycle, you're not working out, you're not taking
that time to meditate or to journal because you're so
(11:33):
busy taking care of everyone else. You know, if you're
a person who likes to have a long, hot morning shower,
well now you're like, I got to do the shower
in three minutes because there's five more people in line
behind me and I don't want to run out of
hot water. You really start to lose your routines, and
in general, it can feel like a loss of independence
(11:54):
for many people. All of a sudden, you start operating
by other people's schedules, and that can create a lot attention,
it can create stress, and eventually you will snap. Over
the course of like an extended four or five day holiday.
So setting proper boundaries in your family relationships at the
holiday could look and sound like, Hey, I would love
for the family to go see a movie tonight. However,
(12:15):
I haven't been to the gym yet, so I'm gonna
go work out. Can we see the nine o'clock show
instead of the seven o'clock show? And by the way,
if people can't do that, you're allowed to opt out
of going to the movies. Hey, I'll spend time and
I'll see everybody when you get home tonight. Setting boundaries
around the holidays could look and sound like, Hey, Mom,
I'm going to spend Thanksgiving with you, but I'm going
(12:38):
to go do Christmas with dad. You know, there's a
lot of stress around the holidays when you come from
a split family and the family is divorced. This also
plays out when you're married and you and your spouse
are trying to figure out how to visit both families
over the holiday season. So you know, being able to
speak up and just set the boundary up front. And
the question is, really, why is it so difficult, especially
(13:00):
with family, for us to set boundaries. And I saw
my friend Sarah Baldwin post something on Instagram recently that
really resonated that so often as children were taught to
hand over our power to others as a way to
avoid conflict through compliance, that we just have to follow
the rules and there will be no emotional pain. But
(13:21):
a lot of times we end up violating our own
internal compass as children. You know, if you ever tried
to set boundaries as a child and you didn't want
to hug your creepy uncle at Thanksgiving, what were you told?
Now you get over there and you give him a hug,
right now? I know so many people who you know,
their parents were going through divorces kids, and they had
(13:41):
to choose what parents they wanted to live with and
ended up being shamed for creating boundaries by saying, well,
don't you love mommy and daddy? They were told that
they were rude if they ever said no, And somehow
in the mix of all this we end up feeling
shame for developing just it is a natural sense of boundaries,
(14:02):
and as children, when we don't have that full sense
of agency, it makes sense that we would go along
and just play the game, because it really is a
coping and survival strategy to get his love to get
his acceptance to make us feel like part of the tribe.
But it becomes really damaging as an adult, and what
used to be medicine for you as a child has
(14:22):
now become poison as an adult. Strategy Number three, when
it comes to surviving the holidays with your family, look
for the things that bring you together rather than the
things that drive you apart a k A. This point
is called don't talk about politics, especially if you are
not aligned with your family members. I know, in my case,
(14:45):
I am the only person in my family who is
on the political side of the aisle that I am on,
and everybody else is on the polar opposite side, and
that just becomes a place that you don't want to
go to. There's a study that says people say that
the results of the the sixteen election irreparably damaged one
of their family relationships. I was unfriended by my stepmother
(15:07):
in because I am not on the same side of
the aisle as her. So it's just a place you
don't even want to go there. At Washington State University,
actually just at his study, people traveling from democratic areas
to Republican leaning areas or vice versa. Around the holidays
now have been proven that they spend over thirty minutes
(15:27):
less time with their family at the Thanksgiving table just
because nobody wants to deal with it. It just ends
up causing conflict and being in a huff. So rather
than focusing on those divisive issues, can you connect with
your family and talk about some of the happy memories
And yes, even if your family is the most dysfunctional,
you've got a couple happy early memories from childhood. Maybe
(15:51):
you could sit around and reminisce about that and share
some laughs and share some jokes. My dad and I
always talk about the times that, you know, he and
I would go to the wwfor wrestling matches together when
I was a kid in in the eighties and go
see like Hull Cogan take on the Million Dollar Man
Ted d Base. But we would sit there and pretend
to be the announcers for the matches, So, you know,
(16:12):
we would go back and forth and pretend to be
the commentators. And and that's still one of the happiest
memories of my childhood. And it's so much easier up
for us to enjoy each other's company when we're talking
about that than if we're talking about politics. So that
is step number three. Focus on what's good. And my
final step for you to survive the holidays is keep
(16:34):
a sense of fun and levity. Believe it or not,
you can put the fun in dysfunctional family. One of
my dear friends had a game with some of her
girlfriends before the holidays where they all got together for
a girl's night and they created dysfunctional holiday Bingo cards
where they listed the things that they knew were going
(16:54):
to happen in their family that, you know, the uncle
who was gonna get drunk, the grandparent who was going
to make a true, igering racist comment, that somebody was
going to get up and storm out of the family
gathering an hour early and do it in a really
dramatic fashion. But then they laid that out onto bingo
cards so that each have their own personalized one, and
they had a group text going through the holidays to
(17:16):
keep track of who got the five in a row
and hit bingo first. As they were in the middle
of the triggers with their family, they were able to laugh,
they were able to coregulate with other people who got
it through the group text, and it really made a difference.
