It’s that time of year again; time for feasting with friends and family in a communal appreciation for those friends and family. These people in our lives give us a sense of meaning and purpose beyond simply surviving and acquiring the latest cool gadgets. Family belonging fills a special part of our core being that simply can not be met by outer achievements in other areas. Family seems to see more of us than just the things we like to judge ourselves for. They have more history with us than the usual folks we know. That reality isn’t always comfortable, but that is just how family is.
This year Ellen and I are going to my cousin’s house. One of my sons, Mason (pictured here with his wife Miki), is flying out to visit from back east and will be joining us. Our traditional celebration has always been a potluck affair with the hosts providing the turkey. Since the advent of Evite, the luck part of potluck has been shifted from the possibility of everyone showing up with salad, to a set menu from which we get to choose the items we wish to contribute. Responding early means you get to pick out what you want to bring. Fortunately, the food list includes gluten-free pies and rolls as well as dairy-free ice cream. My aunt is dairy-sensitive and Ellen and I don’t do gluten.
These days this is not such a big deal. There are plenty of choices in the stores now that fit the gluten and dairy-free option. Heck, last week I noticed that they make a gluten-free Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (the glutenous version was a staple food back when I was a student at UC Davis)! Back 15 to 20 years ago, this was not the case. If you knew where to look, you might find soy-based ice cream, but gluten-free baked anything palatable just did not exist. In the past, I always made homemade gluten-free items on the principle that if I made it then I would be assured that it would be there for me to eat. But this year, we are breaking away from this and opting to provide potatoes or yams. Pretty daring, I know, but Thanksgiving calls for that little bit of special effort.
It is weird to realize that I have been going to these yearly Thanksgiving dinners for over 60 years, maybe longer since I don’t really remember the first 7 years of my life. It is always a good reflection on whether I have grown up at all each year. It is amazing how well a family gathering puts us right back into our child persona. Feelings that have been successfully hidden in the dark recesses of the brain can come popping right back up to the surface around family. It is a special kind of fun. But if I actually grew up would I be able to belong? So much of belonging is about replaying the established relationships from the past with the people we know. We find it very suspicious when someone suddenly behaves differently than they traditionally do. Familiarity is the name of the game with belonging. To be familiar comes from the Middle English word for “of a household or family.” At the same time, to be familiar means that you exhibit the same traits and behaviors as you commonly have had in the past. So part of the whole gig with getting together with family is to show up in the way everybody expects you to show up. But what if you have grown since the last time they saw you and you feel and behave differently now?
Although the gravitational pull of the family tries to pull you back into your feeling history, family is actually a good place to try out new parts of yourself. The common history of family confers upon you a feeling of being safe (generally) and that gives your family the possibility of being more tolerant of any changes you might display. Change happens through the connections you have in the non-family world of relationships. For instance, you are more likely to get away with your recent conversion to a new cult, gang, political party, or religious affiliation amongst your family than you are at work. Family will naturally try to pull you back to the way you used to be, but your changes are not as threatening to them as they are to the casual acquaintance. So go ahead and reveal yourself. You are less likely to get shot on sight with family, particularly on Thanksgiving.
One of the rules of a relationship is that you do not get to change other people, you can only change your relationship with them. Each person is a unique mix of adaptations and coping responses to their fears and desires throughout their history. You can’t change their history. It has formed their view of the world and how they relate to the world. With a lot of effort and time, a person can change their own relationship with life by developing new and better skills for coping with life. The really hard part is changing the earliest beliefs we formed as tiny babies about what we need from the world to be okay. We function as though we have this huge empty hole inside us that needs to be filled with something from the outside in order to feel okay. In a way, we do need the outside, but not as something to fill us from the outside in, but rather as a way to participate in gratitude and appreciation. The love we are searching for comes through our experience of learning to love. Love is a flow created by the balanced exchange of positive energy between us and “out there.” Gratitude and appreciation are the doorknobs to opening the door to this exchange of energetic flow. Love requires our participation. We can’t feel it if we are passively waiting to be filled. Love is like being in a body temperature pool. You can’t really feel the water until you start swimming around. Love is all around but you can’t really feel it until you move it around. Perhaps this is why God has been described as an ocean of love and mercy.
Many families experience discord during the holidays. From my observation, this seems to flow from a set of expectations during the holidays in which we believe everyone should act in a manner that feels good to us. This is one of those forms of trying to fill an inner emptiness with something from the outside. Since that does not work, we opt for filling ourselves literally with holiday goodness in the form of holiday treats. Some people get it that the holidays are a time for giving out love. These folks get the byproduct of feeling the love that participation with life offers them. Holiday shopping does not fill their time and attention as they understand that buying commercial goods is not the reason for the season. Connection is the reason for the season.
So what is the takeaway from all this ruminating? It is simple, relax and be yourself. You are enough just as you are. You don’t need aunt Bessie’s or uncle Joe’s approval. Their approval isn’t about you anyway. It is about whether you are serving their needs or wants. Just be yourself and open the doorway to connection by using the handles of gratitude and appreciation. Stepping through that door will immerse you in the love you are seeking. As you outflow love, love flows into you and through you.
Ellen and I were discussing this topic this morning and I got an interesting viewpoint on the real meaning of self-love. Self-love has been offered as the solution to that empty feeling inside. But on the other hand, folks that I observe as being narcissistic are all very neurotic and needy — the opposite of what has been described as the outcome of self-love. I pulled in one of our basic perceptions about human nature to turn this around. Humans tend to only see or pay attention to reflections of themselves in the world. We judge those things in the world that we judge in ourselves and we admire those qualities that we are developing in ourselves. The world is our mirror. We love to deny this because we look at the surface differences in form. But the reflections that grab our attention are the ones that carry the feelings that we have inside. Feelings are the basis of our relationship to life, not form.
Apply this awareness to self-love and you find that the gratitude and appreciation we feel for others is really for ourselves reflected in them. In the heart, we are one. As we love them, we are also loving ourselves. This would be the self-love that fills that emptiness in our souls. As we treat them kindly, we allow ourselves to treat us kindly as well. This is the true gift of the holidays that is available to us. Loving others as ourselves heals the pain of our past, for that pain was simply falling into believing that we were not enough. We are enough, and becoming more every day.
Take care,
David