When the decorations are packed away and the holiday rush subsides, many can be left with lingering feelings, hurt, frustration, or even regret. Family gatherings can stir up old wounds and create new ones, but they also offer a chance to begin the work of repair.
Holiday interactions often reveal the fractures in family relationships. Instead of sweeping these moments under the rug, perhaps they are invitations to build bridges. Repair is not about assigning blame; it’s about restoring connection.
Take some time to process your feelings. What hurt you, and what role did you play? What actions, behaviors and words can you take 100% responsibility for? Self-awareness and willingness to humbly recognize your contribution to the rift is a crucial step on the path to effective repair.
Reflect on your own personal history. Quietly, privately, take an accounting of the experiences and relationship history that contributed to your behavior in the present. Notice how old patterns in interpersonal family dynamics continue to show themselves decades after the original injury. Notice how you may project past hurts and pains onto the present moment. Notice your own internal narratives, how your inner parts are convinced you're a victim or you're right!
Quietly, privately, pay attention to how you feel as you run the old tapes or replay the patterns from the past. Notice how your denial or amnesia or unconsciousness of these past experiences and old hurts might cause leakage of your pain and anger onto others. Accountability really means taking into account your own energetics and realizing that when you are disconnected from yourself others take a hit of the energy you are avoiding.
Take some time to feel the feelings you might have been denying or harboring for decades. Embody the frustration, the rage, the hurt and disappointment, the loneliness and sorrow. Reconnect with lost and forgotten parts that have been projected out or buried deep in your bones. Journaling, dancing and movement, therapy and talking with wise confidants enables the body to process past emotional injuries and open more fully to the truth of what you really are. Embodiment means that you can learn to be at home in your skin, even under circumstances and conditions that are triggering.
As you are increasingly able to be with your embodied experience, it becomes possible to be in relationship to the experiences of others as well. Even if others have not gone through the process outlined above, you can more easily remain conscious, communicate from your heart and maintain clear boundaries. At this point, if it still feels necessary and growthful, reach out to the person you want to reconnect with. Choose a time and setting that feels neutral and safe for both of you.
Speak simply about the incident, outlining what both of you can recognize as the event or issue. Make it recognizable as the topic being addressed so that what you are talking about is clearly defined and not an opening to bring in every incident that has ever transpired between the two of you.
Listen actively and validate their feelings, even if you don’t agree. Notice the urge to interrupt and correct their version of events or their perspective on you. Acknowledge their point of view and take deep breaths. Connection grows when people feel seen and heard. They don't have to be right or wrong. Neither do you. Let yourself become fascinated by their VERY different interpretation of you and of events.
Take responsibility for the facts . . . what you said and what you did. Recognizing they may see it differently, you have spent many hours reflecting so you already know that being out of relationship with yourself affects others and has had an impact on this person.
Practice EGOLESS Empathy . . . speak to their feelings, their heartache without explaining, justifying or defending your actions. Speak to everything you heard them say and go deeper . . . speak to their hurting heart, to the loneliness and their sense that they don't matter to you . . . that they felt unseen and unimportant to you. Say the words, "If I were in your position," or "If that had happened to me I would feel," or "That must have been so painful."
Then stop talking . . . allow your reflection and empathy to settle into their awareness. Let them respond . . . now that they are being seen, they may go on for a while about their experience. This period of the exchange is often rushed, but it is critical to allow the wounds to air, to be witnessed . . . and the feelings received. It is especially important for you to bear witness to the consequences of your disconnection from self, and for the other to perceive your humility and your willingness to take in their expression of their experience. You may repeat various versions of the sentences in the previous paragraph a number of times.
Notice that "I'm sorry," has not been introduced into the exchange. Egoless empathy is not looking for forgiveness, is not seeking absolution . . . this will be the most transformative dimension of the entire unfolding. Notice the tendency to want to go there; to say how sorry you are. Check yourself and hold back, if you can.
Instead, offer a gesture of some kindness, a hand on a knee or a cup of tea. Express gratitude for the other's vulnerability and express your desire to be in relationship with them in a healthier, more connected way. Share your intention to be more mindful of the ways you resist connecting with yourself so that you don't project your pain onto others. Express your hope that over time you can both mend wounds and rebuild trust. Express your love and appreciation for who the other person is and for how much they mean to you.
At this point, if you can say "I'm sorry," without pulling for anything from the other, you can experiment with uttering the words, "I'm sorry." Be mindful with this utterance that you aren't closing down to the embodied experience of personal responsibility and humility that has been generated by this process. “I’m sorry” can place the responsibility for giving you something - forgiveness - on the other.
Don't expect the other to give you anything in return. It may take them time to perceive their own role in the unfortunate interaction, or to register that they had a role in it at all. Repair is ultimately about you re-establishing your own sense of alignment and integrity. Taking 100% responsiblity for yourself gets you back into right relationship with your self. The added benefit is that it opens up the possibility for others to meet you there. They may, or they may not.
Be patient. Repairing relationships takes time, especially if the hurt runs deep. Commit to ongoing effort rather than expecting instant resolution. Repairing family relationships requires courage and humility. The reward can be profound. Moving with and through the anger and pain into deeper connection and understanding is transformative. Take a chance!
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