The Lazy Genius Podcast - #40: The Lazy Genius Navigates Family Tension

Episode Date: November 20, 2017

Spending entire days with your family over the holidays can sometimes feel a little tense. There's a lot of history and things unsaid - or very loudly and aggressively said - and those car rides home can be little venting therapy sessions where you try and get your peace back. In this episode, we talk about how to leave those family gatherings with your peace still intact and maybe even an improved relationship along the way. Mentioned in the episode: A Family Shaped by Grace by Gary Morland For When Your Dad Isn't Coming Back This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now? That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday. Hey, lazy geniuses. Kendra and you are listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. Here I'm going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

This is episode 40. The Lazy Genius navigates family tension. Aren't you so excited? Isn't this everybody's favorite topic? Okay, it's the holidays and those of us in America are just around the corner from Thanksgiving, aka lots of time of family. Family can be tricky. Even the healthiest, most loving families.

still have a history, still have underlying tensions that can creep up. And sitting around the table or washing dishes in the kitchen are prime times for those tensions to kind of peek out or run out like a demon-possessed and wreak havoc. Either way. Today we're going to answer the question, how can I leave a family gathering with peace in my soul? We've all been there. We've been on the car ride home with a spouse, a sister, alone with our thoughts,

and start to think about everything icky that happened. we vent our frustrations. We wonder if it'll ever get better or hurt from misunderstood and annoyed at how everyone else can't seem to get it together. You might not really experience those kinds of car rides very often, but you have felt frustrated with someone in your family before, maybe even the same person over the same things. It's just part of being a person and being in relationship with people. So let's talk about how to leave a family gathering with peace and yours old. first let's look inward we all want to feel loved accepted and safe that is true of every human and every part of the world since the beginning of time and it will be until the end how we feel loved

what it means to us individually to be accepted and our definition of safety might be different from someone else's i don't really feel particularly loved when my husband cleans the bathroom i mean i appreciate it and I am really glad that he did it, but I don't necessarily feel loved by that. You might see safety as the freedom to be fully yourself and take risks, whereas someone who grew up with an abusive parent would see safety as not being hit,

not being afraid for their literal safety. So how we all process and see love and acceptance and safety is very different. But the core desires are the same. And with that in mind, let's look at two very important keys to having peaceful relationships. Number one, your family cannot be the sole providers of your love, acceptance, and safety. Human beings in general, can't do that.

If we depend on other fallible humans to meet our deepest needs, they will fail because we also fail. And when that person in our family fails at meeting our needs, we're discouraged and upset, and we're not at peace. So if you believe that, if you believe that every person you're in relationship with will fail you, probably multiple times, where does that leave you? For me, it leaves me with Jesus. I don't talk about Jesus much around here and won't or for just a second. But for me, my value lies in Jesus. And he doesn't fail me. So that means that when my family fails me, when they say something hurtful, when they misunderstand me, when they don't react to some good news the way I wanted them to.

I don't have to internalize that. I'm free to interpret that situation as all it really is. Someone failed me. Like I failed them. But that doesn't have to affect my deepest value as a person. That doesn't have to drastically draw from the well of my deepest desires and leave me wanting. For me, Jesus leaves me full always, at least when I recognize that the fullness is there, which I don't always do.

now if you're not a Jesus person you might find inner peace a different way through a different belief system or from within you might have a galvanized sense of your own value and have a really healthy understanding of the propensity of people to fail you and not use those failures on your soul's tally sheet you know you can like have a difficult conversation and still feel at peace when you leave because you know that your brother's judgment of you doesn't have to affect how you feel by yourself, right? So the first key is your family can't be the sole providers of your love, acceptance, and safety. It has to come from something that will not fail beyond you, like a higher power. Or it has to come deep from within. Knowing my own personal, like deep withinness,

I'm glad that's not my personal source because I fail myself more than other people do, but we're all different. So you do you. Okay, so the second key to having peaceful relationships is you don't know everything. Gary Morland is an author, and he wrote a fantastic book called A Family Shaped by Grace. I'll put a link to it in the show notes at the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash family.

But he shares a ton of amazing tools to slowly but effectively change the culture of your family. And he was an alcoholic for much of his kids' lives. So he has the battle wounds to write this book. In it, he writes. Sometimes it seems as if each person is convinced they understand everyone else. But no one else understands them. And each one is working very hard to convince the others of their lack of understanding.

Is that not so true? Oh my gosh. We think we have everyone's number. We think we totally know our mom's reason for saying that thing. We assume we know the motives of our dad not helping clean up the kitchen after dinner. we hear Uncle Jerry's racist comments and get enraged at how entrenched in his beliefs he is. We assume a lot. We think we understand where everyone is coming from and what informs what they do.

