Oh Thanksgiving.
What a special time of year. So much to be grateful for and a beautiful holiday to reconnect with family. Utterly American.
And it may be even more dynamic this year.
Dynamic = tempestuous, nerve-wracking, maddening, stress-inducing and just plain messy. Passing the stuffing to Aunt Edna ”“ as she vocally gushes about Trump and how we’re all gonna be great again! ”“ while you stuff your face with mashed potatoes to stifle your desire to scream at everyone and spin your head around spewing green bile à la The Exorcist.
Thanksgiving in less turbulent political times can still be challenging. As soon as we walk through the front door, we revert back to our family dynamics that have worked (actually never worked!) for us ”“ but allowed everyone to feel comfortable adopting the roles they feel most safe living in.
So you’re immediately jettisoned back to your 12 th grade self. Your dad treats you like the teenager he still thinks you are. You remain forever the “little brother” to your older siblings. Your mom relies on you to work through her shit with your stepdad because she refuses to go to therapy or get a divorce. Your sister and you get totally co-dependent and avoid having a real conversation about her addiction.
And let’s not even begin with the aunts and uncles and cousins and friends.
You get the picture.
But maybe this year you’ll finally say no to cranberry sauce! Maybe we’re all tired of wearing these masks that keep us from revealing and sharing our significant selves. Signifcant meaning the part of you that’s bigger than the part of you that’s too scared to be significant. Sure it’s easier to drink yourself into oblivion and then take a tryptophan-induced nap so as not to deal with the wounds of living lies.
What family relationships provide for us ”“ besides love and support and empathy and intimacy and a sacred space to evolve and share ”“ is this wildly karmic unraveling of all our stuff to teach us the lessons we need to learn to get to our next level in life. That’s why it’s also painful. No one ever said cracking an almost impenetrable outer shell to live in a new one is easy. No animal that molts a skin to emerge into a new housing feels safe during that sloughing phase. It’s all vulnerable exposure and nakedness to the elements and to the wild things that may devour them.
So it is with us. But molt we must. Evolve and transform. Let go and step in. Release and relinquish. Breathe and allow. Stepping into a new you that you’ve actually known for a long time has been rattling around somewhere deep inside you, but you’ve resolutely denied him or her because living behind a mask that protects you from this new self is easier. Yet isn’t liberating a more empowered self what life is all about?
Isn’t that why we wrongly attribute one candidate or another as the savior who can fix all of our problems? We want others to liberate us. We want others to do the work for us. I vote for this person and if it doesn’t work out, I have someone to blame. A scapegoat. But to take on the responsibility myself ”“ of what I have to change or acknowledge in myself or learn ”“ that’s a lot scarier.
Men have it hard living behind these culturally appropriated masks, as I’ve discussed numerous times this year and have encouraged people to watch the great Netflix documentary, The Mask You Live In. Donald Trump and his entourage exemplify this. Not to be condemned but to be empathized. These masks are intense.
But women, too, as we’ve seen by the recent Presidential election, are dealing with the facades of having to be so many more things to so many more people than is required by their male counterparts. Perfect hair, the right outfit, never allowed a misstep, appearing “feminine”, not doing things that could be construed as man-hating or aggressive or a “bitch.”
It’s all bullshit.
Gender roles are perpetrated by society so that society feels safe in labeling and marginalizing people in ways that make them feel comfortable. If you fit my ideas of who you should be, I am okay. Defy the stereotype ”“ you’re an anarchist. A freak. A ball-buster. Anti-American. Unpatriotic.
Actually, you’re not. What if you were just really yourself?
To think for oneself, to really be free of doctrine and habituated beliefs and media frenzied “news” brainwashing and mythical narratives passed down for centuries requires not only a brave and intuitive spirit but a personal resolve and knowing that someone, at sometime, has to choose to break from “tradition” in order to move us forward. As a species, society, culture, and finally as an individual.
That’s the soul’s journey for sure, but also the journey as sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters. We’re not just the way other people want us to be. We can be ”“ and are ”“ multiplicitous beings. We want to stop being defined by others’ (and our own) adherence to the past and instead define ourselves.
So, this Thanksgiving, instead of letting Uncle Fred make fun of your career choice of living a life in the Arts which is for “fruitcakes” and “socialists” and “weirdos” ”“ what if you just removed your mask? You’ll know what that means and what it looks like. Maybe in doing so you won’t have to say a thing. Or maybe you’ll be liberated in saying the thing you’ve wanted to say for a very long time. Or maybe, “Pass the mashed potatoes,” will have new meaning for you as you feel a certain sense of self that you’ve never felt before.
With compassion and grace and patience and tolerance. So we go.
Happy Thanksgiving. #maytheforcebewithyou