Managing anxiety during family gatherings

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Yep, that time of year is fast approaching! When you think of getting together with family does it provoke any anxiety? One of the best ways to prepare is to take time now to reflect on where that anxiety is coming from, getting curious about it, attempting to increase our awareness of how it manifests in our thinking, feeling & behaviour & asking ourselves is that really how we want it to be?

This is not about being judgemental or critical, it’s about being interested. As you take time to reflect, it can be very helpful to come up with one or more research questions to take with you to these gatherings. For example, ‘what is my automatic response to conflict that arises?’ Or even extending this to ‘what is each person in my families default response when conflict occurs?’… can I notice any patterns & roles? What’s helpful or unhelpful?

Being able to step back and be an observer, with the intent of learning more about ourselves and our family’s automatic patterns of functioning can be in itself a very calming strategy to help us get through it. The act of slowing down to observe can also enable us to make different choices, without being led by anxiety which can cause us to turn to strategies like hiding out keeping busy in the kitchen, drinking a lot, only talking to our partner or hiding behind our children, raising topics we know will get a rise out of someone etc.

Question for you:
  • Are you aware of what your go to strategies are for managing family gathering anxiety? 
  • Are they helpful to you & to others?

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