"Placating family members may feel threatening to the person you have become. This threat to your personal identity will likely induce anxiety within you. Further, you may be feeling anxiety about anticipated family conflict. History may have demonstrated to you that no holiday season is complete without "The Family Blow Up," which you would like to avoid at all costs, yet know is somewhat inevitable."
"You can reduce your anxiety through acceptance-embracing that when people care about each other and spend a lot of time together, differences easily become amplified. The alternative (no closeness, no tension)-as I write in my book Love and Suffering: Break the Emotional Chains That Prevent You From Experiencing Love- avoids the suffering but also the love that close relationships bring."
Placating family members can feel threatening to a person's identity and often produces anxiety. Anticipated family conflict and recurring holiday blow-ups intensify worry about unavoidable interactions. Acceptance of tension reduces anxiety by acknowledging that closeness amplifies differences and that avoiding intimacy eliminates both suffering and love. Naming emotions (affect labeling) reveals multiple emotional layers and helps distinguish internal adversaries from external ones. Meeting emotions where they are clarifies priorities and supports decisions about how to spend the holidays. Comparison—to goals, others, and social relationships—underlies stress, loneliness, nostalgia, and anxiety during family gatherings.
Read at Psychology Today
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