Home for the Holidays

Holidays can be a difficult time. We go home to our families and old patterns of relating may be triggered which can produce stress and suffering. Mindful self care is a way to approach these moments with more curiosity and compassion for ourselves and those we love.

For instance, suppose you’re home having thanksgiving dinner with your parents and siblings and their spouses. You ask for seconds of pumpkin pie and your mother says somewhat quietly but loud enough so others can overhear, “Are you sure you want that second helping? Remember how you struggled with weight in your 20s.”

How could mindfulness help in that situation?

I take a moment to envision myself in the situation. I start by bringing awareness to what’s happening for me which is a way of bringing compassion to myself and seeing clearly what is going on, on the deepest level.

As I put myself in her situation, I’m surprised at the intensity of my reaction. I’m stunned. It’s like someone punched me in the gut. I feel blindsided by her words and so initially I’m shocked and then hurt and angry. I’m embarrassed that she would bring this up in front of my siblings and their spouses and seemingly has no awareness of how that would affect me. I’m disappointed that my mom still sees me as the person I was 20 years ago.

As I look deeper, I realize I really want her to see me as I am now, an adult, married, a competent professional, with good self-care skills. Her statement feels so disrespectful. So I guess in addition to acceptance of me as I am now, what I also want is respect. As I connect, I notice I’m feeling a lot of sadness and hurt more than anger. I really need to give myself understanding and acceptance for my feelings as they are now. As I’m sensing my yearning for understanding and acceptance from my mom, I touch into the capacity to give that to myself. I stop and just pause.

After I do that, I become aware of another level in myself, which is curiosity about what might be going on for my mom that she would say something like that. What deep longings might be going on for her that might be behind what she said?

Perhaps she feels some distance from me and my professional life and my competency in my life and even into my married life. We don’t visit often like this so there’s a lot she doesn’t know about me. Or perhaps she doesn’t feel a connection with me as I am today. So I’m wondering if her comments are a desperate attempt to connect with me in a way that she did in the past. She did have a deep intimate connection with me years ago where she felt able to contribute and help me in areas where I was struggling. Sensing this now I’m feeling a shift to a sadness that’s different because being a mother now myself, I can sense that loss of connection for a parent as a child grows into an adult. Perhaps she didn’t know another way to bridge that space with me other than with the comment she made.

So now I’m feeling some understanding and I’m moving into compassion for that loss of the closeness she had at one time with me. Maybe with that understanding I can find a way to communicate with her about how I felt without being judgmental or harsh. I also want to share with her my actual need to be seen and accepted for who I am. I’m also in touch with a longing to find ways to connect that would be meaningful for both of us and that might be a new exploration for both of us.

As I move out of visualizing the situation, I realize it’s so human to have painful feelings and thoughts. What’s important is how we respond to them. Mindfulness helps us to be more aware, in the moment, as the thoughts and feelings arise…and to bring curiosity and friendliness to them like simply saying to our emotions, “I see you”  This seeing is with kindness and compassion for ourselves and for the hurt or frustration or disappointment we’re  experiencing. It’s also a curiosity about what it is we are longing for and care about at a deeper level which may be triggering these feelings. From that place it’s easier to guess what’s going on for others and to communicate without being so judgmental or harsh.

I would like to emphasize that this kind of self-reflection and self-compassion “in the midst”, which might be implied from this post, would be quite unusual.  Just to have the presence of mind to pause and breathe mindfully in the moment would be an extraordinary act of mindfulness.  For most of us, the reflection and self-compassion and empathy come after the fact…often the “fruit” of the mindful pause in the midst.