Before I start rambling, I want say that if family brings up a lot of stuff for you, just skip the rest of this, and also when I say family is hard, please know I do not mean unsafe – if you or someone you know is in an unsafe family dynamic please get help, the number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline  is 800-799-7233 and you can click here for their website. 

I haven’t been on the site for a few days because we were doing family things since both our kids were here at the same time so I have been thinking about family time a lot. As the wise Glennon Doyle once said, “ Family is hard because it is, not because you’re doing it wrong”. Even if you have a wonderful family with close bonds, it’s hard. Family can bring up those deep down stories we told ourselves as a child, a parent, a sibling. And of course sometimes there is hurt and resentment that has wrapped itself around the relationship and is suffocating.  Even if there are people out there who honestly have no beef with family and togetherness is always pure bliss, at some point, we all die. Then it’s hard. There’s just no escaping the hard lessons family can teach us. But, also in the words of Ms. Doyle, “We can do hard things” (Check out her podcast here ). 

“Surrender” is a word that often comes to my mind when I’m with family. Taking a step back and letting things unfold as they are meant to is one of those things that is simple but not easy. Like all parents, I surrender about 1,000 times every day, wanting to protect my kids from the violence in the world, make sure they have friends and are happy, make sure they make good choices to stay healthy and safe – but I am not in control of these things, my kids will have to make their choices and follow their own paths. For me, surrendering here is truly one of the hardest things I do.

Here’s another really hard thing for me – my dad is almost 90, and while he is still vibrant and wonderful as ever, he has 90 year old type health issues. My parents mean the world to me, when I lost my mom a few years back I was heartbroken and I miss her every day. I live across the country from my dad and am lucky to see him every few months but I have constant guilt and heartache that I can’t be there all the time and that I won’t have him with me for as long as I’d like. So again, I give up my control, accept that we all have our time here on earth and enjoy every moment I can. Not surprisingly, Glennon Doyle also has a word for this, “brutiful” – life is brutal and beautiful at the same time. 

Of course not all surrender involves life altering events, right? Who hasn’t been at a holiday dinner where someone just HAS to bring up politics, knowing full well that not everyone agrees on the topic? Sometimes it’s so awkward it makes you miss masks where you could make faces and no one could tell. And yet, what does it cost to take a deep breath, remember how much you love your family even if you disagree and let them have their moment? Most of those comments are fear driven anyway – fear of what’s happening to the world we thought we knew, fear that we may be wrong in our decisions and fear that maybe people won’t love us if we don’t think the same way.

And siblings – lots of tricky curves down that road. Do you have a sibling who always feels left out? Or one who has to criticize others? Maybe one who is always doing the “right” things and for whom things always seem to be easy? Yeah, it’s funny how we can be full grown adults running our own families and yet we get back with brothers or sisters and immediately we are thrown into the dynamics of the last time we all lived in the same house. Again, negative emotions come from fear, can you look at what your sister or brother could be afraid of and find some compassion? Maybe you throw a compliment their way, or ask them their opinion on something? It is amazing how quickly that can diffuse tension. Everyone wants to feel needed and loved, sometimes they just don’t know how to ask.

You can’t change your family, they are who they are, and you are who you are and that’s ok! But if you are in a space where you can take a deep breath and try to look for the beauty among the brutal, you can enjoy your time with them a lot more.