How to not regress into your 17 year-old self over the holidays
You will anyway but here's a few tricks
This was originally written in December 2014. I’ve updated it in a few places but mostly left the spirit of the original piece in tact. To be read in the voice of a woman who said: “Take a picture of me pretend-meditating in front of Bill for my blog.”
A few days before Christmas last year, I sat in my therapists office, sipping in the lavender flavored air and her warm sage advice. I was in a good place. My job wasn't killing me too much, I hadn't had a hangover in what seemed an eternity, I was in yoga teacher training and continually becoming a more dedicated and regular practitioner, I knew what self love meant theoretically and sometimes practically, and my apartment was clean (a benchmark of adulthood, for me). I actually remember sitting there across from her feeling…together.
We were talking about my upcoming trip home for the holidays to my mother's house. I told her that while in the past these holiday gatherings had tended to undo me in the worst possible way, I was actually looking forward to this time home and this big holiday affair. I was severely optimistic because this time, I was a grown up. A spiritually progressed grown-up.
This year would be different because I was different.
So three days later as I sat in my childhood home living room in a ball on the floor sobbing uncontrollable hate tears, a string of “Fuck you assholes" hanging thick in the air somewhere between my mother and sister and I as they continued on unaffected in their game of cribbage, their normal "there she goes" giggling eye roll routine only stoking the hate-fire further, I couldn't help but wonder what in the fuck had happened.
It wasn't that I didn't see it building up. There was the fact that I was the only adult relegated to the couch which started the simmer of crazy. There was the tongue-in-cheek "okays" my sister and mother gave as I went to my yoga mat instead of joining in a family game or some other communal event that kicked the simmer of crazy to a low-boil agro-bitch vibe. I was on edge, they were setting me off, that was for sure. But this was our old song and dance and it wasn't new. Any human with a family knows what I'm talking about.
But there was something more painful about it this time, something more defeating, because I felt like I was regressing.
I was outside of the boundaries and progress I had so carefully crafted from the safety of my studio apartment, my sober haven. And I wasn't just regressing to the mess of a bitch I was before the sobriety or all the work I’d done to support it. I was regressing to my 17 year-old freak self. I was overly sensitive to the criticism, overly sensitive to everything, and I was severely focused on what they thought of me, how this new me measured up to the old me. In this perpetual state of need for them to acknowledge how much I had grown and treat me differently than they had in the past and grasping for approval. I might as well have been saying “hey assholes can’t you see how grown up I am?”
I wanted my good girl cookies. I felt small and insignificant and even worse, completely questioning whether I’d made any progress at all. As I sat on the train home after, I had this deep sense of unreality. Had I been kidding myself the entire time that this was progress? Had the light shined upon me within the four walls of my childhood home by those who know me best revealed that I was more than anything just the same mess of a jerk I had always been?
The answer is, of course, no. The answer is, of course, that what I experienced over Christmas 2013 was nothing that proved how fucked up I was, how little I had grown, how inherently bad I was, or how I would be perpetually stuck in a specific state. What I experienced was a sensory reaction to stepping into an environment thick with memory, replete with individuals that remembered me as such and such way. What I experienced was not a regression or a loss of development or a testament to how fucked up I "really" was. It was a normal physiological and psychological reaction that every human experiences when going home: family dynamics, my place within my family system, replaying out patterns and roles, and recreating memory.
So what to do.
In January 2014, the answer was simple. I'd never go home again. A solution, but unrealistic and also unnecessary. Because the danger wasn't in going home for the holidays or being with my family in my childhood home. The danger was going home with unreal expectations that things would somehow be different because I had changed. The danger was going home unprepared. Below are some suggestions on how to navigate family dynamics as a sober person.
Some really good books that did not exist when I first got sober on this subject: The Book of Boundaries by Melissa Urban, Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab, and coming soon (Feb 2023) Drama Free: A Guide To Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships also by Nedra Tawwab. I also find shadow work and internal family systems to be indispensable resources when dealing with younger parts of ourselves, and Pema Chödrön’s Practicing Peace in Times of War which is my absolute guidebook on not being a dick.
8 practices to help the newly sober you navigate being around family over the holidays
1. Decide whether you have to go
The first thing to always and forever remember is you don’t have to go! You don’t have to host, you don’t have to travel, you don’t even have to get out of bed. If you’d just given birth, if you’d just had a cardiac event, if you’d just separated from your partner, these would be reasons we might not overextend ourselves during the holidays. Same thing applies with sobriety.
