I’ve spoken with a number of people “going home” for the holidays. This experience is often both positive and negative. There is hopefully joy and comfort, but at least a familiarity that provides a sense of belonging, however irregular or tentative is our membership. At the same time there are deep habits of mind that we re-enter in “going home” that pull us into a way of being that is not our own. We are pulled into what I call the family trance.
It’s trance-like in that we tend to abdicate our conscious will to a set of rules other than that which we normally live by. These rules came into being when we were young, too young to participate in their making. This quality of operating unconsciously is strengthened when the family only gets together once in a while. As the years roll on, having only a few days a year around those we grew up with, means that our lives mature much faster that our family relationships. In “going home” we tend to “pick up where we left off.” There will be a greater potential difference in how we are in our own lives from how we are expected to be in our family. Tension will arise if at some level we feel we have to choose between the self we’ve become and the self our family expects.
If this resonates and in fact takes place to any degree, it is incredibly useful to be aware of it, to learn to recognize trance from non-trance, and to strive to stay out of trance as much as possible. It’s a useful mission for any family visit, but especially over the holidays, when hopes and fears about family and where we truly belong tend to be more intensely aroused.
Probably sounds like a lot of work and not much fun the way I put it. But to me what’s not fun is maintaining such important relationships with a ghost of myself, relationships where I plan visits according to “how much I can stand.” That’s exhausting. Staying aware, staying out of trance, and insisting that the set of rules by which the family operates continue to evolve saves gobs of time and energy in the long run. And it’s a lot more fun.