But we also don't think that anyone understands us. You might say something that, like, quietly offends someone in your family. And if they bring it up, you might feel defensive and misunderstood. You didn't mean that, though. Don't they know that you would never think that about them? and yet we don't extend the same kind of understanding to others. It's a really slippery slope. So the second key is to remember that you don't know everything.

We just don't know everything. So I had an, we can get rolled deep for a second. I had an abusive past. And our family is obviously still dealing with the effects of that. It's a residue that won't ever go away. But we can make progress by admitting, We don't know everything. For years, for years, I held a quiet but deep resentment for a decision my mom made years ago.

I assumed I knew why she did it. I never asked her about it. And I harbored that resentment for a long time. Do you think that did us any favors in our relationship? Nope. I was always distant and cold. And she consequently felt like she had to walk on eggshells around me. And when she'd do that, I am.

interpreted her demeanor as a sign of weakness rather than as a way of protecting the tender fragile parts of our relationship. Once I asked the question, once I realize that I might not know the whole story and sought it out in love, everything changed. I had her full picture and she had mine. Now we still trip over some of those old patterns, but now we know where the other is coming from. Now I know that if I feel that twinge of resentment, I'm ignoring the whole story and I'm only pulling evidence from my own story. And that is not fair to either of us. Accepting that we don't know the whole story is so, so important. It doesn't excuse behavior.

It doesn't make things automatically go away. But it does give everyone the chance to stand on the same solid ground. Now, this Thanksgiving in just a few days, it might not be the right time to have intense conversations about deep waves from your past. So what do you do in the meantime? Five things. There are five things you do. But before I share those five things, we need a disclaimer. If you are in a family where the abuse is still happening, where patterns of behavior are putting others in danger, these five things need to be accompanied by a much larger sixth thing, and that is professional help.

I wrote a post a while back called when your dad isn't coming back about how sometimes stopping a relationship is the answer. I believe that every relationship can be redeemed. I do believe that. But that redemption doesn't have to look like reconciliation. It might look more like personal healing and safer boundaries. I'll link to that post in the show notes if you like to read it. But I want to make that clear before we keep going. Some relationships need far more than mental shifts.

They need counseling and medication and strong boundaries. So know that if you're in that situation and feel hopeless, I am rooting for you so much. Okay, that said, let's close things out with five ways to gradually improve your relationships and leave your family gatherings with deep peace. Let's have that car ride home be a little bit easier. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment

with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Number one, assume the best. I tell my boys this all the time. One kid will accidentally bump into the other while they're brushing their teeth and their immediate reaction is like screams and tears. He hit me.

I didn't mean to. Yes, you didn't. did. Unless it's overt and intentionally disrespectful or hurtful, let's just assume the best. Let's assume it was an accident. Let's assume the comment isn't passive progressive. Let's assume the gift oversight isn't personal. Let's assume the lack of help in the kitchen isn't being ungrateful. Even if the past pattern is shockingly convincing to the contrary, assume the best. It will slowly change your mindset and it might possibly change how your family members think you feel about them. Remember, we all think no one really understands us

and that we fully understand them. Your family members might think that too, about you. Assume the best in them in their choices and perhaps that new pattern will rub off on them a little bit too. So number one, assume the best. Number two, don't keep score. When we keep score, it's all about us and our own rubric of how the relationship is supposed to go.

and then when that family member does the same thing again that gets under our skin, we put a tally next to all the other times and become more deeply entrenched in our annoyance and our frustration. Then when we get in the car a few hours later, we have ammunition to go on a tangent about how every single year the same thing happens. Now it might, and it probably does. But if we go back to the realization that we don't always know the whole story and that that person's perception of their behavior could be vastly different than ours? Well, it puts our

scorecard in a healthier perspective. I don't want anyone keeping a scorecard on me. That sounds awful. So as hard as it is to let those go for others, I think it's a really good place to start. So assume the best. Don't keep score. Number three. And these next three are sussed out. Don't you love that word sussed out beautifully in Gary Morland's book, A Family Shaped by Grace. He has a different list than I do, but these three components are kind of common thread throughout the entire book. So number three, be patient. Your grandfather might start a conversation about something political or cultural that you know you see from completely different sides. Rather than go up in arms and prepare yourself to defend things, which you should be.

in the right context, by the way. It's okay to defend things. But start by being patient. Listen. Don't jump to conclusions. Let him say his peace and then calmly share yours. Our insistence on being understood, it often leads to impatience, right? People just don't get it fast enough. Patience isn't easy and is often incredibly annoying. Let's be honest. But it is a beautiful gift to bring into a conversation. if you have a talkative cousin who you have nothing in common with, but he just keeps talking. Be patient. Gary actually has one of the most illuminating quotes in this book about that.