And I didn't realize. As my friend told me this.
I explained this on a TV interview recently. It's actually
a strategy that comes from Martha Beck, the Life Coach,
(17:38):
where she talks about this dysfunctional family bingo game. So
that is a strategy for you. There could be other
ways that you could do this. Maybe get together with
your cousins, you know, get together with the cool members
of the family that you like and see if you
can't create a fun game around it. Don't turn it
into a drinking game, though, because you're just gonna get
hammered and then and then knows what's gonna come out
(18:01):
of your mouth then. So those are the four strategies
to survive the holidays. Number one, give up trying to
control people. The only thing that is in your control
is how you show up and how you feel. Number two,
set boundaries. You're not the powerless ten year old child anymore.
You are a grown adult. You have the responsibility to
(18:21):
know what your needs are and to get them met.
And sometimes that means, you know, maybe only staying for
two hours of the Thanksgiving dinner and showing up and
engaging and smiling, rather than staying for two to three
days that's fine, but know what you need make sure
you're giving it to yourself. Number three, focus on the good,
connect with people through the happy memories, and let go
(18:44):
of what's divisive, if only for the day. And number
four have some fun with it. Plan a fun game
around the holidays that you can play either with family
members or with your friends. I hope this message serves you.
I hope it helps you get through the holiday. Is
in one piece, and if the content serves you today,
maybe you could share this episode with one of your
(19:05):
family members or share it with a friend. You can
screenshot it, post it to Instagram. You can tag me
at c sc Dan Mason Don't forget. You can also
join our private Facebook community, the Life Amplified Power Tribe.
We have a link for that in the show notes.
If you are looking to get a head start on
your and create some actionable goals to get you moving
(19:26):
in the right direction, I have a free twenty six
page workbook that you can download right now on my website.
It is a gift from my heart to yours. And
if you're looking for some extra support, either one on
one or part of the new group coaching program that
I have launched with Sarah Riley, you and I can
work together to create a year of meaning, money, freedom,
(19:49):
and fulfillment in all areas of your life. Creative Soul
Coaching dot Net for all the info on that. Thanks
for spending a few minutes with me. I have a
wonderful holiday and I'll talk to you next week. In
the meantime, turn down the volume on your negativity, turn
up the volume on your purpose so you can live
life amplified.
Hey, it's Dan. What was the year you finally had
an explosion of meaning, money, and freedom in your career?
In life? What if you woke up each morning excited
about the day's work ahead, instead of going through the
motions just to earn a paycheck. What if you had
a tribe of peers who support and encourage you to
follow your callings instead of sitting around with your family
(00:22):
who criticizes you and tells you to play it safe.
What if you had world class mentors who can show
you how to level up in every area of your life.
