Dreading your family xmas?

As Christmas gets near and lots of time spent with family is on the cards, dread can be the accompanying feeling for many.

Families are complicated beasts! If you leave family situations feeling worse about yourself or exhausted, it’s a good indication that there are some family patterns at play that you need to shine a light on.  When these patterns have been around all your life, its very hard to get the distance to see what is going on. Maybe a parent makes you feel you are never good enough; or a sibling is favoured or you find yourselves competing for attention; maybe you have a parent who is so anxious or fearful that it affects you deeply; maybe siblings are competitive; or your boundaries are never respected; you have learnt to put all your family needs before your own to keep everyone happy. Sometimes these behaviour patterns can be easily apparent, while sometimes they are insidious and hard to get a handle on.

Once you understand the patterns and behaviours at play, you can start to recognise them, and shift your old patterns of response.  You can never control the way others are, but you can shift your responses. Many people will ‘go small’ inside and do whatever they can to diffuse the situation when these old patterns arise. Instead, you can respond by knowing your worth, asserting your needs, holding your boundaries strong and trusting yourself. When all of this becomes possible, your old negative beliefs and thought processes shift and your emotional response is positive, meaning all that old pain you used to feel can drop away.  

If you want some help getting to the root of what’s going on, I would love to help. Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation.