Episode #56 

How To Create A Supportive Family

Does the idea of having a supportive family appeal to you?

What if your family is dysfunctional or non-existent?

Who and what qualifies as 'family'?

In this episode, Dr Julie explores what the word 'family' means in this context, how you can create a strong, supportive family and how you can strengthen the family bonds you may already have.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, my name is Dr. Julie Osborn. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So I have some great things I want to share with you today. First will be someone who sent me a really nice email on my Facebook page.

It says,

“Thank you for helping us heal. You're a true angel on Earth. First time listening to My CBT Podcast and left me knowing what I need to do instead of hesitant and with one hundred questions, as I often do.”

So thank you very much for sending me that note and letting me know how the podcast is helping you really means the world to me. So I was always say my intention is to get CBT out more to the world to help you guys out, be able to teach the tools. You can start learning them and make a difference in your life. So I'm really happy when I hear from you. So I want to start off today with a poem and then I'll explain to you why I'm sharing this particular poem for the topic today. The author is Unknown.

But the poem is called ‘Risks’:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your dreams, ideas before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by their certitudes, they are a slave: they have forfeited their freedom.

Only a person who risks is truly free.

So I thought this was a really beautiful poem I wanted to share, because I know taking risks can create a lot of anxiety for all of us at different times in our lives.

And to look at risk is really an opportunity to laugh and to reach out to each other, expose your feelings, your ideas, your dreams, to love, to really live, to hope, to try and to have a more fulfilling life that you want and not letting your anxiety and your fears hold you back. And so that takes me to what I want to talk about today. My podcast is creating a strong, supportive family, so having the support in our lives gives us the foundation a lot of times to take risks because we know we have the safety net and we know we have the support and we're not just doing this all alone.

So the key to an emotionally healthy life is having the backing of a strong, supportive family. And I want to clarify family here, because I don't want anyone out there listening, saying, well, I don't have family or I'm not into contact with my family, because sometimes that is what's best for you for many different reasons. But your family is whoever is close in your life. So let's put quotes around what family means. You know, who loves you?

Who do you love? Who supports you. Right. It could be support groups that you're in. It could be friends, even your coworkers, you know, anybody in your life that you feel supportive. That's what I consider family when I'm talking. And a strong family, again, may be as small as two people or as large as a kinship network of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins the size of the family. Indeed, the composition of the family does not matter as much as the feeling of belonging and the sense of sustenance that emerges from living with stable family support.

So wherever you have that feeling of belonging, there's your family. People seem to do better in life when they have the feeling of belonging to something larger and stronger than they are individually. So a familiar network diminishes the uncertainties that derive from the stresses of everyday life and again allows us to take those risks and to try new things. So let's look at years of what family looks like because it's really changed and it's undergone many changes over recent decades, even due mainly to major social and cultural upheavals.

So when life was mainly agriculturally based or when immigrants came to this new land, the traditional family was able to thrive. We look to our kin for support and they were there for us. The decades since the middle of the 20th century, we've seen a steady unraveling of this bygone ideal is difficult to describe precisely what caused this change. It may have been such factors as government programs, meaning the government, rather than children, could take care of people when they grew old.

So we didn't always, you know, have to rely on our children, right. Even the automobile and modern roads people were no longer confined to one location any longer and family members could move away was the television computers. Electronic transmission was an improved communication through technology. The high divorce rate could be so many things. What we do know is that families today find it more difficult due to competing demands from the larger world to spend time together to feel committed to each other, to communicate with each other, to share their spiritual values, and to cope with crisis's together.

Some families, however, seem to have overcome these threats to a strong and thriving family. So I want to share some of the quality shared by strong families so we know what we're looking for. So a sense of commitment to the family. So commitment by definition, is a pledge or a promise. And if you apply this to family life, it's a sense of responsibility or duty to the family that overrides temporary conflicts or times of crisis. So members of strong families take their family commitments seriously.

It's a conscious, unwavering and unconditional way of being. And strong families are not immune to the problems faced by everyone else in the modern times. They also have hectic days, financial difficulties, demanding work hours, marital infidelity and illness, just to name a few and strong families. However, commitment implies that family members help each other out during hard times. They make the family relationship a priority, even if it means sacrificing personal finance activities outside of the family or work demands.

And at the core of sacrificing for the family is the idea of putting the interests of others ahead of one's own, a notion that reflects your own, your values and your integrity. So we're talking about at times when the family needs you, it's not always forever that your family is always the priority in your life. But at times when it needs to be a priority, you're willing to step up and make that an important thing. Even if, you know, you say you have to cancel plan or maybe commitment.

That's not as important because I need to be there for my family. So how do I do this and create this commitment in my family? That's something that I admire and that's part of my values and I want that. So a couple of things is you can read what I call a family council for an hour, once a month. So once a month you get together with your family, whoever that is, and you discuss what your goals are.

