Keeping a gracious view of family this Christmas/Holiday season


Gathering with extended family for any holiday season or milestone event reveals both what we share in common and the significant differences between us. I wonder if you’ve ever sat at the family festive dinner table and listened to a relative express a viewpoint that really irritated you. Do you walk on egg shells waiting in expectation for that relative to take offence? Have you observed how challenging it is for a family member to participate in the socialising? Perhaps you have observed how much a family member relies on alcohol to manage the occasion? Or do you have a relative who uses humour (somewhat inappropriately) as their method of conversing?
I often hear people declare that they just don’t like their sibling or aunt/uncle….. They consider that their life and values have taken a different direction and they would prefer to not have to continue an effort to be in contact.
A family systems view opens up a different way of thinking about the variations amongst family members. The young person in the family who was most focussed on (negatively or positively) will be the one who absorbs more of the immaturity of the whole family system. The more anxiously focussed on child may be the one born at a particularly intense time for parents, or is the same sibling position as a parent (or a parent’s troubled sibling), or who was the only child of one gender, or was a sick infant. Not all siblings leave home with the same capacities to cope in life. In turn, this means that others enter the challenges of adult life with greater or lesser emotional resources. The sister or brother who seems so different from you may simply represent what could so easily have been your own path if the family circumstances were a little different.
Can you see how this opens up compassion and grace towards the more challenging family members. It also enables us to reduce our reactive responses to the apparently more immature members of our family – previous responses which have contributed to fixing oversensitive patterns in place. If you are the member of your family that others seem to struggle to accept, it may be useful to understand how your position, in relation to your parents insecurities, have added to your heightened sensitivity to others. It can make sense of how quickly you take things personally when you are with family and how others distance when you get upset. This awareness of us and others can be helpful to refocus on managing our part and to shift away from blaming others.
Perhaps a good gift to yourself and your family at this year-end is consider your extended family as part of a system that has enabled some to manage stress and relationships more effectively than others.

You may wish to re- read Chapter 3 of my book Growing Yourself Up, titled:

Family ties that bind: Understanding our family of origin

In particular the section- Each sibling experiences a different family

An excerpt:

Have you ever paused to appreciate that each of your siblings experienced a different family to you due to the variations in the degree and tone of attention each received from your parents? Some siblings get a balanced amount of attention and assistance in line with their logical needs, while others get an exaggerated degree of positive or negative attention….
The useful thing to appreciate in your growing-up efforts is that you can’t have the same expectations of each sibling that you have of yourself. Each family member’s pathway to maturity is inevitably different from your own.
Before we move into blaming our parents for any challenging siblings, it is worth remembering the influence of our parent’s family systems:
Much of a parent’s reaction to each of their children comes out of an unconscious effort to relieve their own uncertainties and anxiety, not from a deliberate attempt to mess up their children. Our mothers and fathers came out of their own families with a level of tolerance for upset, discord, involvement and demands. In turn this is played out in their marriage and their reactions to each of their children. None of us, or our parents, has any say in the hand of maturity cards we are dealt as part of the inheritance of generations of families.
(Growing Yourself Up p.39-40)

Whatever your family heritage and tradition for gathering at this time of year,
I wish you a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays, filled with grace for each family member.

*A CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Systems theory assists me to cultivate more compassion and understanding towards other family members. Additionally and even more importantly, the Christmas message of God’s grace shown in coming down into our struggles as the son, Jesus of Nazareth, demonstrates an extravagant dose of undeserved favour and compassion towards us. In response to this I am compelled to nurture the same compassion towards others.

 

Once in Royal David’s City – Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Verse 2:
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor and meek and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.

Faith – polarising and harmonising

file3615Avoiding polarising and pretend harmonising about beliefs

I wonder, what does it say about our current level of societal maturity that Christmas is being increasingly secularised? – Seemingly driven by an anxious harmony force that declares we must not offend any who don’t share the basis of the ‘Christ Mass’.

