Navigating Family Narratives When You've Chosen Your Own Path
A recent conversation with my friend Kate sparked this reflection. She's launching her own business, and as we talked about it, we found ourselves sharing stories about how family and friends don't always "get it" - the what, the why, and especially the how of our chosen paths.
The Holiday Table Dance
As we approach Thanksgiving, many of us are preparing for more than just turkey and stuffing. We're gearing up for the well-meaning but often challenging questions: "How's business going?" "When will you get a real job?" "Wouldn't it be easier to just..." “Have you met Taylor Swift?” The resistance often comes from a place of care, but that doesn't make it any less taxing.
The Holiday Amplifier
Family gatherings often become unintentional stress tests for these narratives. The lack of understanding about the fluid nature of creative work becomes apparent. Family members, operating from their own frameworks of stability and success, struggle to understand a world where income can swing dramatically from month to month.
Breaking the Cycle
Through years of personal work and countless conversations with others on similar journeys, I've learned that these narratives are just stories - memories and patterns that we can acknowledge without letting them define us. They're not unchangeable truths about who we are or what we're capable of achieving.
The real work happens in the day-to-day moments:
Physical Awareness: Learning to recognize how these narratives manifest in your body. Everyone's warning signs are different, but the key is catching them early.
Community Building: Intentionally creating a support network of people who understand these challenges. This isn't about chance friendships - it's about deliberately connecting with others who can pick you up during low periods and celebrate your wins during high ones.
Reframing Success: Understanding that success doesn't always mean following traditional paths. Success can be as simple as supporting the things you love while paying your bills.
Breaking the Feedback Loop: The pattern often goes: uncertainty → doubt → negative narratives → decreased performance → more uncertainty. The key is interrupting this cycle at the very beginning.
Practical Tools for the Holiday Season
The Power of "What If?": Instead of reinforcing negative narratives, ask yourself "What if it goes right?" This simple shift from pessimism to optimism can break old thought patterns.
Breathing and Remembrance: During difficult conversations, return to your breath and remember the truth of your journey - that ebbs and flows are natural, that better times have come before and will come again.
Evidence Collection: When old narratives surface at the dinner table, quietly remind yourself of times when the story wasn't true, rather than looking for proof that reinforces it.
The Path Forward
The journey of breaking free from old narratives isn't linear. It's about building new patterns while understanding that the old ones might occasionally resurface, especially during holiday gatherings. The goal isn't to eliminate these narratives entirely but to recognize them for what they are - stories that once served a purpose but no longer define who we are or what we're capable of achieving.
Remember that your worth isn't determined by your last project, your current bank balance, or anyone else's understanding of your path. It's found in the courage to keep showing up, the wisdom to build supportive communities, and the strength to write new stories about who you are and what you can achieve.
As you head into this holiday season, know that you're not alone in this experience. Somewhere else at another holiday table, someone else is navigating the same challenges. And maybe, just maybe, they're also choosing to write a new story for themselves - one that embraces both the uncertainty and the possibility in their chosen path.