He says, rejection doesn't have to be overt. It can be subtly withholding myself from others. Act politely, but never use more words than necessary and never ask a sincere question. I get it. I've been in conversations with family members

where I feel like I'm going to lose my mind that I just want to get out of there and think I'm doing it kindly, but really I'm rejecting them. Everyone in your family deserves to be heard and it could be that some of them never get the chance to be heard in their daily lives. So be patient.

Number four, be curious. This helps with the patience in a tough conversation. Ask questions. Let those questions communicate to that family member that they are seeing, that you see them, that they're worth talking to and listening to, that what they have to say has value because they have value. It's subtle, but really important. If you think about the conversations you've had with people who genuinely

seem interested in learning more about you and what you're interested in, it's such a gift, right? You can be the giver of that good gift to the people in your family by being curious. And number five, be generous. This one is hard for me personally. I'm often afraid that being generous with my time or my curious questions is a recipe for never getting out of there. I am basically a professional boundary setter, sometimes to a fault. I appear to push people away when really I'm just trying to set healthy boundaries. Sadly, my boundary lines can look unkind and cold sometimes. I have to own that. I have to take responsibility for that. I have to recognize that my lack of generosity and conversation

is because I'm trying to protect myself from something that might not really need protecting. I can have a conversation with an eccentric, great aunt, and patiently hear her stories and be generous of spirit while I learn more about her without feeling like now she's going to expect a daily phone call for me. Generosity is, it can be really scary.

It's vulnerable. It's risky. But again, think about when a friend or family member has been generous with you, generous with their time and listening well beyond the time you thought they would, generous with their questions and seeking to understand you, generous in spirit by being fully there with you, even though it seems to serve them no purpose at all. It matters.

It really means a lot. And we can do that to others. So, to recap, the two major keys to having peaceful relationships. Your family can't meet your deepest needs. they will fail and leave you wanting. And two, you don't know everything. You don't know the whole story.

You don't know their deepest motivation. So with those in the front of your mind, as you spend Thanksgiving day with a bunch of family, with a rich history of love and disappointment and hurt and steadfastness, lead with these five things. Assume the best. Don't keep score. Be patient, be curious, and be generous.

If you spend a day with your family, those things swimming around in your mind instead of the usual suspects of annoyance and avoidance, I believe you'll get in the car, buckle your seatbelt, and sigh a contented sigh. Like, sure, part of that sigh might be that it's over and you get to go home, especially if you're an introvert and just hit your people limit. But that sigh is laced with peace. It's rooted in peace. You might have had a moving personal conversation with someone and you also might not have.

these ways of thinking aren't necessarily going to produce peaceful family times, but they will produce peace in you. Everyone might be on edge and hurt and annoy you in all the usual ways, but knowing that they can't change your value, knowing that you don't know the whole story, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, it will leave you with a drive home that is far more peaceful than you've had before. I hope that as you spend time with family during the holidays and beyond,

that you experience the deep soul than a lot of, of seeing people the way Jesus does. Everyone has value. Everyone matters. Everyone deserves to be heard. Every relationship can be redeemed. Every racist uncle can receive your love even though you see the world so very differently. I feel honored to enter a tiny bit into your families during the holidays.

And I sincerely hope and pray that your interactions with your families bring you deep peace. and don't forget that if you have the desire to see your family shaped by grace instead of by hurt and passive aggressiveness or any other wonkiness we bring to the table as humans Gary's book is fantastic so practical and very tender it's called a family shaped by grace and I'll link to it in the show notes the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash family now let's do a quick lazy genius tip of the week if you're eating a meal at someone's house during the holidays and you're taking a dish to share, like taking a recipe to share. Take a disposable leftover leftover container with you. You'll probably take your casserole in a baking

dish, right? And rather than leaving that dish behind and then waiting a month to get it back or taking the dish home with you full of a ton of leftovers, bring along a container that you don't need back to leave some of the food or all of the leftovers with the host. Or with your president, Johnny, who's in high school and entails food constantly. That way you can take your dish home and only the leftover food that you actually want. So that's your lazy genius tip of the week. And happy Thanksgiving. It wouldn't be right to not say how grateful I am for you guys who listen and share these episodes with your people around this time of the year especially.

It's such an honor to be a tiny voice in your life. It truly is. So until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Bye, guys. Have you ever felt like you were living just a bee or bee plucking? life, it's so dangerous to live that, more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me,

but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.