2. Establish boundaries, and do it before the holiday
I can't stress this enough. You must create the kinds of boundaries you expect to enjoy. This means that if certain conversations or topics are off-limits, you are prepared to say so. This means that if you can only be home and with family for x amount of time, you make it clear up front and stick to it. This means that if you don't want to engage in a particular behavior or set of behaviors you always have (like drinking or smoking cigarettes or gossiping), that you are prepared to disengage and hold your ground. This means that if you do not want to discuss your drinking, sobriety or recovery, you are prepared to say so. Your actions, your words, and your reactions set the tone for what is acceptable and what is not. For me, this has meant letting some comments go unanswered, being clear that I can only come home for shorter periods, that I need to have my own space, that I need to practice yoga, that I need to spend time outside my home with friends. I've become incredibly good at affirmatively stating what is okay and what isn't, and (most of the time) without drama. This has also meant being okay with disappointing my family, or my perceived disappointing them.
3. Make a self-care plan and be willing to disappoint people
Take a moment with yourself to think about what you really need in order to be around your family. Is it your own space? Is it a hotel away from your home? Is it yoga classes or runs, morning meditation, walks around the block? Is it not going at all or canceling what you’re supposed to be hosting? Is it telling them ahead of time you aren’t drinking and asking for help? Is it passing on certain traditions or stepping out of certain events? Get clear on your limits and your needs.
Eventually, over time, all the mistakes I made helped me understand my needs, and further helped me understand what would happen if I didn’t meet them (everyone suffered, and they still do if I don’t take minimal care of myself). If you are like me and a people pleaser, all of this is hard to do. You're likely to feel guilty for not doing what other people need when they need it. You're likely to tiptoe around saying no even when that's what you really want and need to say. You're likely to feel bad if you don't take care of everyone and do what everyone wants you to do, regardless if it is good or bad for you. You're likely to sacrifice yourself and not advocate for yourself and do things like take the last bath of the day or sleep on the couch or feel weird insisting you have alone time or that your life depends on your yoga and so you need to do it before you open presents. But understand that when you don't take care of your basic needs first, however selfish you may feel, you are making the choice to deplete yourself, and soon you'll be on a ball in the living room throwing a tantrum calling everyone selfish bastards. No one is going to know what you need, or advocate for what you need. You’re going to have to do that. And is it always goes with setting new boundaries or establishing different ways of being, it’s going to disappoint people, and you’re going to have to learn to live with disappointing people.
4. Don't engage, act like a log, find your power in your defenselessness
One of the best lessons I’ve heard on the topic of finding strength in defenselessness was from Pema Chödrön (in this 6-hour talk which is my favorite of hers, a translation of Shantideva) which suggests that when we feel we’ve been attacked (not abusively), we have the option to remain like a log. In her teaching: logs don’t have feelings; they don’t have egos, they don’t have pride, you can say anything to a log and it remains unchanged. Acting like a log, according to her, allows us to retain our peace, power, and to not escalate situations. This is the teaching I return to again and again and again when I get provoked: I try and remain like a log, to not give the situation energy, and the times that I am able to do this, and to sit with the discomfort that arises and stay in my center and all that stuff, it’s an entirely different approach to living; it’s peaceful and it’s worth it.
If you tend to have a few familial relationships that set you off, or a relative that pushes your buttons, one way to look at it is if you keep repeating your side of the drama and engaging in the way you have before, it’s likely the dynamic is going to continue. You don't disarm a relationship or a pattern like this by continuing to throw the same energy at it; that's how you strengthen it. Your engagement on the level you have always engaged is putting energy right back into the dynamic. Your reaction and reactiveness and response gives them something to keep swinging at and fighting with because their actions are getting a result.
A lot of people hate this advice. As someone who loves to be right, to have the last word and to win all battles, this has been an excruciating practice. It’s also been one of the most sane-making ones. If you remove your energy from situations, if you remain like a log!, the situation disarms. You’re that powerful. (Also note, this is number 4, behind not going, setting boundaries, and developing a self-care plan.)
5. Remember what anyone says to you or how they act towards you is almost never about you—it's about them
People basically out of self-interest and their own subjectivity…remember anything that comes out of them goes through their own filters and reflects foremost: their perception of the world, their judgments, their story. Your reaction to other people, however, is about you. Keep focus on that because it’s the only thing you have control over: how you react, or rather don’t react.