What are you doing? A meet them and what needs to be worked on. Listen to each other's ideas rather than condemning them. And you want to encourage free, open and accepting communication. If everyone in the family is too busy with outside activities, rearrange your schedules so that more time can be spent together with the family. Or have each family member agree to give up one outside activity, maybe once a month, so not forever, but once a month.

You can also designate a wall in the house as the family wall so you can decorated with photos, souvenirs, family mementos, I even have, you know, I'd say on my fridge and on the wall, but on my fridge, you know, we have certain pictures that when I walk by, I just put a smile on my face and maybe think about my family. You can also make a record of the family history in a photo album.

This would include dates, places, special events. And I know we don't have albums that photo albums much as we used to because everything's on our phones or our computers. But recently I can share that. I had an event at my house with our family and I pulled out all of my mom's family photos, which she did a great job, and everyone just had just an absolute blast looking through the pictures, laughing, finding themselves. You know, these are really old pictures of some of us.

And some of us are like, who's there? We need to know who's in the picture. And it just brought such a warm family feeling and connection. And this was family and friends, right? That we were all, which my friends, I consider family. We're all together looking. And it just it was just really great. So that's if you like photos, it's really fun looking at them in an album versus just on the computer. So that's just another idea.

Something else you can do to create a stronger family is showing appreciation and building self-esteem. So healthy family share in common the ability to show appreciation to each other, which is so important. And by showing appreciation, we're essentially saying that the other person is worthy and has dignity and we love them and we declare that we can see the positive qualities of that other person. So this message is crucial to emotional wellness because it's a core building block of self-esteem.

Strong families help build healthy personalities. Well, parents and siblings have a strong influence in molding children to see themselves as either good or bad for sure. And when a person's self definition is characterized by negative self-esteem, that person has difficulty in acknowledging positive feedback and also giving it so strong. Families cherish their members, show that they're valued, build self-esteem in their members of the family, that they can be carried on to the next generation. And I can't tell you how many times I meet families, you know, other families that, you know, the siblings just don't get along.

And it's just so sad because push comes to shove. Hopefully your family is the, you know, are the people that you can go to. And I know as a mom, I have three daughters and that I want to know that one day when me and my husband aren't here, that they will have each other. And I know my parents felt that way about me, my sister, my brother, that it was always so important to them that we had each other because they just knew the importance of that.

And they knew one day that we wouldn't have them, but we would have each other. So it's really important that if you have some conflicts going on, see if you can repair them, because at that core, as siblings, you've lived in the same house, you understand your history and you have a connection more than other people you might have in your life. So just something to think about. If the relationship is great, fabulous, keep building on it, loving each other, supporting each other, and see if there's some room for improvement.

So some things you can do regarding showing the appreciation and building the self-esteem among yourselves is set a goal of giving each of each family member at least one compliment a day. If you're not doing that already, there'll be something to try. You can also create a positive home environment by reframing your negative statements, your thoughts. Right. Here's my CBT coming in into positive ones. So instead of saying, you know, you're always trying to control me, instead you might say, I like how you're concerned about my well-being all the time.

So a couple of podcasts ago I had reframing your feelings. This is kind of that same thing. Instead of them seeing, you know, just trying to control me, most likely your parent or whoever you're talking about is really concerned for you. And if you start off saying, you know, I like or appreciate how concerned are you about my well-being all the time, although I like to talk about how you can maybe show that in a different way.

So I feel better about it. There's a great way to start communicating. Right. And that's reframing your feelings and your thoughts about them controlling you. So, as always, what are your thoughts about your family members? What are your thoughts about how you want to be as a person? What are your values? How do you want to communicate that there's a behavioral part in how am I going to show that you can? Also, one other idea is to write down ten things you like about each of your family members and then show them your list.

So if you're doing it at any time, but especially if you're doing, you know, the family meeting with me for an hour, say, once a month, that might be a fun time to kind of show each other your list. If you say to all of us, write down some things we like about each other. Another thing to build a strong family is sharing positive communication. So there's actually a research study that show that the average couple spends seventeen minutes per week in conversation.

That's right. Seventeen minutes per week in conversation. That is ridiculous. And that's nothing. In contrast, strong families spend a great deal of time talking with one. Ranging from trivial matters to important issues, communication helps us to feel connected, and because members of strong families feel free to exchange information, ideas, they become good problem solvers. Some families set aside time for the family council meetings and others do the talking over dinner table each night. Most communication in these families, however, is spontaneous and positive.

Communication involves both talking and listening. So if you have a hard time being a good listener, which many of us do. Also my podcast on what did you say would be a good one to listen to and to talk about how to be a good listener because it is a skill and to be able to communicate your thoughts and your feelings well so you can have that positive communication and just feel really connected. So to do this, you can also designate a time for the family to share events of the day.

So maybe like a dinner. Right. And avoid disciplining and negative remarks during this time. If you're a parent with your kids, just kind of be open and listen. Maybe some open ended questions, but just kind of show interest, show curiosity so that if it is you and your kids, you want them to know that no matter what it is, they can talk to you, not going to just discipline them or say don't ever hang out with that person again, just be able to talk, get some ideas, you know, share some different thoughts with each other and again, be able to do some problem-solving together.