I sometimes hear that people find it off-putting when I identify myself as a Christian. Is it the same when we hear people identify themselves as Buddhists, or atheists?  I am guided by a principle that I will not push anyone to agree with my faith position. It’s the push that is alienating for people – not a calmly expressed stance.  I am also clear that it wouldn’t be authentic for me to isolate my beliefs from any part of my work, my relationships, my writing. I think it is a sign of a more mature society when people are respectful and interested in other people’s faiths and philosophical positions. My life has been enriched by many such opportunities – being invited to participate in Hanukah celebrations in a neighbour’s home and to converse with a warm Muslim man as I appreciate his guided tour around his neighbourhood. I’ve also valued talking to atheists who explain to me calmly how they cannot conceive that science and God can co-exist and are able to listen to my view that science increases my awe of the God in whom I have come to know. I don’t appreciate it when there is a mocking tone to any discourse on belief and indeed I have encountered such arrogant dismissiveness expressed by people across many belief systems.

I wonder, what does it say about our current level of societal maturity that Christmas is being increasingly secularised? – Seemingly driven by an anxious harmony force that declares we must not offend any who don’t share the basis of the ‘Christ Mass’. For this end of year blog I am posting excerpts from my book on maturity and belief. I do think that the full variations of maturity are evident in all sectors of religion and society including in the Christian church. I trust you will find it useful to consider what maturity you have brought to how you have come to and express your beliefs.

Chap 10 – Developing mature beliefs

Compliance, rebellion or examination

‘The pseudo self is made up of … beliefs and principles acquired through the relationship system in the prevailing emotion … beliefs [are] borrowed from others or accepted in order to enhance one’s position in relationship to others.’1

—Murray Bowen MD

‘We will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching …’2

—The apostle Paul

 

Each chapter of this book on adult maturity has mentioned the value of considering carefully what values and ethics you choose to guide your behaviour and help you act consistently. When it comes to beliefs, it’s simple to go along with the viewpoint of your majority group, your parents, your cultural group or your peer group. If you’re carrying unaddressed resentments towards your parents there may be a tendency to take on beliefs that are the opposite of theirs. Whether you adopt beliefs to comply with or to rebel against others, in each scenario there isn’t much thought and effort going into the process. This leads to beliefs that are superficial. They can chop and change according to the emotions of the group you’re in. Such pseudo beliefs won’t hold much benefit for you in determining how to make a difficult choice when you are under pressure. They won’t help you to take a position on what you believe are important issues if you are easily thrown off course by another’s disapproval……………………………………………..

 

It’s not unusual to think that overlooking differences and viewing all beliefs as sharing common ground is a mature stance. It’s worth asking, however, whether this is a thoughtful position or an anxiously driven desire for pseudo harmony. A desire to blur distinctions may be more about discomfort with being in contact with different views, driven by a togetherness force, rather than a conclusion drawn from examining the basis of different views. Theologian and historian John Dickson makes this point in stating that ‘by seeking to affirm the sameness of the world religions [we] … are in danger of honouring none of them. As unpopular as the idea appears to have become, we simply must allow the world religions to have their distinct voice and to express their different points of view…………………………………

 

Theologian and philosopher Douglas Wilson has described these maturity problems well in saying that, ‘Those who blindly follow traditions and those who blindly throw traditions overboard share at least ignorance in common. One keeps what he does not know, another throws away what he does not know.’3

The key maturity challenge is to get beyond blind acceptance or rejection of any set of beliefs and values. This asks a great deal of us. In particular, it asks us to take time to reflect on what we believe and what creed we live by. It’s not easy to carve out reflection time in this pressured world. It sure is easier to come to conclusions based on subjective whims and what brings us the most comfort and acceptance from others……………………………………………….

Questions for reflection

»»How much do I know about my family’s beliefs and traditions? How have family members determined what they believe? Have they come to their beliefs for the sake of harmony or have they independently figured out their faith and ethics?

»»How much have I adopted or rejected my family’s beliefs and ethics without personal investigation? What could I do to consider my own guidance system in a thoughtful way?

»»Are my spiritual beliefs embedded in subjective experience or are they balanced with thinking about evidence and logic?

»»Do I get uncomfortable and avoid the issue of my selfishness and wrongdoing? What do I want to be the factual basis for knowing if I have wronged another and need to make amends?

»»How can I make time to unravel my thinking around an important issue, tracing it from its primary source to the position I currently hold, rather than borrowing opinions that are most comfortable to me?

»»What steps will I take to explore what gives my life integrity and purpose?