If that sounds like something you'd like to create, the
Wavelength Mastermind coaching program is the fastest way to make
it happen. It's a group coaching experience for people who
want to stop talking about their dreams and actually start
(00:43):
living it. The Wavelength Mastermind includes elevated conversations with your
coaches myself and Sarah Riley, who was on our last podcast,
will teach you the tools and strategies to reach your
goals faster. You'll have clarity on your purpose and an
action plan to make it. Deal will help you identify
and eliminate your subconscious blocks to success, and you're gonna
(01:06):
have a community of courageous badasses to support you every
step of the way. The Early Bird investment package is
still available right now, including two bonus calls in the
month of December before the program even begins. You can
get info at wavelength mastermind dot com. We've also included
that link for you in the show notes and now
(01:26):
episode how to Survive the Holidays with Your Family. My
name is Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced, battling
depression and feeling trapped in a career where I was
successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the greatest
gift I've ever been given. I use my pain as
a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I want
(01:50):
to share the same tools and strategies which helped transform
my life with you so you can live life amplify.
Comedian Victor Borgo was the person and who said, Santa
Claus has it right. Visit people one time a year,
and as it pertains us to our family, we're coming
up on that time of year when we absolutely are
going to make the visits, and we love our family.
(02:11):
Were grateful to them for giving us life. We're grateful
for the experience that's growing up. But we also know
family can be the biggest emotional trigger that's out there.
So how do you navigate it? How do you get
through the holidays in one piece? This week, I'm going
to give you some of my best strategies. Hello, and
welcome back to a special bonus episode of the Life
(02:32):
Amplified podcast. As I'm recording this, it is November twenty,
the day before Thanksgiving, the busiest travel day of the year,
which already means built in stress, trying to navigate the airports,
trying to drive to get to your destination on time.
And unfortunately that's not where the stress ends. There's so
many other factors that play in around the holidays. There's
(02:55):
the pressure that we put upon ourselves to get it
right air quotations around that, meaning you want to get
the right gift for your family, and if you're hosting
you know, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, you know Hanekas celebration,
you want to get the meal just right and create
a special experience. Then you throw on top of that
(03:16):
the pressure to not engage in political discussion with your
family because that rarely goes well. And just the pressure
and the obligation to fulfill these old family contracts that
were established decades ago. And so many of my clients
that have talked to you this week are feeling that
pressure to be a past version of themselves. And that's
(03:40):
really where the emotional trigger sets in, because all you
wanna do is just sit down, carved a turkey, have
a glass of wine, and enjoy a nice meal. And
at some point, you know one of three things is
going to happen. Somebody's gonna say something political that's gonna
piss you off. Number two, you know that somebody's going
to look at you and make some comment about why
(04:02):
you're not as successful as your sibling, or somebody's going
to look at you and be like, you know, you
look so much better if you just lost fifteen pounds,
and all these things that emotionally send us right back
in time to the age that we were when we
didn't feel loved or supported or accepted by the people
whose love we crave most. If you're not in your
(04:24):
head and you can relate to what I'm sharing, know
that I see you, and I hear you, and I
feel you, and I've been there. You know, I've shared
the story on the podcast before you know, it was
just Thanksgiving up that I went back to go visit
my family for Thanksgiving. I was one year removed from
my soul sucking corporate job that my family really thought
I should have stayed in. I was struggling financially at
(04:46):
that point. As a coach. I had a small number
of clients. They were all getting these amazing life changing transformations,
but I was under charging for myself and I still
didn't know how to market what it is that I
did for a living. This podcast didn't even exist as yet.
So as I sat there trying to show my family
this testimonial video that I had edited together with video
testimonials from some of my early clients, you know, I
(05:09):
was expecting them to give me an ada boy and
a pat on the back and way to go, Dan,
get out there and go chase your dreams, buddy. And
all I got was one member of my family, drinking
like the third glass of Chardonnay, who looked at me
and said, I don't know what you're doing with your life.
You need to get a real job. And I felt
so small, and it automatically just sent me back to
(05:29):
this twelve year old version of myself, you know, that
wanted so badly for, you know, to get my family's approval.
