Facing Complicated Family Relationships

Dynamics are so complicated and too often so painful. And today we're going to talk about how to change all that for you this holiday season. This is a season right now, it's fall moving into winter. That seasonal depression is alive and well and rampant for so many millions upon millions of people. And it's a real issue. Seasonal depression is real. But have you ever thought about how holidays and having to see family and maybe feeling obligated or even panicked about that is part of what is happening during the season of seasonal depression? The other thing that's happening is we are ending a year. And if the year didn't go according to plan is another year where with all of the best intentions, you're not proud of what you've accomplished or feeling like you've moved the needle or where you want to be. Also, this is a season where reflection, of course, is happening. You know, there's this much time left in the year, we're heading into another year. Am I going to end the year not proud of myself again, beginning another year where I've been every other January? These are really emotional issues that are going on. And family dynamics, which is what we're talking about today, are directly correlated to your relationship with yourself. Today's episode is about how do we face difficult family dynamics and challenging family relationships as we head into the season of seasonal depression and into the holidays. Okay, we're going. Okay, three, two, one. We're going. So welcome to the Healing is possible experience. I'm your host, Rebecca silence. Every Tuesday, 10am Mountain, we go live and take you on a journey of hope and healing to give you more and more and more access to your truth, to your inner healer and to possibility. There is so much that you can do within yourself and with your family members this holiday season that I'm going to say a bold statement could actually guarantee that you have a new, better, more connected and more healed experience with these people you love. Family relationships are huge. Family relationships to so many of us, they're everything. And it's easy to think if we don't have the support of our family or if we're not in the the good space that we want to be in with our family members, then there's failure, then there's a threat, then there's shame and family dynamics either take us out or allow us to gain access to a next level of life. Either is possible. So how do we navigate this? And it is very real, and it's soul crushing for millions upon millions of people to head into this time. Of year, not knowing how to navigate these relationships with people they love and they care about and not knowing that how to have a new, better experience for everyone involved and not wanting more of the same. This is so common and I don't think we talk about it enough. And I think it's a major underlining piece of what sparks and escalates the experience of seasonal depression. So we're going to take it on and we're going to talk about it today. And I'm so excited. You know, my personal experience experience. I get often comments and feedback like, oh, it's easy for you, Rebecca. Okay, you've got this figured out. Well, whether you know me or not, here's what I'm gonna say. It hasn't been easy. I remember the first two straight years where I was the coaching client with my coach. And by the way, to this day, I have my own phenomenal coach. Shout out to Stefan Lovegrove, America's life coach. My coach today. I haven't stopped practicing and pursuing my own coaching since I started. And I remember in the beginning when I was working with a coach, it was two straight years of tears. I am not exaggerating. You can read my book Coming back to life to get more of an inside score scoop into how it was, what happened and how I got where I am today. It wasn't easy. I didn't get the easiest hand. I joke all the time, you know, like, I got the advanced class in this lifetime and I just learned how to use trauma to my advantage, life to my advantage, and how to tap in to the me that I want to be and how to feel how I want to feel in the basement, anything and everything. And it wasn't easy, especially, especially, especially, especially when it came to family dynamics. And I already had a master's in counseling. I already was a nationally board certified music therapist with, you know, a minor in psychology, a double major in music therapy and vocal performance. I had worked at the state psych hospital here in Denver, Colorado for six months, living on the grounds of, of this facility as an intern and just horrified by how unable people were and how little tools they had when it came to dealing with their emotions, their environment and their family dynamics. And I remember as much as I knew already, it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to have me feeling that there was no threat when it came to my family and my family dynamics. And I just remember two straight years of tears. It was like the floodgates burst open, the dam had burst and there was no stopping the flooding of emotions. There was so much grief, there was so much anger, there was so much fear, there was so much projection, there was so much self protection and emotional survival going on with me that without me meaning to, had me build walls around me, creating more disconnection with my family versus more connection, creating more of a barrier between my soul and the souls of my loved ones than I ever wanted or meant to happen. But it felt so scary and it felt so threatening and I had just left a domestic violence marriage right prior to beginning work with my first coach and I was leveled, leveled again. You can read more about this in Coming Back to Life. You can buy Coming Back to Life anywhere books are sold. You can check it out on rebeccasilence.com as well. But the point is, for so many of you, even the thought of addressing