And I extend to you, from my faith position, warm tidings of Christmas joy – ‘Joy to the world the Lord has come let earth receive her King.’ And let heaven and nature sing of love, grace and genuine peace for all.

Wishing all a Merry Christmas, Joyful holidays in your faith & family traditions, and a Happy New Year!

And for any curious to hear a thoughtful audio about the basis of my faith and of Christmas:

*My blog will resume January 11th 2017

‘Faith – polarising and harmonising’ – Jenny Brown

 

Where have the condiments gone? My emotional reactions at the family Christmas lunch

christmas condimentsHopefully I can continue to loosen up in the build-up to hosting a family gathering so that anyone can move the mustards and it will be just fine with me.

How did your family manage Christmas and holiday menu decisions? What were the issues that incited reactions from you and other family members? Could you notice who was most sensitive to the tension? Who were the peace makers? The distancers? The amplifiers? So often the issues that trigger reactions are insignificant but the extra intensity of the family gathering sets the scene for emotions to run a notch higher than usual. For myself I observed my emotions hitching a ride on the most petty of issues- the placement of the condiments?  Looking back it’s quite humorous to recall my reaction to a difference of opinion about whether the sauces should be with the buffet or on the dining table. Such a moment provided me with a humbling opportunity to practice managing my emotions more maturely.

Our emotions are hugely influential. I’m not referring so much to the secondary conscious emotions of happiness, anger or positive affection but rather to the primary emotions embedded in our lower central brain’s limbic system.  Like an iceberg, the primary emotions that drive levels of stress and fear (as well as being linked to essential biological systems such as digestion) operate beneath the surface of awareness and make up more of human experience and behaviours than we care to think. I have come to see that there is much value in an awareness of these primary emotions and the way they influence relationship patterns. At this Christmas holiday time, with extra demands on time, energy and extended family relationship interactions, I’ve been endeavouring to better observe these below the surface forces within my physiology.  Add a bit of stress to my life – even positive stress- and my primary emotions become more accessible to my intellect.

On the surface I thrive during the events of Christmas and holiday gatherings. I enjoy the planning and preparation, the opportunities for connecting over favourite food and champagne with uplifting music adding to the atmosphere. Plus there are the spontaneous back yard games that unite the generations as both players and spectators. While there’s much pleasure to be had there is also extra responsibility and tasks at this time. I’ve had my in-laws staying for the week and been host, with my husband, to some of the Christmas gatherings. With the extra load comes just that extra degree of intensity from my limbic system. I know that with a heightened level of work load and occasion anticipation, my heart rate can be a bit higher and my general body tension a bit tighter. For me this played out in being a bit too focussed on event management and being in control. The control thing is a learned way to absorb the extra tension but even in it’s more subtle forms it can be unhelpful in relationships. It can exclude others from contributing and inject a bossy tone to exchanges.

So what have I observed over the holiday week? Two key examples stand out for me as good lessons in awareness and making adjustments. The first was a conversation I had with my husband about catering for Christmas day. I asked him what ideas he had and as I listened to his particular views on preferred menu I found myself countering his ideas. What was going on here? I genuinely wanted to get his ideas but at my emotional level I reacted to what was contrary to my own thoughts. Thankfully he gently called me on this. He smiled at me and said isn’t it funny the way we get into this trivial debating at such times. Initially my emotional response was to justify my viewpoint but as I stepped back I could see that I was moving into unhelpfully taking charge. I was also contradicting myself. What I was asking for input about was discredited by the way I was responding. My effort went into calming down and loosening up. Then I was able to utilise my husband’s suggestions as a resource.

My second example I mentioned earlier definitely wins the prize in terms of triviality. As lunch was about to be served buffet style on Christmas day I noticed that my sister in-law took it upon herself to move the condiments from the buffet to the dining table. I smile as I now reflect on how silly this now seems but, in the moment, my agitation spiked in response to another deciding on one small matter about the best way to serve the food.  I gathered myself and took charge of my uncalled for emotional response that would have been clearly evident in my facial expression and the tone of my voice when I asked “where have the condiments gone?” Then I looked at my sister in law as she answered and smiled saying “I really do need to learn to be more flexible at this moment.” The condiments stayed on the dining table and of course worked just fine for everyone.

