Some of us have a lot of unhelpful thoughts swirling in our head about family and planning and the holidays.

Thoughts like, “This is such a mess of a situation.” Or. “It is so difficult to figure out the holidays.” Or. “These people are hard to deal with.” Or. “Why can’t we all get along, agree, help out, etc..”

These are thoughts about all that is happening. We think that this is a fact. We can find evidence to support it, but we are finding the evidence because this is what we are thinking. Our brains try to prove true what we are thinking.

This way of thinking can cause us to get tired and begin to feel that it is not worth the effort to figure it out, stay connected, or keep trying.

We tend to have this all or nothing mindset.

We have this idea of how our family is supposed to be, of what it should look like to have a family and siblings.

Then we are disappointed when it is not, and we think we need to “fix” it.

What if instead we just accepted the fact that all families are a mess. That planning takes time and effort but is worth it.

We tend to “shine a spotlight” on all the crazy things in our families and create drama around our thinking, which causes us to go from, this is the way they are to, now I don’t even want to deal with them. We make the bar so high of what it should be like to be with them.

We tend to want to keep everybody happy and that is usually not possible. The people involved want different things. We feel torn between them. What if we just decided it is okay for people to want different things. We must realize we cannot make anyone happy. We could do everything everyone wanted, and people could still be upset. So, we must ask ourselves what do I want? What do I need?

We must come to a place of peace and realize we have agency over our lives. We get to choose how we think. We get to decide what our life looks like. We get to decide what we do or do not do. We do not have to hang out with them if we don’t want to. And we do not have to feel guilty about not hanging out or going to dinner or whatever. We can choose to do what is best for us. We can do what will help us best live from our values. We can take the time we need to get to a good place.

What if there is really not a problem? What if we decided to think that there is no problem. What if this is just humans being humans. What if we asked ourselves, what kind of growth could I experience if we let go of the thought that this is a problem?

Our brain will not want to go there. Usually where our brain doesn’t want to go is exactly where we should go. We often project the negative on a situation because of our past experience. We can recognize that the human side of us wants to see all the problems then tell our brains there another way to look at it. We must be gentle with ourselves! The situation is hard. We can acknowledge the hard. We need to give ourselves grace and practice self-compassion as we move through.

All the families in the Bible were a bit messy. Why do we think ours would be any different?

What if we decided to think about the situation differently? Could we get a little relief from our pain about this?

This is the power of renewing our mind! Not only does it change the way we interact, but it also gives us this peace that we don’t have when we let our thoughts spiral and have a life of their own. I can keep feeding the snowball of depressing, frustrating, negative, thoughts or I can just let it be a little messy and be okay with it. It’s just humans being humans.

We have this false idea of a “good” family, some ideal that we are supposed to be living up too. Often this comes from a conservative church upbringing. We were taught there is an ideal “good” we need to live up to. This mindset just has us judging ourselves and everyone else because no one can live up to that.

We have to drop the pressure of thinking it needs to look a certain way. Dropping the pressure that someone else should act a certain way. Deciding to let each person have their own experience. Realize we are not responsible for their experience. We are only responsible for how we show up.

We can choose to think, this is going to be interesting, with a lightness. Telling ourselves, we are going to show up in love and accept whatever is. Grace and goodness all around. Anticipating what God could do and having some humor about how He works.

The thought, “we should all get along” is not helpful because most of us don’t. Apparently, we shouldn’t all get along because we don’t. When we let go of the thought, we should all get along, we are free to enjoy, to be curious, find compassion for people in these situations. We are free because we are not carrying heavy expectations. We are free to be present and enjoy what is.

We believe in our ability, with Christ flowing through us, for us to show up as our best self. And we take care of ourselves so that we experience His love in us no matter what happens. We do not have to, and cannot, control what happens. But we can control ourselves no matter what happens.

Anticipate the GOOD! Don’t be nervous about the outcome. Trust God’s goodness in all things. And, instead of trying to control people, enjoy them.