Unwrapping Boxes
One of the reasons I love Thanksgiving is the focus on family and gratitude without the pressure of finding perfect gifts for everyone we love all at the same time.
But let’s be honest, the challenge for many of us at Thanksgiving is also… family.
With the exception of those who celebrate Thanksgiving with a different group each year, if I ask you right now to describe what this year’s dinner will be like, I expect you will have fairly clear predictions: the types of conversations that will take place (maybe even down to repeated jokes, or an actual script), the opinions and behaviors of people involved, the flow of the day, and the family dynamics that will be at play.
And those predictions will likely be quite accurate.
Why?
When it comes to family, we tend to slip - unconsciously and sometimes reluctantly - into familiar dynamics and old patterns. No matter how much our lives have expanded, or how much we feel we have grown and evolved, somehow, we’re still ‘the moody one,’ ‘the dramatic one,’ ‘the high-strung one,’ ‘the one who always spills something,’ or, if we’re lucky, ‘the funny one,’ ‘the talented one,’ or ‘the successful one.’ If blue was your favorite color when you were young, it’s still your favorite color according to family no matter how much you tell them you’ve moved on to yellow.
At some point within families (or any group we are part of) we all get boxed – assigned roles, attributes, and expectations -- wrapped neatly with a bow and prominently labeled. Sometimes, it can seem like we will be stuffed in that box for the rest of eternity no matter how much we have outgrown it.
But here is the part we are less likely to recognize: We don’t just get boxed by others -- we box them too. There is the one we call the “complainer”, another the “odd one,” and the one who dominates every conversation. Boxes are the stories we bring to each moment and person we encounter.
Each experience is a combination of data and our interpretation of that data. For example, say your uncle comes to Thanksgiving but doesn’t eat a thing. The data is: he didn’t eat anything. The interpretation, the story we layer on could be:
He hates my cooking.
He doesn’t like me and is passive aggressively trying to make me feel bad.
He ate before at his daughter’s house and is full, but just wanted to stop by.
Each different interpretation, or story, will have a different impact on how we feel and how we might respond.
Cognitive-behavioral psychology describes this as the ABC triangle. A is the activating event or adversity – the who, what, where, when facts of an event - the data. B are our beliefs, or storied interpretation of the events. And C are the consequences, the feelings and actions triggered by our beliefs about the event.
Boxes live squarely in the B. They are created to help us sort the overwhelming amount of data coming at us, by becoming efficient filing systems. If Aunt Sarah said something rude two Thanksgivings in a row, you will file her under “mean” expecting the same this Thanksgiving and may seat her on the other end of the table, so you don’t have to endure another upsetting comment this year.
So far, so good.
Boxes, however, are beliefs. Not fact. What if what seemed like “meanness” was really Aunt Sarah struggling with depression after being secretly diagnosed with a serious medical condition? What if she healed since then, changed her life and perspective, and grew resilient and strong from her experience?
When we cling to boxes, they become limiting, they prevent us from seeing anew. Seating Aunt Sarah across the table will mean you never get a chance to speak to her or benefit from her growth. In fact, as she approaches you to talk, you might cut her off or avoid her, and in reaction she may retreat or feel uncomfortable and judged around you, which again may make her come off as standoffish or rude.
Boxes are not only limiting but they become self-fulfilling. Because humans crave predictability, we unconsciously look for pieces of data that confirm our beliefs and discard those that challenge them. This is classic cognitive dissonance – something we all do. Creating consistent stories gives us a sense of comfort and control.
Predictability, however, assumes an unchanging nature of things, but life changes and people change. Our stories may also be complete misjudgments at their inception. These stories are just…stories.
The main question I am driving at is this: what are we losing by holding on to old stories?
What if we unwrapped, or further, dismantled our boxes? What would become possible in our relationships to one another?
Family dynamics, or any group dynamics, means the interacting forces of two or more people. The word dynamics has its origins in the Greek word dynamis, “force, power.” Merriam Webster defines group dynamics as, “The interacting forces within a small human group.”
The key words for me here, are interacting forces. We are all constricted by the boxes we create for one another. It’s done to us, and we do it to others. We get locked in to these limiting and interacting self-fulfilling patterns. These patterns become entrenched because we remain faithful to our stories and the parts we play in defending them.
Here's the hopeful part: a pattern can be broken at any point in the chain. Since we have little control over what others think, do, or feel, we only need to change what we think, do, feel in order to unwrap the patterns.
So this Thanksgiving, I invite you to consider:
What old stories are you holding on to?
What part of an old dynamic are you contributing to and what can you change?
What would it be like to look at members in your family with new eyes, as if meeting them for the first time?
When you feel triggered, what if you asked yourself:
What is another way I can look at this?
What need, values, or fear might be underneath their behavior?
Mastering our lives often comes down to mastering the stories we bring to each moment. Not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. A moment, an interaction, a circumstance is neither good nor bad until we add meaning to it. Being aware and deliberate about the meaning we assign, is an act of self-command.
Unwrapping boxes gives us the gift of reframing; an opportunity to see things differently, perhaps more fully, more optimally, and with more openness.
And maybe discover something unexpected inside.