Have Peaceful Family Gatherings

It’s easy to find ourselves wishing for more peaceful family gatherings.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and with it, more than your fair share of complicated social interactions. It can be a struggle to manage the egos, desires, and personalities of our families, but learning how to peacefully navigate a family gathering is both possible and highly rewarding. On the road to peace, you may find many obstacles, so here are some ideas to get you started on peaceful interactions with your family.

Calmly Stand By Your Values

When we return to an old environment, it’s far too easy to take on the attitudes and behaviors that we exhibited when we were last there. Although many of our values come as a direct consequence of our families, adulthood has a way of shining a light onto the dysfunctional habits we picked up in childhood. It can feel like the lessons you’ve learned independently of your family are being tested. While it can be worthwhile to share these lessons, the allure of getting into an argument when they don’t learn them can be intoxicating. It’s important to remember that we can stand by our values, while also de-escalating conflict and avoiding a blowout argument.

Foster Peace Through Empathy

It’s healing to empathize with your family, even if they are not empathizing in return. The red hot fire of anger can be brought to embers, or even snuffed, when you are able to find understanding and empathy for the object of your anger. Anger in others is not so easily quelled, but there is a known treatment for our loved ones that are overcome with anger, and that is understanding. Our experiences with our family in both childhood and adulthood can leave us feeling like a wounded child. Recognizing the wounded child in others (especially your family) can help us to recognize the wounded child within.

When a person’s speech is full of anger, it is because he or she suffers deeply. –Thích Nhất Hạnh 

Check Your Inner Critic

Returning to our families can be a trial of one’s self-confidence. Oftentimes, the ammunition we use to criticize ourselves are lessons we learned in childhood from our parents. Whether your family understands or not, the truth of the matter is that our inner critic can be a real jerk sometimes. Checking your inner critic can be as simple as thinking positively, and as complicated as recognizing a harmful thought pattern and arguing against it. We tell the stories we tell for a reason, and it’s normal to feel their weight more intensely when we’re around our families. However, we must remember to embrace who we are so we can be at peace within ourselves despite what is happening externally.

Assess Your Old Stories 

Our attitudes are informed by the stories we tell ourselves, and nowhere does this come up more deeply than with our families of origin. The stories we tell ourselves are often rooted in experiences we shared with our family, and returning to that dynamic can plumb up a lot of feelings and narratives you might not have been consciously aware of. This is a challenge, and a gift. In childhood, our families were the first people responsible for taking care of us, so in adulthood, they offer us important perspectives into the way we take care of ourselves. These affirmations can help you create new and positive stories around family gatherings.

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Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.