Summertime means the advent of fireflies, outdoor barbeques, family vacations… and family reunions. Family gatherings can create stress for many people for various reasons. Our family knows all of our buttons and we have had ingrained patterns of behaviors or dances that we do with our close family members. How many of us leave family gatherings with parents and/or siblings saying something like: “I don’t know why I feel just like I did as a kid when I am with my family! I’m not a kid any more but we do the same dances we did back then!”
It is so easy to have our “buttons” pushed when we are around people who know us so well…. they know all of our vulnerabilities and seem to target them when stress or tempers flare… often with the “best intentions”, wittingly or unwittingly. Our parents or other family members can sometimes also get into a power play with us as, not wanting to give up control and acknowledge that we are no longer children; and we are powerful now as adults in our own decision making ability.
Is it OK to avoid certain events? Yes, it is indeed okay to avoid family events that you know are going to create more distress and angst than joy in your life. You are not a victim of your family. You are very powerful as an adult in your choice of who you spend time with. While family traditions may have existed for years, it is okay to develop your own traditions in your own family as an adult.
How do you handle family comments such as “you’re not getting any younger, when are you going to lose that weight, if you’d only taken my advice, I didn’t let my children do that,” etc.? You can do the old family dance, bite the hook dangling in front of you, and become angry, resentful, guilty, shame-filled, heartbroken, define your self by your age and infertility, or you can choose to transform those old faulty thoughts and negative emotions. You can choose to shift how you perceive the situation and people who are posing the test and challenge for you. We teach people how to use quick tapping techniques and meditations that assist with getting out of negative thought patterns and back into their heart in such situations. We teach these easy-to-use tools and techniques in our books and seminars and give meditations for transformation that can be downloaded from digstation.com
If someone finds it hard to transform the anger or resentment, then you can use the “La Cucaracha” Exercise that Marion and I developed which goes as follows:
Picture the person that is making inappropriate statements or that is ‘pushing your buttons’ as if they were a giant cockroach. While this may sound bizarre, it can really work. Think about it. A cockroach is completely predictable; it will come out in the dark and runs to hide when the light is on. We do not expect the cockroach to act any differently on any given day. The level of consciousness of a cockroach dictates that it will indeed come out in the dark and run to hide when a light is on. We do not get angry at a cockroach for not coming out when the lights are on.
Think about someone who repeatedly annoys you. If you really think about it, aren’t their behaviors pretty predictable after a while? The specifics may change but the pattern probably remains fairly stable over time. Isn’t that person sort of like a cockroach; or, for those of you squeamish about cockroaches, like an ant in one of those plastic ant farms you might have had as a kid? Remember how those ants would move the piece of bread around while you were away at school, or out playing, or while you slept at night? Yet you didn’t sit there and scream at the ant or beat on the side of the fragile plastic walls of the ant farm, did you? If you did, this exercise may not work for you… chuckle.
Now, think of the person whom you are harboring anger towards and see them as if they are a giant ant or cockroach wearing human clothes, with their antennae bobbing around on the top of their head and their little insect arms dangling off their sides. If you picture this image when you are around the person in question, then you will likely not be so attached to their behaviors and will not take what they say or do so seriously or so personally. Sometimes it can help to hum softly under your breath, “La cucaracha, La cucaracha…” The Spanish term for cockroach is “cucaracha”.
You will find when you do this exercise you will have more of a sense of humor towards the person angering you, your self, and the situation in general. Of course, you should remove your self from any abusive situation. You do not have to choose to participate in the old dysfunctional family dance…. you are very powerful in your choices. Bring the joy back into family gatherings by changing your perception. Transformation of your perception and choosing to react differently can powerfully change the dynamics of any relationship.
Wishing you and your family a peaceful and joy-filled summer 🙂
Loads of Light to you all!
The Shift Doctors (Tracy Latz M.D. & Marion Ross, Ph.D.)
Shiftyourlife's Blog by Tracy Latz & Marion Ross 