On a recent trip to the beach I reacquainted myself with a simple, thin book that has been a source of inspiration I visit from time to time since I first read it over ten years ago. Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, shares the author’s personal approach to the particular challenges for women in balancing the needs of self, family and the world.  Although first published in 1955, Lindbergh’s honest and down-to-earth perspective is relevant, and even refreshing, for women now.  From today’s tuned-in, turned-on lifestyles it may be hard to imagine that society of earlier generations also struggled with distractions and demands that interfered with inner peace and purposeful living.  Yet Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a wife and mother in public view in her day, describes perfectly the “ever widening circles of contact and communication.  It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizens, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on.”  I think she just described my day!  ​

​These are typical experiences shared with me over the years by clients.  Many of them entered therapy to work on anxiety, depression or relationship struggles without recognizing the role their childhood hurt or trauma played in how they were feeling as an adult.  They had been working so hard to understand their feelings in the context of their adult lives, but hadn’t been able to make the progress or changes they felt they should.  Their worries and concerns seemed exaggerated, even unrealistic.  Their chronic sadness, in spite of having a rich and full life, was a mystery.  They found themselves caught in the same unhealthy patterns in their relationships, despite wanting desperately to love and be loved. 
The process of therapy revealed that each of these clients also had courage and outstanding strengths that helped them survive the emotional hurts, neglect, and in some cases physical abuse, of their childhoods.  In addition, they had all overcome significant obstacles in their adult life and even excelled in unique areas, though these were accomplishments they previously had not recognized. 
Therapists trained in trauma resolution can assist clients with healing wounds from the past using emotionally safe and clinically effective approaches specific for an individual’s needs.  By addressing these childhood experiences and how they impact the present, one is more fully empowered for lasting changes in how they feel about themselves and in their choices and relationships with others.  We can then be our best selves in the present, having released our ghosts from the past.

Just in time for the holiday season, Common Sense Media has shared information about their study of how parents look at their own screen time as well as their childrens’.  Common Sense Media is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to help kids use media and technology in positive and empowering ways by providing guidance to families, teachers, and policymakers.  They provide an excellent resource for parents to educate themselves on safety and content issues as well.  While researchers frequently focus on how much and what children and teens are doing online, Common Sense Media’s research targeted parents’ use. Their 3 minute video shares the issues raised by their study in a powerful way that was easy for me to identify with as a parent.

 As a therapist, and a parent, I applaud the attention to how adults model for their children healthy, or inappropriate, choices with regard to plugging in.  Now, you’ve likely also had the experience over the past couple of years of being at a family or multigenerational group event and noticing whose attention is captured by their screen of choice--smart phone, tablet, laptop, even smartwatch—and whose isn’t; they’re the other people in the room surveying the scene. And it isn’t just the kids.  My husband and I have caught each other’s gaze, with eyebrows raised, over the holidays noticing that both the kids and the grandparents are on their phones. It can be endearing to see these diverse generations enjoying technology—usually in very different ways—and yet we have a different type of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): Are we losing opportunities for important connections with loved ones right next to us?
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The good news is that it can be easy to promote healthy screen time with a few “guidelines” that will nonetheless need to be repeated often, for both kids and adults, in a matter of fact, nonjudgey tone:

1. Phones off the table for meals.
2. Save your photos to post after the event, not during.
3. Ask the group if its ok to look up a fact on your device during active discussion
4. Separate yourself from the group to check email or social media, or to make a phone call and limitit to under 5 minutes.  Step outside, find an empty room, or heck even make a (quick) visit to the bathroom. 

​Because every family has slightly different screen habits, it’s important to be clear about sharing expectations for gatherings.  Oh, and don’t forget to mind your own plugged in self!   

How do we have a healthier holiday with family?  Follow these simple (but not necessarily easy) tips:
Challenge your own expectations about what the holiday will be like.  Most of us prepare for holidays that are a product of our hopes, dreams and possibly unfulfilled wishes rather than a realistic and likely experience reflecting our actual history of family drama, superficiality, crises or unmet needs.  Being realistic doesn’t mean you are giving up on the perfect family.  Well OK, maybe it does mean that.  But giving up that dream allows us to focus instead on what’s truly possible to achieve within our family relationships, and that means we are more likely to find our family connections more meaningful.