or facing or getting honest with yourself about where family dynamics currently are as opposed to where you would prefer them to be, what I want you to hear me say is addressing this within yourself, with a coach, with therapist, with your support system, it won't make things worse. It is the only way that there is a chance that things can heal, evolve, transform, get better. You got to face it. So many people just push their family members away and then they're having the same fights, the same fights, the same patterns, the same breakdowns in their other relationships because they're still fighting with ghosts. Fighting with ghosts. Not the people in front of you, the ghosts of your family members that you haven't healed with impact. All of your relationships, I kid you not, until they're healed. So this is actually, believe it or not, excellent news. Because there is so much you can do. There is so much you can do. And I'm going to give you five ways and five things that you can start doing to approach family differently this minute. Starting now, heading into the holidays, whenever you're watching this, everything you learn today in this episode applies to any season of life. I'm just particularly interested in encouraging you to believe you can have a better experience of family this fall, this winter, this holiday season. And you're going to need to be different. You're going to need to be the one to do your inner work, to have a different experience. So often we put it on our family that we need them to be different. We need them to change, we need them to xyz, and then we can be okay. But I want you to head into this and season more than okay, fully relaxed into your power, knowing who you are, knowing what you want, knowing what's Acceptable, knowing what's not. Knowing what you're going to do with the unacceptable and knowing you're okay no matter what. That is exactly what I want for you. And you might be thinking, yeah, right, not with my family, Rebecca. Well, here's the thing. If I can do it with my family, you can do it with your family. And it isn't always going to end perfectly or the way you wanted it to. But what I want is for you to know that you showed up, that you had an open heart, that on your end, there were no walls, there were no withholds. Now, there might need to be boundaries, There might need to be hard conversations, and likely both are true boundaries. Hard conversations actually prerequisites to transforming and healing relationship. But we don't know how to do it. And we get afraid to make things worse and. Or we get afraid to upset people. And we also don't want to let go of the stories, right, that they're the problem, or even that we are their problem. We blame others, we blame ourselves. It's a mess. And there's so much more available to you. All right, so the five ways I want you to consider approaching family dynamics that are complicated, difficult, and challenging starting right now. Number one, I'm going to call it fresh eyes. Have fresh eyes. This is key, and it is life changing. And for me and my family relationships, it's made all the difference. So what I mean by fresh eyes, I want you to approach every family member starting with you with fresh eyes, Meaning I want you to see them like you've never seen them before. When I used to be a school counselor, I would. Every meeting with a student staff member, administrator, family member, community member, I would see them like it was for the first time every time. There was no deficit that anybody was in with me. There was no way that I was going to hold the past against anybody that I was meeting with. I've taken that skill set and that paradigm with me into my coaching practice. Because here's the thing. We never know emotionally what age people are stuck in, what they're going through. We are dealing with people that are highly sensitive, that have been through trauma, and not necessarily dealing with the person as the adult they are. So often, especially when it comes to family dynamics, we're at a stuck age. They're at a stuck age, and we have the past that we use as ammunition against them. And from there, there's no goddamn way to win, no matter how hard you try. Right? So fresh eyes. Now, this doesn't mean take shit Put yourself in an abusive, dishonoring, disrespecting, demeaning, dehumanizing situation. That's not what I'm suggesting. But you can see them with fresh eyes. Is until and unless you've tried the five steps I'm about to teach you today. Don't write people off. Once you've tried these steps, once you've practiced and integrated and been consistent and put it into motion and given people the opportunity to grow with you, to heal with you, to reinvent with you. If the behaviors are staying the same and the person isn't growing with you now, it might be time to set a boundary that this relationship isn't serving me. I wish you well, I love you, our history. I want everything for you. And I'm going in a different direction now, but thanks for the lessons. Love you. Wishing you the best. I mean, that can be where we end up. It's not fun, it's not ideal, but it can be real. That people are just on different paths. And we get so scared to be vulnerable in relationships because we don't want to lose people. But what about no longer being willing to lose ourselves in any relationship, no longer being willing to betray ourselves in the name of love, in the name of trying to preserve a relationship? What if that's available to you? And I believe it is, because I learned that it was available for me. And so again, I'm not saying you get the happy ending you want with every relationship. I'm not saying that there aren't at times boundaries that need to be set that might actually mean you're ending a relationship the way it was for you so that you have a more honest experience of yourself in your life. That could happen. But we're not there yet if you haven't