I truly think what makes the Holidays special, is time with family, and yet I think it is time with family that can be the hardest for us all.

We come into this season with a ton of expectations for how it should go and how much time we should be together and how wonderful it should be. I picture us all gathered around enjoying each others company. If I am honest I want everything to be perfect. Everyone agreeing with one another. Everyone believing the same things. Everyone understanding each other. Everyone thinking about the best interests of the other. Maybe everyone sitting around singing or playing cards. You know, what the movies offer us as the picture perfect Holiday.

I don’t picture the arguing about what kind of stuffing we will have or the voices raising as we don’t agree. I don’t picture the small squabbles or people being offended by someone else’s views. I don’t want to think about any of that stuff. I would like to stay in La-La-Land.

But reality check. We are supposed to not agree. We are supposed to not have the same opinions and beliefs on everything. We are not going to understand each other. We may not play games or sing songs. We might have hard discussions. There may be different views on what the Holidays should look like or feel like. But we don’t think about that. We just think I will hold onto how I think this should be.

You know what happens? Disappointment, anger, sadness, misunderstanding are all there when we hold out for the way it should be. Because when we think something should be a certain way and it isn’t we feel judgmental or critical.

I want to play this out for you in relationships.

When I think my mom should act a certain way and she doesn’t, I feel critical of her. When I am critical of her I often behave in ways that try and get her to change, to act the way I think she should. When she continues to not change I then work even harder to defend why I think she should change and then I behave in ways that I don’t want to act. See the cycle. I think she should or shouldn’t act a certain way and then I end up behaving in a way I shouldn’t (or don’t really want to).

But what if we did relationships a little different this Holiday. What if we let people act the way they do act. What if instead of picking out all the things they do or say, and show them how they are wrong, we just accepted them for them.

Unconditionally loving them is saying I choose to think about you in ways that makes me feel LOVE for you. So when my mom does something and I first want to register that as wrong, I stop and think. No she is not wrong, that is just my thinking, about her actions. I want to feel love for her and so a thought that makes me feel LOVE for her is, “I love my mom just the way she is, flaws and all.” And here is the bonus, I feel LOVE. In my body, I am the one feeling LOVE. I love to feel LOVE. The actions I choose towards my mom out of LOVE are some really great actions. I am less controlling, less judgy, less right, less defensive, less all the ways that I don’t really want to behave.

This is within your control too. You can let others be themselves and you don’t have to change them at all. You just have to change the way you think.

Notice how often when you are with your family you are thinking they should…. they shouldn’t…… It will blow your mind once you notice it.

So how can we enjoy our family this Holiday season. Let them be them, and choose to LOVE them with the way you think about them. Drop all the should’s and shouldn’t. Plan ahead of time about how you want to think about each family member (from the pre-frontal cortex my friends). Choose consciously to let them act however they do. Be you. Focus on how you want to be around them. Love unconditionally and act from that place.

If you feel more LOVE during these Holidays by trying this with family think about the possibilities.

Here’s to enjoying your people more than ever before,

Angie