And there I was again feeling like I wasn't enough,
that I wasn't making them proud, that I was never
going to amount to anything, and all these old thought systems,
and in that moment, it was just like a twelve
year old version of me was there for the rest
of the trip. So we want to talk today about
(05:52):
how you avoid this. And number one, you're not going
to be able to avoid the crappy comments. You know,
Grandma is gonna say something racist. Somebody's going to drink
too much, and they're gonna say the exact thing that
hits you right in the heart. And perhaps the biggest
thing that you can do this holiday season is give
(06:12):
up the need to control that. When you are trying
to control other people and how they show up and
what they say to you, or how they feel about you,
or what behavior they do or don't do, you know
how much they're drinking. The minute you're trying to control
other people, they're actually controlling you. So it is perfectly
(06:33):
fine before you go engage with your family to sit
in reflection or meditation and perhaps journal about who do
you wish that they were, What is it that you
wish that your family would do, How would you like
them to support you and show up for you? But
then you also have to make a commitment that you're
going to accept them for who they are. And it
(06:55):
doesn't mean that you're going to approve of what they say.
It doesn't mean that you're going to co they're crappy
beliefs about what's possible for you. It simply means that
you're going to focus on what is in your control,
which is how you show up and how you choose
to react. You know, this is coaching that will serve
you fifty two weeks a year, not just at the holidays.
(07:17):
But if you have a blueprint for happiness that is
completely based on circumstances outside of yourself, you're never going
to feel in control of your life. You can go back.
We talked about this in depth in episode of eighty
four with Sarah Riley about how you can run your
life instead of it running you. So you can take
this with you at work if you're trying to control
(07:38):
your coworkers or your boss, or in your romantic relationships.
So often we're trying to control our spouse to get
them to do what we want, and that just robs
us of the ability to be the decider on how
we feel in any given moment. One of the big
dynamics that comes up in my family. And I know
that this is relatable because I've talked about this with
so many other clients. You know, I've got some family
(08:00):
members where it's very tough for them to be emotionally
present and to be emotionally supportive. That has been a
struggle for them in the past, and a lot of times,
the way my family likes to show love is through
gifts or presence, you know, really substituting presence p r
E s E n t s for presence p R
(08:22):
E s E n c E, which is what most
of us crave and our closest relationships. And I finally
got to a point, and I think the moment that
things really started to change in the dynamic on these
particular relationships is when I adopted this mantra. I said,
I can accept the love that is there without judging
(08:42):
it for not being the love that I wanted. Every
time I got that present or a gift or a
card with money you know, rather than being resentful about
this is the way the family shows love, but they're
not really there for me. I was just able to
accept it gracefully and graciously and releasing my self from
all those emotions about trying to change the way that
(09:03):
they show up for me, and it really started to
change the dynamic and some of my family relationships. I
just had my father here visiting me in San Diego
for four days and we had a wonderful trip together,
had some good conversations, and it's actually ironically open the
door where my dad and I can have deeper, more
emotional conversations without it being a trigger for either one
(09:24):
of us. And part of that is how I'm showing up,
you know it, just in terms of not trying to
force things. My goal on all interactions with my family
now is to speak my truth from a place of love,
not from blame, and then just releasing the attachment to
the outcome, not even worrying about what they do with it.
I had a conversation with one of my clients this
(09:45):
week where her father's alcoholism has been this unspoken thing
for most of her adult life, nobody's ever really addressed it,
and she wanted to go in at Thanksgiving and really
confront him about his thinking. And that's not the right
approach when you're going to your family, If you're talking
about their behavior and what you want them to change,
(10:08):
you're already losing, you know. The best approach is for
you to talk about your needs and what's really coming
up for you and just honor yourself. There's a big
difference in the energy between approaching somebody and saying, hey, dad,
you drink too much and it's making me angry, versus
just addressing the real underlying emotional need, which is, hey,
(10:29):
I'd like to have a deeper, closer relationship with you.