tried these five steps. So again, step one is fresh eyes. Are you meeting yourself with fresh eyes? Are you meeting them with fresh eyes? Are you willing to observe the person in front of you for who they are now without the pressure of them having to, you know, be seen for who they were, past mistakes, who they were in a space of fear. Are you giving people an opportunity to grow with you, to reinvent with you? You can't do that without fresh eyes. Number two, innocence. I want you to see people again, starting with yourself, in your family and across the board, but especially in your family, is innocent. We are all doing the best we can with the tools we have. I have never met anyone that wanted to cause harm. Now, I know that might sound very wild and far fetched, but I mean, it. The people that lash out, that are even violent, that persecute, that blame, you know, they're just powerless, trying to find a way to get their power back to. And it doesn't, it doesn't at all justify their behavior. But I don't think people want to hurt each other. I think people are hurting and they bleed all over. The innocent ones fighting with ghosts and they're just trying to make sense of past pain, past traumas. And again, the dynamics with your family of origin particularly, they repeat with new people until they get healed and addressed. And for so many, they never get healed and addressed. So they just move people, new characters, new friends, new co workers, new bosses, new romances, new spouses, until they're dead. And it's the same thing on repeat. And I just hate that when it's so unnecessary. It doesn't have to be that way. So see people as innocent. Again, not giving them a free pass, not saying that abusive, disrespectful, you know, bullshit behavior is acceptable, but just see that they're doing the best they can with the tools they have. And that includes you see yourself as innocent. Some of this can get really painful because there's 50, 50. Every relationship, every single one, we're each half. There's never one person that's 100% the problem and one person that is the vict and they have no responsibility. In the scenario, we're each 50, 50. So seeing yourself as innocent is critical here too, because you've been doing the best you can with the tools you have. The other people have been doing the best they can with the tools they have. Our parents are just doing their best to work with what they were taught and what they experienced. And often they don't know there's a better way than how they were raised. This is the way it is. This is gospel. This is how we operate in our family system. So if you are watching, chances are you're the generational healer in your family. I tend to attract the people that are the generational healers in their family. I was that. And what I mean by that is I saw it could be better. But I was so little. I was so little. I didn't have the words, I didn't have the skills. I didn't have a way to be taken seriously or to be listened to. And people were just doing their best. And I thought in so many generational healers, think something's wrong with them because, well, how come my family can't see that there has to be A better way. And there isn't always just one person, this generational healer in the family. There can be multiple. But the problem is when the generational healer sees what could be and then doubts and questions themselves, that can get very dark and that can be very lonely. And that can lead to a pattern of feeling on the outside of your family like the black sheep, like you're, you know, the one that there's something wrong with and like you need to be different to fit in with them instead of there's nothing wrong with you and what you see, you're right, it could be better, it could be different. And being brave enough to stand in, I'm not willing to, to adapt down to dynamics that don't serve me. I'm going to have a higher bar and I am going to see everybody as innocent with a commitment to a better experience for me and for all of us that's available. But it can feel out of reach, it can feel terrifying, it can feel like it's not worth it. And it can feel too good to be true. But I'm here to say it's not too good to be true. I remember when I started actually facing and getting honest about childhood abuse, being so convinced that I was going to lose everybody in my family if I talked about it, if I addressed it, if I acknowledged it, because I was essentially brainwashed my whole childhood. Like none of that happened. Nothing like this happened. You're making this up. And there was a big, big part of me that wished I was making it up. So when I heard family members saying this isn't true, they you're no, this, no, this didn't happen. I wanted to believe them instead of wanting to believe myself. So see yourself as innocent so that you can believe yourself, so that you can know you're not crazy, so that you can know you're not making it up and remembering that there is life on the other side of this. There is a way to experience these people differently and to no longer be in the hamster wheel of feeling threatened, like an outsider, misunderstood, abandoned, rejected. We don't have to keep playing out and creating more evidence to support the experience that we've known. We can create a brand new experience, but not without having fresh eyes or seeing yourself as innocent and the other people is innocent. From there. Number three, freedom. I want you to think about relationships are healthy when both people feel free. If anyone feels threatened, if anyone feels trapped in any relationship, especially relationships with family, automatically there are unhealthy dynamics. So you can't Create an experience of freedom for anybody other than yourself, but you can care about how you're communicating, how you're behaving, and you can notice whether or not how you show up is creating an experience of freedom for the person