SURVIVING THE FESTIVE SEASON, PART 2.

How to navigate family and family dynamics over the festive season.

If we’re lucky enough to have people that we call our family, there’s no doubt that we also need to find ways to navigate these often intense relationships. For many of us, the festive season brings about more time with family and as joyful as this can be, there are inevitably challenges that can arise during this time.

I know that when it comes to the Asian Australian family unit, many of us are searching for that balance between keeping our family happy and still feeling independent and grounded in our own unique identities.

I also know that many of us have had to work really hard to unlearn many of the unhelpful thinking and behaviours that our family may have taught us and this sense of personal progress can at times feel really shaky during extended periods of “family time”.

So, how can we navigate family and family dynamics so that we can really enjoy this time together? Continue reading for some ideas and reflective activities to help you through!

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Missed Part 1: "Losing our sense of routine and control"? Check it out HERE.

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1. Manage your expectations.

Wanting something more or different from our family is completely normal. I think that most of us can see ways in which our family relationships could be improved; "if only X did this", or, "if only Y spoke more like that…" etc.

But sometimes these expectations for our families makes it hard for us to see what’s going on right in front of us. We create this situation where the only way for something to be “good” is if everything goes according to our expectations. When things fall outside of these expectations, we can feel emotions such as disappointment, frustration, resentment and anger.

So, being aware of, and managing our expectations can help us to create more opportunities for appreciation and enjoyment.

Managing our expectations is all about being realistic about what’s achievable/doable so that we don’t find ourselves feeling disappointed and/or frustrated. I’d say that managing expectations has a different connotation to “expecting the worst” because this feels really negative and wishful. Instead, managing expectations is all about being a little more objective, fair and understanding.

Reflective activity:

Take a moment to reflect back on the last few family gatherings. See if you can jot down some factual memories and really importantly, make sure that you don't include any adjectives here.

Eg.
Factual: My aunt didn’t speak to my uncle. vs. Descriptive: My aunt was sulking and refused to speak with my uncle.

Factual: My father didn’t cook anything. vs. Descriptive: My father was so stubborn and contributed nothing.

And then, take a moment to look over this factual list and remind yourself that this is what actually happens in your family. If you're wanting more from your family, acknowledge that you have these expectations however remind yourself that it's pretty likely that these dynamics will emerge this year too.

By taking the describing words out of our memories, we can take the emotional charge out of the experiences. This helps us to see things a little more objectively, which in turn, can help us to manage our expectations and maybe even notice the joy/quirkiness/uniqueness of each situation.

2. Stay grounded

If you’ve spent a lot of time working to unlearn some of the unhelpful thinking and behaviours that you learned from your family, I know that these family gatherings can really test out the strength of your personal progress.

Many Asian Australians comment that they feel like they can “lose themselves” when they’re with their families. And if you find yourself fearing this too, a good place to start is to work on feeling grounded in your physical body.

When we talk about grounding ourselves in our identity, often the easiest way to do so is to ground our physical body, which in turn affects our nervous system and signals to our brain that we feel steady, strong and sure of ourselves.

Try this short grounding exercise:

As you’re seated, press your feet into the floor. Wiggle your toes, perhaps rock your weight to your toes and then back to your heels. Do what you need to do, to really feel the sensation of your feet on the floor. Then, press down.

Take a few moments or a few breaths here and continue to focus on that downward, grounding feeling. You can decide how long you'd like to hold this for, or how many repetitions you'd like to do, but make sure that you're open to noticing subtle changes in your breath, mood or energy levels as you do this.

You could do this with your hips or your back against any chair that you’re seated on, however it might be easy to work on focusing on your feet as no one really has to know what you’re doing.

3. Examine your cultural lens

As Asian Australians, we’ve grown up surrounded by the western world, values and messaging of how a “family should be”. And this has often been in contrast to how our parents raised us and how our families function.

I’m not sure about you but my family doesn’t openly hug or tell each other that “I love you” or, “you’ve been doing such a great job” etc. It just doesn’t happen.

For a long time, I felt like this was a deep failing on the part of my family. I felt like I’d been starved of the adequate care and love that I needed to develop into a functioning adult.

However, as I began to reconnect more with my Japanese identity and culture, I also began to learn that it’s normal for “love” to be shown in different ways.

My family and ancestral culture, undoubtably, has a different love language to what the TV show Neighbours taught me was normal. By realising that I'd continually viewed my Asian family through a western lens, I understood that there were many instances where I had been unfair in my judgements.

Reflective activity:

This is a complicated step because we can’t dismiss any hurt that we’ve experienced from our families or excuse any neglect or abuse that they may have caused.

But take a moment to explore what you think is important for a family.

• What do you think is "normal" for a family?
• Where did these beliefs come from? Or, who taught you that this was “normal”?
• And lastly, now as an adult with greater understanding of different cultural norms, are there any areas of your family relationships that you can re-examine through a more culturally-responsive lens?

Bonus: Understand intergenerational trauma

Okay, perhaps the festive season isn't really the time to be opening up conversations about intergenerational trauma. However, there’s no doubt that understanding how trauma moves through families has helped so many people navigate their Asian Australian families.

Asia has a very recent history of war, occupation, genocide, colonisation and this deeply affects our grandparents’ and parents’ capacity to care for their children. Again, there are no excuses here for abuse or neglect, however sometimes understanding how trauma functions, can really help us to understand our family dynamics.

Reflective activity:

Module 3 of our Gendered Expectations program HERE goes through intergenerational trauma in depth. If you have the space to go there over summer, please dive in. Otherwise, come back to this program at a different point in time when you have the headspace!

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I know this blog post was a little heavy and we want to end this by reminding us all of the incredible strength, resilience and hope that our multi-cultural families embody. There's no doubt that it must be hard for our families to see their kids After a wild two years, we hope that these ideas and reflective activities will help you to dive into this time of reconnection.

Next week, in our series finale, we’ll be talking about how to deal with the loneliness and grief that can emerge for many around the festive season.

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