And that's the advice that you know, I gave to
my clients. And I'm really excited to see how this
plays out, because when you're talking about yourself and honoring
what's true for you, you can never go wrong. When
you're going at somebody about what they're doing, it's coming
from a place of control and it's just gonna cause
(10:51):
tension in your relationships. Strategy number two to help you
survive the holidays with your family set boundaries easy in theory,
so difficult to do, especially with your family, and especially
if you're in that wounded emotional place where a twelve
year old version of you is running the show. But
in order to set boundaries, Number one, you need to
(11:13):
know what your needs are. You know, one of the
big things that happens, especially when we're traveling or even
if you're hosting and you have a house full of people,
is you start falling out of your routines. All of
a sudden, you're not waking up and going to yoga
or soul cycle, you're not working out, you're not taking
that time to meditate or to journal because you're so
(11:33):
busy taking care of everyone else. You know, if you're
a person who likes to have a long, hot morning shower,
well now you're like, I got to do the shower
in three minutes because there's five more people in line
behind me and I don't want to run out of
hot water. You really start to lose your routines, and
in general, it can feel like a loss of independence
(11:54):
for many people. All of a sudden, you start operating
by other people's schedules, and that can create a lot attention,
it can create stress, and eventually you will snap. Over
the course of like an extended four or five day holiday.
So setting proper boundaries in your family relationships at the
holiday could look and sound like, Hey, I would love
for the family to go see a movie tonight. However,
(12:15):
I haven't been to the gym yet, so I'm gonna
go work out. Can we see the nine o'clock show
instead of the seven o'clock show? And by the way,
if people can't do that, you're allowed to opt out
of going to the movies. Hey, I'll spend time and
I'll see everybody when you get home tonight. Setting boundaries
around the holidays could look and sound like, Hey, Mom,
I'm going to spend Thanksgiving with you, but I'm going
(12:38):
to go do Christmas with dad. You know, there's a
lot of stress around the holidays when you come from
a split family and the family is divorced. This also
plays out when you're married and you and your spouse
are trying to figure out how to visit both families
over the holiday season. So you know, being able to
speak up and just set the boundary up front. And
the question is, really, why is it so difficult, especially
(13:00):
with family, for us to set boundaries. And I saw
my friend Sarah Baldwin post something on Instagram recently that
really resonated that so often as children were taught to
hand over our power to others as a way to
avoid conflict through compliance, that we just have to follow
the rules and there will be no emotional pain. But
(13:21):
a lot of times we end up violating our own
internal compass as children. You know, if you ever tried
to set boundaries as a child and you didn't want
to hug your creepy uncle at Thanksgiving, what were you told?
Now you get over there and you give him a hug,
right now? I know so many people who you know,
their parents were going through divorces kids, and they had
(13:41):
to choose what parents they wanted to live with and
ended up being shamed for creating boundaries by saying, well,
don't you love mommy and daddy? They were told that
they were rude if they ever said no, And somehow
in the mix of all this we end up feeling
shame for developing just it is a natural sense of boundaries,
(14:02):
and as children, when we don't have that full sense
of agency, it makes sense that we would go along
and just play the game, because it really is a
coping and survival strategy to get his love to get
his acceptance to make us feel like part of the tribe.