It was interesting to me to recognise that if the level of task responsibility is high my emotional response is to be less collaborative and more directive. This example shows how primary stress emotions can highjack quite unimportant issues.  Placements of mustard and cranberry sauce for heaven’s sake! I appreciate that small reactions about unimportant issues can lead to accumulations of emotionality.  This can certainly pollute the air of any gathering as others emotional sensitivities also come into play. Every emotionally driven reaction adds to a moment of tension acceleration that spreads through a relationship system.

It’s never easy to tone down emotional responses at times of high demand on our resources.  At any large family gathering resources for tasks and relationships are bound to be a bit more strained. Anxious behavioural reactions ride on the back of chemical charges out of our limbic brains that happen without a conscious choice. While our particular responses happen instinctively they do reveal useful aspects of ourselves such as our patterned ways of functioning in relationships and unhelpful (or indeed wrong) motivations.

I received a Fit Bit watch as a Christmas present and have already found it fascinating to track my heart rate. When sitting in a movie theatre with a family group on Boxing Day I could see that my heart rate was well above my resting rate. With this biofeedback awareness I was able to slow down my breathing and relax my muscles and watch to see lower levels achieved quickly as I tracked it on my watch. Such awareness of the subtle levels of elevated emotions allowed me to steady myself and enjoy the movie and the company so much more. Monitoring such signs of elevated emotions does not require a Fit Bit but just a bit of body awareness. A little more effort can be directed at slowing down our activity, our heart rate and our breathing.  With the emotional intensity toned down we can commit to observing ourselves in reaction to others and working at doing a notch better.

For most people our ‘beneath the surface’ responses go unnoticed or underestimated. It’s easier to perceive the annoying reactions of others than to pay attention to the way we inject our emotional intensity into the mix. Through all of life, learning to better regulate our primary emotions is a path to improved functioning, for both us and our important others. Hopefully I can continue to loosen up in the build-up to hosting a family gathering so that anyone can move the mustards and it will be just fine with me.

Questions for reflection:

  • When intensity is higher in life what can I observe about my emotionality?
  • What are others up against when I’m more stressed?
  • Which patterns are predictable when I’m in the midst of gatherings of important others? Withdrawal; overly taking charge; getting too busy; becoming critical and moody; avoiding people; drinking too much; becoming preachy; becoming overly needy; gossiping about others……..?
  • What can I make an effort to observe of my reactive behaviours? How can I become more responsible in monitoring my primary emotions and their affects?

Relevant Bowen Quotes

The theory postulates that far more human activity is governed by man’s emotional system than he has been willing to admit, and there is far more similarity than dissimilarity between the dance of life in lower forms (species) and the dance of life in human forms.  P305

It is possible for the human to discriminate between emotions and the intellect and to solely gain more conscious control of emotional functioning. The biofeedback phenomenon is an example of conscious control over automatic functioning. P305

In poorly functioning people the two centres {of the brain} are intimately fused, with the emotional centre having almost total dominance over the intellectual centre…..The more the separateness between the centres, the more the intellectual centre is able to block or screen out, a spectrum of stimuli from the emotional centre and to function autonomously. P372

In periods of calm, when the emotional centre is receiving fewer stimuli from its sensing network, the intellectual centre is more free to function autonomously. When the emotional centre is flooded by stimuli, there is little intellectual functioning that is not governed by the emotional centre. P 372

Becoming a better observer and controlling one’s own emotional reactiveness. These two assignments are so interlinked…The effort to become a better observer and to learn more about the family reduces the emotional reactivity, and this in turn helps one to become a better observer…One never becomes completely objective and no one ever gets the process to the point of not reacting emotionally to family situations. P 541

‘Where have the condiments gone? My emotional reactions at the family Christmas lunch’ – Jenny Brown

Christmas Rest

peaceIn this “Christmas Rest” blog I’m going against a pervasive stance that people should privatise their faith views (unless they are part of a current trend of social acceptability). I think this is generated by a tension about upsetting social harmony in the face of differences amongst us. I hope that I can be transparent about my faith in a way that is never pushy or judgemental towards others. Of course genuine transparency is living a faith not just talking it. Additionally I work to stay open to and listen well to others views and beliefs – a good ‘growing up’ opportunity.

