Dynamics

   Not sure if such a word is still in play, but as a child I remember hearing it quite regularly; there was the aerospace company General Dynamics (okay, it's still around and still rather big; but back in the heyday it was truly one of the major players), and audio speakers that boasted of "dynamic" sound.  Of course, these days the word has fallen into pretty much a single category, that of family dynamics.  Look up the definition of the singular term and you arrive at this (from the Oxford version): (of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress...forces producing motion...expressing an action, activity, event, or process.  But add one letter and make the word plural and you emerge with this: The branch of any science in which forces or changes are considered...forces or properties which stimulate growth, development, or change within a system or process. Family dynamics.  Here's how Psychology Today put it: Can't we all get along?  That's a tall order when your limelight has been snatched away by your adorable new little brother.  Family, you love them and you hate them.  There are so many things to consider when you think of family: there's birth order, rivalries, the only child, to name a few.

   Family extends well beyond the blood bond, as you hear the term used for close friends and even among gangs and such (think, the Godfather).  And the relationships are often no less complicated.  The New Yorker in its daily column featured an interesting view of this, the flurry of email invitations to welcome in the new year, almost all of them involving family (it's worth reading for a chuckle or a groan if it hits a bit too close to home).  And with this season, one of both the holiday festivities and the new year approaching, families past and present are bound to enter the picture, as are the family dynamics.  It can become a time of closeness and a time of distance, often happening at light speed as unexpected subjects come up and are either revived and settled or left untouched.  Sibling or parental rivalries (even that of step parental rivalries) can often turn a joyour time into something that more resembles a battlefield with the resulting wounds left to again fester.  So what's up with that?  As the above magazine put it, can't we just get along?  

   Dr. Grant Hillary Brenner wrote a piece in Psychology Today about family dynamics, saying in part: Some of us shy away from family, others wish they were with their families but cannot be, some of us have uncomplicated family experiences, and others ambivalently meet up with our families under tense circumstances.  We can do a lot to manage these situations for greater mutual satisfaction (or self-protection, if that is all that’s possible or wanted) by limiting exposure, setting boundaries and having a plan B if things aren’t going well, and by learning to cope more effectively when under strain.  We have to decide whether to address family issues, and really is a holiday gathering always the best time?  After a bit too much egg-nog, spirits are high and people tend to say more than they might otherwise, complicating the situation.  Some of his suggestions and "traps" include not taking the "bait" when provoked, not having the talks you hoped to have,  avoidance and of course, hitting below the belt.  Adds Dr. Brenner: When it comes to challenging family dynamics, appreciate your own role in how things go, because we often have more influence over these matters than we realize...do what you can reasonably do to ensure a positive experience, including a helping of generosity and compassion, without letting people walk over you. 

   Great advice, but sometimes it's a bit unrealistic for what if the confrontation doesn't happen on your "turf" or comes from your bully of a father or you're the spouse watching two siblings go at it...where do you step in?  I once worked with a rather cute and rather petite and rather fiery Italian young lady and she somehow broke my curiosity causing me to ask if she acted like the movies portrayed Italian families when arguing, my version being that of dishes flying and words being uttered at an incomprehensible rate and volume.  Oh yeah, she replied.  Really, I asked, like cups shattering against walls and such?  Oh yeah, she said, but then it's over and we've got it out of our system.  My family is much more pacifistic...that cup costs money and besides, it could hurt someone.  Bottom line, being in that fiery Italian family would have shocked my system.  But shift all of this to your own home, the grand gathering now happening and all is going merrily, the laughter flowing almost as freely as the champagne...and then it turns.  Plan B?  Wait, plan B?  What plan B?  What happens when your buttons get pushed just a bit too much?  How do you react?  Have you set boundaries?  Is there a point where you start yelling, or ask them to leave, or call the police?  Is there a point where the situation escalates into something physical?

   Shifting gears, there's a broader and more upbeat perspective and it comes from a TED Talk titled What Makes A Better Life by Robert Waldinger whom TED lists as psychiatrist, psychologist, and Zen priest.  Dr. Waldinger takes a longer, more distant view in his studies which he partially summarizes in his talk: We've learned three big lessons about relationships.  The first is that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills.  It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.  And the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic.  People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely.  And the sad fact is that at any given time, more than one in five Americans will report that they're lonely...And we know that you can be lonely in a crowd and you can be lonely in a marriage, so the second big lesson that we learned is that it's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship, but it's the quality of your close relationships that matters.  It turns out that living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health.  High-conflict marriages, for example, without much affection, turn out to be very bad for our health, perhaps worse than getting divorced. And living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective... And the third big lesson that we learned about relationships and our health is that good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains...Why is this so hard to get and so easy to ignore?  Well, we're human...Relationships are messy and they're complicated and the hard work of tending to family and friends, it's not sexy or glamorous.  It's also lifelong.  It never ends.

   One can look at that tight circle of inner family, one's parents and siblings; then one's cousins or in-laws, then friends, then friends of friends, and neighbors.   Going out even further one would have to consider oneself lucky, fortunate to have so many friends and family.  Or not.  But if just an immediate family and close relationships are "hard work" and "lifelong," imagine the task of extending our view even further to our human "family."  Imagine a world of everyone working to make this world family whole, as John Lennon so graciously wrote "imagine there's no country."  We set up boundaries and limits, but imagine if, like the Berlin Wall, those just fell, not only physically but in our minds.  It's a thought for the new year, a new approach, a new beginning, a new possibility.  Even to my childhood memory, that would indeed be a dynamic start to the new year.