Hey you guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel.
Today I'm going to be doing a quick video
on how to survive a toxic family gathering.
Right now we're in the middle of between two major holidays,
and I wanted to do a video about how to struggle less
in being around family that's dysfunctional or if not toxic.
And by the way, if you're new to me, feel free to subscribe.
Welcome to the channel!
If you want more videos, more videos are coming up,
about inner child work, trauma, PTSD,
and psychoeducation on the dysfunctional family system.
Okay, so many of my clients are struggling right now,
with either dreading the holiday coming up,
anticipating that there's going to be bumps with their family,
or anticipating shutting down or getting really really triggered,
and also anticipating that when that holiday is over,
most likely there's going to be an emotional hangover.
So I wanted to do a quick video on coming up with some tips,
on how to make that so much less...
be triggered for less intensity, and less time
So here are some examples
about what some people would be struggling with,
that they go to a family gathering, and there's sort of like sarcasm,
jabs, criticism, just the usual family kind of like weird way of connecting.
There could be alcoholism going on at a family gathering.
There could be parents who attack each other,
or become passive aggressive.
And just a usual, that if you come from a family system,
that has that going on, which is many of us,
that it can really, really hit you.
And when you're triggered in these events, you might shut down,
you might have a reaction
that causes you to get gaslit by somebody
about maybe you're being 'too sensitive'.
So any kind of situation that can come up with a family gathering,
it's also good to realize that other people
are probably also stressed out
about this gathering coming up as well.
So, it's like people are going to be on edge.
People are sort of probably not going to be at their best,
and most likely everyone's going to be wanting it
to be more than it actually is.
So what I'm trying to kind of get at here, is,
to come into this gathering with some skills and some tips,
that you're less reactive, that you're less triggered,
and you get through it in a good enough way.
So, here are the five tips.
The first thing I'm going to look at is something I call-
'surfing the trigger'.
I know that that sounds funny,
but it's actually a skill based upon the trauma brain.
What I'm trying to get people to do is that when we're triggered,
our limbic system: our hippocampus and our amygdala,
are pretty activated,
and we have some adrenaline going through our system.
And when that's going on,
the best part of our sort of thinking and feeling at the same time,
which is a function of our frontal lobes; that goes offline.
So, we kind of might lose our words.
We kind of might become overly emotional,
and surfing the trigger- there's a trick to do,
is that when you're at a family gathering,
let's say you're at the family table
is to stay in the best part of yourself,
and to stay sort of, like on the beam is sort of to surf that tension,
meaning that your frontal lobes, are the best part of yourself,
monitors what's going on; that it's almost like in a weird way,
it's like you're a golf announcer or a sports announcer saying, like,
here comes mom with the passive aggression aimed at dad.
Here comes dad shutting down
or, here comes dad getting overly flustered.
Here comes my siblings an hour and a half late as expected,
where we all have to stop and drop everything,
because they're the more favored sibling.
And you're monitoring that, and you're more on top of it.
And in a way that you're not...
the difference is that you're not drowning in all of those things,
that you're not reactive to someone being passive aggressive,
or someone being sort of like outwardly aggressive,
or in other words, you may have,
like a very depressed or alcoholic parent,
that becomes really mopey and sort of shut down.
And you're expecting that.
And you're like: yep! They're on their fourth glass of something.
This is where it's going to start to get going.
And here's my exit strategy.
And really you are on top of this wave of essentially,
like, drama and drama feelings.
And you're on the beam.
It's actually what I'm suggesting is actually very very hard to do.
But when someone has to go...
I'll say the same thing to the client, if they have to go do like,
one of those stupid performance reviews, with kind of a toxic boss,
or a boss that's sort of just like, really someone who triggers you.
And the person is surfing the trigger by just sort of thinking:
'yep, here comes the BS about how I'm not working hard enough,
even though I'm doing the job of two people'.
'Here comes the very corporate kind of talk about how I should be
moving forward and like be super jazzed to work here',
and you're anticipating all of those things, instead of reacting to it.
Hopefully, that makes sense.
The second tip that I have about going into a toxic family gathering,
is acceptance. And that when you're on your way to this thing,
is that you remind yourself about your family might be very limited.
Your family might not be able to meet you
and sort of be intimate with you in the way that you want.
That you're accepting that most likely
these family members are trauma survivors too,
and acceptance that it's also going to be kind of a hard situation,
makes the suffering so much less.
Because when we don't accept it,
we might be in a little bit of optimistic,
magical thinking about how it's going to go, or not,
and really getting to a place that...
essentially what I'm saying with acceptance,
is to lower your expectations,
and accepting that it's maybe not going to be what we want it to be,
and that some parts are going to be good enough
and to also accept that it's probably going to be hard in some ways.
That is the opposite of being surprised,
when it becomes dysfunctional or being toxic.
Because when we get surprised,
we're more inclined to be more triggered.
And in other words, we can be incredulous about going into
something that we know is going to be kind of a poop show.
And then why are we surprised?
So, related to the first one,
where acceptance is key to really lower your expectations.
So now I'm repeating myself,
so that, you're not disappointing yourself,
and you're not disappointing... like what you thought it could be.
Hopefully that makes sense.
The third one, is coming up with a strategy
and how to deal with this thing going into it,
where the strategy is about
potentially maybe spending less time at this gathering.
That you kind of have an exit strategy,
that once dinner is over or that kind of a thing,
maybe the family tends to mill about till about midnight
or something like that; where things tend to be more triggering after that
is that you sort of say upfront that you might be leaving early
or that you have another engagement sort of elsewhere,
so that's the 'less time' piece.