But it becomes really damaging as an adult, and what
used to be medicine for you as a child has
(14:22):
now become poison as an adult. Strategy Number three, when
it comes to surviving the holidays with your family, look
for the things that bring you together rather than the
things that drive you apart a k A. This point
is called don't talk about politics, especially if you are
not aligned with your family members. I know, in my case,
(14:45):
I am the only person in my family who is
on the political side of the aisle that I am on,
and everybody else is on the polar opposite side, and
that just becomes a place that you don't want to
go to. There's a study that says people say that
the results of the the sixteen election irreparably damaged one
of their family relationships. I was unfriended by my stepmother
(15:07):
in because I am not on the same side of
the aisle as her. So it's just a place you
don't even want to go there. At Washington State University,
actually just at his study, people traveling from democratic areas
to Republican leaning areas or vice versa. Around the holidays
now have been proven that they spend over thirty minutes
(15:27):
less time with their family at the Thanksgiving table just
because nobody wants to deal with it. It just ends
up causing conflict and being in a huff. So rather
than focusing on those divisive issues, can you connect with
your family and talk about some of the happy memories
And yes, even if your family is the most dysfunctional,
you've got a couple happy early memories from childhood. Maybe
(15:51):
you could sit around and reminisce about that and share
some laughs and share some jokes. My dad and I
always talk about the times that, you know, he and
I would go to the wwfor wrestling matches together when
I was a kid in in the eighties and go
see like Hull Cogan take on the Million Dollar Man
Ted d Base. But we would sit there and pretend
to be the announcers for the matches, So, you know,
(16:12):
we would go back and forth and pretend to be
the commentators. And and that's still one of the happiest
memories of my childhood. And it's so much easier up
for us to enjoy each other's company when we're talking
about that than if we're talking about politics. So that
is step number three. Focus on what's good. And my
final step for you to survive the holidays is keep
(16:34):
a sense of fun and levity. Believe it or not,
you can put the fun in dysfunctional family. One of
my dear friends had a game with some of her
girlfriends before the holidays where they all got together for
a girl's night and they created dysfunctional holiday Bingo cards
where they listed the things that they knew were going
(16:54):
to happen in their family that, you know, the uncle
who was gonna get drunk, the grandparent who was going
to make a true, igering racist comment, that somebody was
going to get up and storm out of the family
gathering an hour early and do it in a really
dramatic fashion. But then they laid that out onto bingo
cards so that each have their own personalized one, and
they had a group text going through the holidays to
(17:16):
keep track of who got the five in a row
and hit bingo first. As they were in the middle
of the triggers with their family, they were able to laugh,
they were able to coregulate with other people who got
it through the group text, and it really made a difference.
And I didn't realize. As my friend told me this.
I explained this on a TV interview recently. It's actually
a strategy that comes from Martha Beck, the Life Coach,
(17:38):
where she talks about this dysfunctional family bingo game. So
that is a strategy for you. There could be other
ways that you could do this. Maybe get together with
your cousins, you know, get together with the cool members
of the family that you like and see if you
can't create a fun game around it. Don't turn it
into a drinking game, though, because you're just gonna get
hammered and then and then knows what's gonna come out
(18:01):
of your mouth then. So those are the four strategies
to survive the holidays. Number one, give up trying to
control people. The only thing that is in your control
is how you show up and how you feel. Number two,
set boundaries. You're not the powerless ten year old child anymore.
You are a grown adult. You have the responsibility to
(18:21):
know what your needs are and to get them met.
And sometimes that means, you know, maybe only staying for
two hours of the Thanksgiving dinner and showing up and
engaging and smiling, rather than staying for two to three
days that's fine, but know what you need make sure
you're giving it to yourself. Number three, focus on the good,
connect with people through the happy memories, and let go
(18:44):
of what's divisive, if only for the day. And number
four have some fun with it. Plan a fun game
around the holidays that you can play either with family
members or with your friends. I hope this message serves you.
I hope it helps you get through the holiday. Is
in one piece, and if the content serves you today,
maybe you could share this episode with one of your
(19:05):
family members or share it with a friend. You can
screenshot it, post it to Instagram. You can tag me
at c sc Dan Mason Don't forget. You can also
join our private Facebook community, the Life Amplified Power Tribe.
We have a link for that in the show notes.
If you are looking to get a head start on
your and create some actionable goals to get you moving
(19:26):
in the right direction, I have a free twenty six
page workbook that you can download right now on my website.
It is a gift from my heart to yours. And
if you're looking for some extra support, either one on
one or part of the new group coaching program that
I have launched with Sarah Riley, you and I can
work together to create a year of meaning, money, freedom,
(19:49):
and fulfillment in all areas of your life. Creative Soul
Coaching dot Net for all the info on that. Thanks
for spending a few minutes with me. I have a
wonderful holiday and I'll talk to you next week. In
the meantime, turn down the volume on your negativity, turn
up the volume on your purpose so you can live
life amplified.
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