It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so goes the carol. But is it really? December days are dreary and dark. Rain presses down, and the chill of winter seeps into our bones. It’s hard to rise from bed. The holidays brim with stress: children’s activities and social occasions every week. The shopping spree unleashes madness in the malls, leaving consumers psychologically frazzled and financially battered. Worse, the holidays force families together, subjecting many of us to the displeasure of each other’s company. For many complex reasons, we find family dinners increasingly challenging. Opinions fly and personalities clash. Someone’s quirk suddenly feels grating. Conversations erupt into conflict without warning. Listening to clients speak woefully of their family gatherings, I believe that Christmas is not the most wonderful, but the most difficult, time of the year.
For most of human history, we’ve lived in larger extended family units. Aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents shared a roof and daily chores. Although family life was full of irritations, they were part of the abrasions inherent in social units. Daily contact with others necessitated a thicker skin, an ability to trivialize the trivial. With the rise of the nuclear family, our contact with extended relatives became less frequent. Gatherings now feel like events. Quirks of personality appear more jarring. Our siloed lives have diminished our capacity to tolerate one another. We cherish privacy, and are feeble in the art of skillful conflict. Further, we have not developed the foundations of trust and care from which to oppose and challenge each other without fear of severing our bond.
In our cloisters, we lose the threads that bind the social fabric. Social media enthralls us with content tailored to our preferences. We no longer share the same physical spaces – alas, we no longer share the same reality. Facts invite dispute and no longer provide a starting point for consensus. It’s no wonder that so many clash with their families during the holidays, immersed as we are in our separate worlds between gatherings.
There are many strategies for surviving the holiday dinner. All are useful, none fail-safe. Rather than offer another technique, I suggest that the moment of aggravation holds great potential for self-understanding. When someone pushes my buttons, they are doing me a great favor: they are showing me where my buttons are. In that instant, I have an opportunity to discover my vulnerabilities, stake my claim on them so they are not so easily activated by external sources.
For example, my blood boils when I encounter someone’s denial of environmental problems. A warrior emerges, and I am poised for battle. However, there is an instant before the first strike in which I encounter very texture of my aggravation. I can inquire into the automaticity of this stress response. Who is running this operation? To pose this question is to direct my attention inward, which opens avenues for greater insight. Without this curiosity, compulsion reigns. The sword slices and blood flies. Inquiry into the unconscious forces that drive me is the beginning of self-mastery. Catching myself can feel like an impossible task. However, possibility lives where impulse meets awareness. As long as I am aware of my compulsion, I am larger than the impulse, if only by a hair.
Difficult conversations at the dinner table tend to bring out the worst in us. We bristle, argue, or dismiss others for their offensive views. Triggered and activated, we behave in ways that we later regret. Some people regret saying too much, others not speaking up. A warm and curious awareness of our own reactivity helps remain in touch with the best part of ourselves, or what Abraham Lincoln described as “the better angels of our nature.” There may not be a playbook for how to handle thorny conversations, but we can summon the nobler aspects of our character. For some, it might be a more spacious and caring attitude, for others it might be courage and assertiveness. By mustering what we hope to embody, we take ownership of our conduct and act in ways that we can be proud of. We have no power over how others behave; we can only stand on our integrity and character. A difficult conversation with others is not a test of how I dominate others – it is an indication of how I’ve mastered myself.
Conflict with others often reveal our unexamined selves. The unexamined psyche finds illustration in Carl Jung’s notion of the shadow, the unconscious aspect of ourselves that lurks behind our constructed personas. The shadow is the counterpart to our conscious identification, the parts that we happily leave in the dark as we pursue brighter occupations. The shadow is neither evil nor reprobate, but simply part of a dynamic psyche. If I strive to live above reproach, other people’s unscrupulousness will bother me a great deal. The strength of my aspiration leaves a mark on my psyche, creating an underside that hosts counterposing forces: moral superiority and an impulse to condemn others. While someone’s ethical lapses can seem a source of frustration, what I am really encountering is the menace of my own shadow. My frustration over others’ unscrupulousness is really my own intolerance of fallibility, a shadow that attends my ethical commitment. Recognizing this, I can better ameliorate the starkness within myself, thereby integrating the shadow into my conscious reflection. Without this integration, I may lash out at others, or brew in bitter disappointment over their moral lassitude. As Carl Jung once said: “Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Conflict with others is really a confrontation with my own shadow. What I find on the other side of my conscious persona – fear, distrust, exasperation, and hate – are all forms of unprocessed pain that menace my inner landscape. Hatred of others stem from an inability to tolerate otherness within myself. Aversion toward otherness, and the tendency to eliminate that which opposes, inflicts its first casualty within me, fracturing the wholeness that hosts multitudes. If I can extend to myself a measure of warmth that befriends the clashing forces within, then I ameliorate the aversion which stokes aggression and violence. As Carl Jung argued: “knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.”
So as we gather around the dinner table and brace for battle, it might help to turn inward. Drop the sword and face the assault that rises from within. Each bristling comment is a portal into our own unprocessed pain, our own unexamined wounds. If we do not understand, claim, and heal that anguish inside us, it will extend its tendrils and strike of its own accord. A challenging gathering is a chance to integrate our shadow, and thereby heal ourselves, our communities, our world.