or people that you're relating to and in relationship with, or is it creating an illusion of control and trap and threat that only brings codependence, disconnection, and more of the old shit that we don't want to repeat, right? So freedom is huge. And the number one way for you to stay free in your relationships is to understand that relationships aren't. There's you, there's them, there's the relationship, and it's all a mesh and it's all the same thing. That's. That's the definition of codependence, right? And people get so down and out and dark and sad and feeling alone in their relationships because they think that they have to lose themselves to have relationship way too much of the time. And it is bullshit and it's not necessary and it's not true that you ever have to lose yourself. So if you can think about it instead, that there's you, there's them, there's the relationship. And that's three different things. Three different things. So you're responsible for you don't lose you, don't you dare let that happen. Especially not in the name of love, okay? No way. You, your life, your vision, your best life, no matter what's going on with your relationships with your family, that needs to stay a priority, then they're responsible for their independent individual life. And when both people want each other to have independence while they nurture the relationship, we're getting somewhere, it's healthier. And then 50, 50, we're responsible for the relationship, how it looks, where it is. And it's never one person that's the problem and the other person that's the victim from there, when it comes to freedom, very simply remember, you're never not a choice. It's so easy, especially with family dynamics, to think I don't have a choice. For example, I have to do Thanksgiving this way. This is what we do. I couldn't possibly ask for it to be different or make a choice to participate differently because my family absolutely wouldn't be okay, would be upset, wouldn't support it, would potentially shun me. Whatever it is that those fears are, you've got to understand you're still a choice. So if you agree to do the same old, same old, that sucks for you. You're Choosing it. And the good news is you can make a different choice now. You're always free to choose. You're always free to decide that you will have independence and your family relationships and all of your relationships, and that you're unwilling to lose you or betray yourself in the name of love ever again. You can decide that that doesn't mean that people's reactions are always going to be what you would prefer. But that's not up to you, how they react. That's their healing. That's their journey. That's their work. Your job is number four, to be honest. But we've got to talk about this, because Taylor Swift's lyric, you know, cruelty in the name of honesty and all too well is so real in so much communication, especially with family, in family dynamics. Okay? Honesty is about you telling your truth, you owning. This is how I'm feeling. This is what I'm wanting. This is what I'm needing. This is what's not working for me, and this is what would work instead. That's honesty. These are the five, five steps to honest communication with your family members this season and beyond that are game changing. Telling them what they did, what they did wrong, what they need to do different for you to be cool with them. That is not honesty. That's codependence. It's controlling. It's bullshit. It won't heal or connect you to anybody. It'll just connect you to suffering and disconnection, and your patterns will repeat and you'll keep fighting with ghosts, and there's. There's no progress. There's no way to move forward from there. So you talking about, okay, you're doing what you're doing. Not necessarily, you know, letting you off the hook if the behavior is toxic. However, you're not causing how I'm feeling. This is my past being reactivated, my patterns surfacing so I get to lead as a more healed adult instead of having the inner child experience life the way always I have. Right? So I'm going to be honest about how I'm feeling. I'm feeling disconnected. I'm feeling misunderstood. I'm feeling disrespected. I want to have a conversation with you so that we can get on the same page. I want to have Thanksgiving with you, and I don't want to do Thanksgiving the way we've always done it. I am definitely scared of your reaction to this, but I need to be honest with you so that we have an opportunity to do it different, so that I can at least ask for what I need you get to talk self responsibly and give again people an opportunity to work with and show up for you. And the worst thing people can do aside from withholding their truth in relationships, that's like the number one, number one way to kill off relationship, right, Is to withhold your truth. Because maybe you don't think they can handle it. Maybe you're just too mad, maybe you don't want to give them a chance because they hurt you so badly. Whatever it is, withholding doesn't work. But also what doesn't work is compromise. Again, in the name of love, I'm gonna agree to less than what I want. So we have this illusion of keeping the peace that actually creates more disconnection too. So I want you honest about what need what you want, how you feel, what's not working for you and what would work instead? This Thanksgiving, I am going to Ecuador to pick up my 18 year old daughter and bring her home with me. We're going to have a week together in Ecuador and I'm going to be with her on Thanksgiving. My husband and my littlest one, they're going to have Thanksgiving and my oldest and I are going to have Thanksgiving. This is an unconventional, unique experience. This isn't necessarily what I thought Thanksgiving was going to look like, but there's an opportunity for me to be with my oldest. She was joking on WhatsApp with me just last week. You know, I don't think we've had