boundaries

5 Therapy Tips for Connecting with Your Family This Holiday Season

5 Therapy Tips for Connecting with Your Family This Holiday Season

With the holidays just around the corner, it’s normal to feel anxious about making plans with your family, especially if you have a history of conflict. Holidays might have been more fun when you were a kid when you could just play with your siblings and cousins, eat delicious food, and tune out the adult conversation. But now that you’re an adult with your own values and opinions, family togetherness during the holidays might feel more stressful, with lots of potential for disagreement and friction. Roast turkey with a side of resentment, anyone? 🙃

We can’t control how other people in our families act, but we have the agency to make healthier choices that help us navigate complex family dynamics. Here are five tips for connecting with family this holiday season. 

Am I Doing Boundaries Right in My Relationships?

Am I Doing Boundaries Right in My Relationships?

Boundaries have become a frequent topic of conversation both within therapy and outside of it: on social media, in the workplace, between family members, between friends. It’s important to create clarity in a relationship about how you want to be treated, and how you want to treat others. But it’s hard work to set healthy, effective boundaries in your relationships, especially if you grew up in a family or a culture where your needs weren’t considered, or you watched a parent or caregiver navigate life without setting healthy boundaries for themselves—with you, with another adult or family member, or maybe even their job. 

It’s especially hard to set boundaries when you’re holding misconceptions about what boundaries are in a relationship and how they work.