A Time for Rest: Christmas reflections

Over all of the relationship challenges and busyness I will draw deep peace from the Christmas message.

Yesterday my work team celebrated Christmas and year end in the garden of one of our group. It was a truly pleasant time of sharing good food and refreshments, of connecting to broader family and laughing together as we negotiated the Kris Kringle gift process. I savoured the warmth of hospitality as well as the December air of summer ‘down time’ that marks a southern hemisphere Christmas.

I was full of gratitude for the good people I have the opportunity to work with, both now and in the past. The responsibilities for the lunchtime event were pretty evenly shared with everyone pitching in. As far as I could observe, no one was over -functioning and no one was under -contributing. It was good to experience this principle of non-anxious and balanced offerings in action. This is an example of seeing how the concepts from Bowen theory have assisted in building a constructive workplace culture where each individual has reasonable space to contribute without feeling over loaded or propped up.

At such a work Christmas gathering I particularly experience the intersection of my Christian faith and my professional interest in Bowen family systems theory. Before we all tucked into our main course buffet I shared a few reflections with my team members and their guests. This included recounting a Bible verse from my morning church service that I find deeply comforting. They are recorded words of Jesus: “Come to me, all who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”

I’ aware of some of the varying burdens my colleagues are carrying, ranging from end of year tiredness to major family health crises. At this time of year especially, I think there is a hunger for deeper rest; to not feel abandoned to our insufficient resources in carrying our own load.

From my study and application of Bowen family systems theory I utilise astute research observations of relationship patterns to be a more responsible contributor to family and community. My Christian faith is in a distinctly different place, providing eternal life purpose and a compass for goodness and justice.  I’m committed to not pushing my faith position onto my work colleagues or any others but I do seek to be transparent about its importance in my life. I hope that I convey to others an openness to hear their particular faith story – which is frequently a tale of abandonment of spiritual faith.

Interestingly Bowen was intrigued by his observations of supernatural phenomena amongst humans and wanted to investigate this further in his life research of the human development. He did not live long enough to take this research interest very far. For me the experience of key times of supernatural interjection in my life undergirds my ongoing beliefs. My faith is experienced both intellectually and emotionally.  It is based on an intellectual commitment to studying scripture, including comparative reading from other traditions and criticisms. Probably more importantly it is based on the lived emotional experience of being loved and directed by a force outside of the limits of my human condition. I clearly recall as a twelve year old struggling with harsh isolation from peers and as I read words of scripture I had a visceral experience of the presence of Jesus with me.  This has been repeated many times at the various stages of my life – particularly (but not exclusively) in times of deep need. Yes I have certainly experienced times of doubt and have sometimes struggled to intellectually reconcile the miraculous claims of the Bible documents about God’s activity amongst humanity. Yet into these times of grappling I have repeatedly experienced the upholding and encouragement of a loving force from outside of myself. For me this is the presence of God offering rest and assurance. It is not religion but rather relationship.

During the Christmas season I will celebrate this precious rest and presence.  I expect I will also be drawing from what I learn from Bowen’s theory to manage myself in predictably intense relationship experiences. I will watch for the sneaky guises that tension can take in me and will work to deal with these in myself rather than to spread it unhelpfully amongst others by such postures as over- sensitivity, over- controlling or distancing. Over all of the relationship challenges and busyness I will draw deep peace from the Christmas message.  I will allow the beauty of ancient carols to again to connect to my lived experience of a personal God [Emmanuel] who offers rest for my soul.

_______________________________

Rather than questions for reflection here is a familiar carol that speaks of the rest offered in the Christmas message:

Silent night, holy night!

All is calm, All is bright

Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child

Holy Infant so Tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace.

_________________________________

If you would like more to reflect on about the peace of Christmas here is a free mp3: by New York based Rev Dr Tim Keller

1: Does Religion Lead to Peace on Earth? – Tim Keller – 16 mins

At Christmas time, we sing about peace on earth, but does religion actually lead us there? It seems that religion more regularly leads to division and marginalization. What if anything, does the Christian message offer that can turn our skepticism into a living, breathing movement toward peace on earth?

Does religion lead to peace on earth? – Gospel in Life

‘Christmas Rest’ – Jenny Brown