My Mother Drives Me Nuts!
Coping with Difficult People This Holiday Season

This is what my client Andi told me this week. Like so many others, she is very grateful that she will be able to get together with family and friends for the holidays this year. Last year had its own set of stressors, but it had fewer frictions that naturally occur during holiday get-togethers. Whether it's friends or family, there are always people who rub us the wrong way.
 
What triggered Andi was when her mother suggested how Andi could do things just a little bit better. These suggestions were particularly distressing when it came to her parenting. Just this week, when her mother was over for dinner and her son was having a meltdown, her mother said, "When you did that, I would put you right in your room!." At that moment, Andi felt like putting her mom in her room, not her son.  Instead, she snapped at her mom, telling her she did not want to hear it. Her mom looked hurt. Andi felt even worse, thinking she was not a good enough mom or daughter.
 
Andi’s goal for therapy was to be more patient, loving, and compassionate with her mother at Christmas. These are beautiful goals, but they are not realistic.  The gap between how we think we should feel and act and how we do, causes more stress, shame, and blame. We cannot just will ourselves not feel triggered by friends and relatives. But we can learn to respond to our triggers differently.
 
Expect and Accept you will get triggered. It helps to realize that it is normal to get activated. When we expect this to happen, we position ourselves to respond to our triggers differently.
 
Learn to relax rather than react to your triggers. When we get triggered, our bodies contract, and we tense up. By practicing labeling our feelings and training ourselves to relax our bodies, we become much less reactive.
 
Rehearse ahead of time. A powerful tool we use in cognitive behavioral therapy is called imaginal exposure. By picturing upsetting situations, we can generate similar feelings and sensations when they are happening in real-time. By practicing relaxation during an imaginal exposure, you are much more likely to remember to use them at your next get-together.
 
Listen to this imaginal practice at least one time before your next planned gathering. Be patient, loving, and compassionate towards yourself! Becoming less reactive takes time.
 

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