a week alone together, mom, since I was like 8 and now I'm 18 and I'm so excited and it doesn't look the way maybe we expected it to look. But I was honest with my husband about how important this time alone with her is to me. And if he wanted to come, I wanted some alone time with her. We could make that happen and everybody could could take this trip or I could go and he could stay home and it just looks different this Thanksgiving. And we decided not to compromise, to be honest with each other until we had a win win solution in place. And that required us each to talk about what did we want, what did we need, how did we feel, what wasn't going to work and what. And that is how you create win win with people. Now if you've already tried all this and they are just saying one thing and doing another, or you're having the same conversation and they're unwilling to work with you until we get to the win win, that could mean that we need some boundaries. And boundaries aren't walls. Boundaries are you Just honestly with yourself, taking the action to support your truth. Truth. You don't even have to tell people. I'm setting a boundary with you. You can just honor your truth once you've given them the opportunity to work with you. So taking this further to just reiterate and double down number five is solutions. You've got to be solution oriented. So often in families, we're like passing the problem around like a hot potato and wondering why people are more and more upset, more and more stressed, more and more, you know, just separating themselves from each other and disconnecting versus connecting and healing together. If all we're focused on is the problem, if all we're focused on is what we don't want, there's nowhere to go from there. Nowhere to go from there. So give people the solution. I will say no more and more and more. I mean, at this point in my life, if something doesn't feel right, I don't even question it. I just say no. But then I offer the yes, I offer the but. Here's what would work instead. And a great one liner. If it's getting heated with your loved ones and you're trying to have a connection to get to a new result, to get to a new win win, to get to more expansion and possibility and transformation and it's just not going great, you can just say, I'll start and stop this conversation with you as many times as we need to. Because it is so important to me to get to the other side of it. You know, when I'm working with families, when I'm working with couples, I teach them, I train them how to not have the same fight. Like, let's have the fight, let's get to the other side of it. Yes, there might be another one around the corner and there likely will be, but we'll get through that too. So conflict isn't bad. It's a sign that we got to get more honest and we need a win win here. That is all conflict is. So I don't want you to be afraid of conflict. And it doesn't have to be nasty and it doesn't have to be all this drama. It's just we're in unchartered waters. It's time to reinvent. It's time to create a solution that would work for both of us. Now that's new, that brings us more freedom, that brings us more connection, that makes our relationship more honest and more solid. And it's always available. So you can say, I'll start and start this conversation stop and start it as many times as we need to. Another great one liner that I like to use is I love you too much to have this fight with you. So let me know when you want to have a conversation that will actually result in some progress here and some healing here and some new results. Right? Because that's what we want. And like I said earlier, I don't people, I don't think people ever intentionally want to harm each other. But we get threatened and we get afraid and all of our history of heartbreak and rejection and abandonment and being misunderstood and betrayed and the list goes on and on and on. It's endless. We can project that that's what's going to happen again and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy versus we're willing to give people an opportunity to grow with us, to vulnerably be with us and hear us, for us to be with and hear them vulnerable and taking a risk. I just want you to hear the risk. It's always worth it. The solutions are always available. There are always solutions, there are always choices and there is always healing that's possible with your loved ones. So please don't agree to what you know won't feel good to you. Risk being honest about what would work. Give people an opportunity to hear you and then negotiate as long as it takes until there's a solution that works for both of you. It might not always be what you originally hoped the solution would be, where you finally land and where the outcome is. But healing's possible and new family dynamics and experiences are possible. And as we grow, that's not bad. We got to give people an opportunity to grow with us and as our loved ones grow, let's encourage that, let's celebrate that and let's keep reinventing along the way as the versions of who we are now. That's what's possible, that's available. I hope this episode gives you some hope, some relief, some encouragement, and some strategies to approach your relationships with your family and loved ones. This fall, this winter, this holiday season, and the season of seasonal depression differently. The darkness is real, but so is the light. And healing is possible for me, for you, and for all of us and for all of your families I'm here to support. If ever you want to reach out, go to rebeccasilens.com There's a free trigger trauma release masterclass that you can take right away on rebeccasilens.com thank you for tuning in to the Healing as Possible experience. This show is brought to you by my gorgeous team and rebecca silence.com and we can't wait to see you soon. Enjoy your family. It's a possibility. Love you so much. Thank you for being here today. Sat.