Relationships within families once you’re all grown up should be easy. We love our family, right? Blood is thicker than water. You’d do anything for family.
Except there are always going to be problems, even in the best of families.
A counsellor once gave me these tips on how to approach conflicts, hurt feelings and arguments. Each one is a small piece of valuable insight into how to stay sane when things go wrong with the people who are supposed to understand you the most.
1. Old grievances are unlikely to be resolved.
We often remember things from our childhood that went wrong. Perhaps you were teased, or made to feel small, perhaps you didn’t feel you had any power, perhaps there were serious issues in your family which left you confused and feeling unsettled.
Later on, when we are adults, those old patterns can come back to bite. Opinions formed over decades can be very hard to shift, unless we question them deeply, and many don’t have the time, or the inclination, for that.
But you don’t feel like that person you were as a child anymore. You’ve had an ongoing bundle of experiences and trials that have changed you as a person. You juggle so much as an adult, but for your family, you’re still that little kid, with all the power plays that are intact from childhood.
They might even remember history different to you!
So the stories that we tell ourselves about our childhood, and who we’ve become, are probably never going to be completely resolved.
The trick, if you can, is to work on recalibrating your story from here, on this day, on your own terms, accepting that the old story is never going to be resolved, and understanding why. How do you want to go forward from here, for you?
Good luck!
Joni Page 