And if you're at this family gathering for multiple days,
like if it's like a visit, self care and routine are key.
Meaning that if you're trying to work on yourself, and trying to do yoga
or try to go for a run or trying to eat better is, as best as you can,
you try to not sort of get into the family's routine
of just kind of like flopping on the couch and watching TV.
And I know my examples are being really specific,
but whatever you guys are kind of coming up against,
that establishing a routine is as simple as taking a walk,
and not sort of falling into what the family kind of does.
In other words, you take care of yourself.
You're able to sort of... if any people stay up to one or two drinking
and watching TV, is you try to go to bed early,
and it's okay to excuse yourself.
One of those cases that if you feel compelled to join in,
which it's sort of like, with our families it's like 'when in Rome!'
And if we're trying to be healthy
and the family tends to have an unhealthy family lifestyle,
there's a really strong pull to engage in that stuff again,
because that's how we grew up.
So strategy is key, and to almost think about,
like coming up writing down a game plan that:
I'm going to try to go for a walk.
I'm going to do a lot of walks with the dog.
I'm going to try to not eat as much sugar,
or if my mom's getting crazy,
I'm just going to excuse myself in a good enough way
and try to be kind and gentle while I do that.
So lots going on with this.
The fourth one is to connect with support.
And this one I find is vital because to really be able to connect,
if you have people in your life that get this stuff.
Sometimes if a client is going into a toxic family gathering like this,
I will sort of suggest that they send me an email just saying,
sort of like 'surfing the trigger, trying to do my best here!'
I wouldn't be able to respond to the email,
but basically those kinds of actions
is what keeps us in our frontal lobes.
I'll be doing other videos that talk about that.
And I know I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you guys,
but connecting with other people
could be as simple as texting a friend to almost vent a little bit,
like, sort of like, 'oh, my God, my dad's passed out on the couch'.
or 'my mom just lost it about how no one's helping her'.
Those kinds of things, is sort of that you're accepting those things,
and you're also able to connect with somebody,
and just to get somebody to almost like to say,
'oh, my God!' You know what I mean? 'Same here!' you know. That would be amazing.
And it's okay if you don't have those people.
And like, you can even use this video to make a comment
in the section of just basically, like, sort of like:
'11:00 a.m.Christmas Day, barely hanging on!' ...that's okay.
But that is an action oriented thing.
I know it sounds weird, but it's an action oriented thing,
that keeps our frontal lobes online.
Our best self online, as best as we can,
so that we're not drowning in these triggers.
And lastly, the last tip that I have,
is something called: finding your adult.
And in the work that I do, it's parts work.
It's inner child work.
It's close to something called Internal Family Systems.
But in the work that I do, there's really just two parts,
and that's the adult part of ourselves,
and then there's our inner child,
and that inner child can be in very
different sort of developmental stages and ages.
It's not the only type of therapy in town,
but it just happens to be the one that's in my heart and I do,
is finding your adult is really about protecting yourself,
and being your best self, going into a tricky situation.
Coming back to that, if you had to do one of those stupid,
(I hate performance reviews),
but one of those stupid performance reviews,
is, I will have a client try to think about,
how do I go into that with my best self,
and where I'm lowering my expectations.
I'm not giving my boss such power over me,
as the authoritarian person in my life,
and I'm protecting my inner child from becoming reactive,
because if a toxic boss is sort of saying,
'your TPS reports are really lagging behind'...
it's like basically if you come from a shaming family,
you might shut down a little bit.
You might lose your words.
It might sort of stay with you for a couple of days,
but there might be the adult part of you,
and you guys probably notice, sees it as BS,
sees it as it's like the job doesn't define your life.
So it's working with those two parts that is very, very helpful,
and most of what I'm suggesting in this video,
all of these tips, are designed to get your frontal lobes more online,
which is sort of the more 'get it together' part of our brain,
the amygdala, which is in the hippocampus
and the limbic system, those are sort of emotional and body memory,
emotion, creativity, parts of our brain,
that it's like we have an emotional, body memory,
when we're being criticized.
So, finding your adult is really protecting yourself,
and it's actually protecting other people from becoming reactive.
So it's sort of like, you're at the family table
and just like there's criticism,
or there's stuff flying around or even see a sibling getting criticized,
or someone drinking too much.
All of these examples that I'm talking about,
finding your adult is not reacting,
is, being able to be able to think and feel at the same time,
as opposed to being all feeling.
Finding your adult can even be about setting a boundary.
Just basically to say, sort of like, you know what guys,
I just wanted to have a good meal today,
and I didn't really want to talk about my job,
or my dating life, or all that kind of stuff.
So let's just sort of get along and change the subject.
That may be incredibly hard to do around our family system,
but it's the adult part of our brain that can do that.
So, just to recap: surf the trigger-
that is us basically being on top of the drama.
Acceptance is to struggle less by lowering expectations.
You go into this thing knowing that these people
are trauma survivors too most likely,
and they're not capable of either maybe getting it
or not being kind of a mess themselves.
The third part- having a strategy.
That you know that you're going to spend less time, if that's an issue.
that you're going to try to take care of yourself more,
that you're going to excuse yourself and not lose a routine,
where you may have to spend weeks
about kind of building up to get back to.
Connecting with people who are supportive.
Again, you can use the comment section of this video,
to just say that you're kind of powering through it.
And finding your adult
is really finding the part of you that wants to be better,
that wants to be more on top of it.
And essentially what that comes down to is being on the beam
-that you're not being reactive.
So I hope this video was helpful to you guys.
I hope you're having a good holiday season,
and stick around for more videos,
and just click the subscribe button and you'll get them.
Hope you're well.
Bye bye!