If you’re an empath like me, or if you tend to think everyone else’s entire motivations in life have something to do with you, try this—I developed a mantra for myself that I repeat when I get hooked by someone else’s shitty behavior, “It’s not me.” I say this literally when someone says something terrible, doesn’t return my call or text, cancels a plan, is rude, whatever: It’s not me, it’s not me, it’s not me. This isn’t mine, I didn’t do this, this is theirs, let them have it. Another really good resource for working on depersonalizing every thing that happens around you and allowing is Byron Katie’s “The Work” which gives a really helpful process to de-escalate our internal dramas and investigate why we feel hooked by other people. My favorite resource of hers is her book Loving What Is in audio form (read by her).
6. Be mindful of what you need, and give it to yourself
Don't rely on other members of your family to applaud your sobriety or your progress or make note of what a responsible adult you have become. In fact, don't rely on anyone for that. You have the power to give yourself everything you need, exactly how you need it, exactly when you need it. A really helpful practice here is to write down a list of things you are proud of yourself for doing (and be very generous), keep that list on you. Refer to it, read each thing you’re proud of, and feel in your body how it feels. Be your own advocate, cheerleader, best friend, lover. (And no this doesn’t mean to not look for supportive relationships that give this to you, or communities that do—that part is so important and this isn’t about big “fuck everyone I’ll do it myself” energy; it’s about also being on your own team to stand in when you’re needs are not being met.)
7. Witness
After that fateful first sober Christmas, I returned to my therapists office and recounted the entire drama of that week, and while I felt very small explaining it to her, and like I had done something very wrong, she reminded me that the work I had done prior to going as part of my recovery had gained me enough awareness to be able to see the dynamics in real time. In other words, while I might have not passed the test I’d given myself, I passed one I hadn’t even thought of: my recovery gave me enough space to witness.
No matter how off the deep end you feel, or how infantile you are actually acting, allow yourself to witness. Meaning, identify the situation as best as you can from a third-party perspective. See what part you played that you have control over, and work with that. To own the parts you have control over you must be willing to see. Be a total freak, sure. But note it, and then later think through how you could have done differently. You can also use this mantra, "How do I want people to remember how I handled this situation?" Or better yet, “How do I want to remember myself handling this situation?”
8. If all else fails, be willing to take a break
Here is the truth, all of this failed for me last year. I didn't take care of myself, didn't set appropriate boundaries, I engaged at every opportunity, I took everyone's criticism to heart, I didn't give myself what I needed (I expected everyone to know), and I didn't witness. It imploded in a way that threatened my health and growth and sobriety. In the end, I had to step away from both my mom and my sister for months after that first sober holiday. I cut off contact, removed myself entirely from the situation, and re-entered with more perspective and more solidity in my own recovery.
When you are growing and vulnerable, it takes time for your roots to dig into the earth. You're just a little sapling! and you can't withstand all that much at first; you need protection from the elements for a while. For me, this was the case. I saw the roots, they were shallow, they were green and delicate, and they couldn't take on what I was asking them to. So I walked away, I strengthened my root system, I fortified. And then I returned, walking back in more boundaried, less reactive, more aware. Be willing to take a break from some relationships. To flip the script. To grow. To reinvent. Be willing to walk away to take care of yourself.
9. Addendum, November 2022: Be really kind to yourself no matter how you act
I wrote 1 through 8 in 2014, and since then I’ve had a number of less than stellar showings at various family gatherings over the years. Just this summer, my sister and I had what seemed like our most terrible fight to date, but then I wonder if it only feels like the most terrible fight because it’s now so far below the baseline we operate from in general, years into our respective healing journeys. Ram Dass famously said “If you think you're enlightened, go back home for Christmas”. No situation is going to reveal the places you are still wounded, or the places that need tending, or the places where you still have work and growth to do, as much as being around your family of origin will. I try and remember: This is all just really good information. I try and remember: everyone hurts like this, we all act in ways we aren’t proud of, and the trick is to not concretize (I am this way, I’ll always be this way, I’m such a mess), but to ask ourselves what can we do differently.
It’s amazing to me that when I fall short of my own expectations of myself—moments when I most need tenderness, grace, support—are the times I’m most harsh to me. I have to remember my stand down moments are my most tender opportunities for self-compassion.
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