And it's just going to build that strong family that you're wanting. You could also look objectively at your communication patterns and determine which ones can be improved. For example, if you're using sarcasm, creating crisis, cutting off someone else who's speaking. Those are some things to work on. Right. And work on one communication habit for a month. Then the next month work on another. This is where also if you want to go for therapy, you know, a therapist can really help you identify the negative communication patterns because sometimes it's hard to do that.

And with cognitive behavioral therapy, that's something I work on communication skills all the time with my clients and for myself as well. And how do I want to communicate, come across teaching people what the best way is to be able to get their needs met and to be heard, but also to identify what were the mistakes, what's happening, where the little jabs coming out that maybe you're just not noticing. Right. So going to a therapist can really help you kind of walk through that and maybe figure out some things that you could work on and make better.

Another important thing which a lot of us don't do because we're so busy is just spending time together. So strong families spend a great deal of time together and the time spent is not always and planned events, just spending time doing nothing in particular, as well as eases our feelings of isolation and loneliness. It builds relationships. It can contribute to a feeling of security and helps to create a sense of family identity as well. Individual family members should find time when two people can do something together without the entire family present also.

So I know for me and my husband, we would spend separate time with our girls. My mom did that with us to my dad. You know, he would take us out individually, wasn't always together. So we really had that one on one time and that was really special. And spending time together can involve lots of things, you know, having meals together, doing household chores. That wasn't always easy. Did everybody do? But I found some things just putting on some music because we all like to dance kind of made a little more fun and finding, you know what, if you had a picture, what do you want to do?

Somebody might be more apt to vacuum somebody I like to dust. Not that they love it, but they're more apt to do that. So, you know, you can have everybody work together and feel like they have a little bit of a choice if you're choosing to do that together. Also, obviously celebrate special events and holidays and love celebrating people's birthdays. I think it's really important the holidays participate in community activities, you know, being of service, maybe volunteering somewhere and endure.

I know a lot of families love playing games, working on puzzles together, even just telling stories and outdoor as well. So taking walks, going camping picnics, you know, taking bike rides together. I think the one good thing that the pandemic might have done for families I know in my neighborhood, I saw way more families out walking together, taking bike rides that I never saw before the pandemic. So people needed there were places to go. So you weren't driving places necessarily, but we wanted to get out.

So if that's something you started during covid, keep it going just because you can get in the car and go somewhere. Now, really think about the quality of that time you had and not to give it up. Some other things you can do regarding spending time together, as you know, recall some of your happiest childhood experiences, which involves spending time with your family. And you can try to recreate these types of experiences with your current family, you know, maybe went fishing with your parents, take your kids fishing, maybe you went camping, go camping.

If you haven't done that, you know, whatever. You know, some people like going to the amusement parks together, try going to different ones, going in different roller coasters. You know, you can be creative. Whatever you want to do to have fun is really positive. Also, if you have children, let them help with the household tasks. And doing chores together is a favor. So, you know, say washing the dishes, right?

If you're washing the dishes and your kids drain just that time there, you're going to talk. You could, you know, share some funny stories. Maybe as a parent you can complain about when you had to do the dishes, you know, want to. But if you do them together instead of separate, it's also spending time together in a way that maybe you just didn't think about before because you're, like, always got to get this done.

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. And if you can, some families, you know, plan a yearly reunion or maybe every couple of years and make it easy for everyone to attend. And I know I've I have not been involved in a family reunion before, but when I talk to people, they just had a blast. And it's just super fun. It does take a lot of work. So there again, there's that commitment to keeping the family strong and together and connected.

But whenever I do have family get togethers, I'm always so happy I did it, even if I was kind of stressed or overwhelmed getting it together. You know, at the end of the day, it just was so great, you know, and everybody says that to how great it was. Connecting something else you can do is cultivating your spiritual wellness. So one characteristic of strong families also is a shared belief in a greater power, the gangster ethical behavior, concern for others and a unity with living things.

Right. So this is pretty broad, what I'm talking about when I see spiritual wellness. So the share beliefs help create a bond between the family members as well as providing a framework for love, purpose, security, hope and peace, and the guidelines for living a good life which are inherent in spiritual beliefs, help family members define appropriate behavior within the family and towards others. So some families like to pray, so meditate, some spiritually oriented writings together.

Some people do acts of service in the community right in this can bring the family closer together. So it isn't just, quote, religious. When you hear me talking about this, I want you to think bigger than that. You know, what is it? If our family really honors the environment, right, that maybe you go into beach cleanups together, that's a way of giving back and honoring the environment. Right. I can tell you that, too.

My daughters are vegan. And, you know, I've been way more open to that. And I try it. I made meals for them and made some really I make some very good vegan chocolate chip cookies will tell you. And, you know, I was like, what can I do to be part of that with them? And that's been really fun for us, trying different restaurants, trying different foods, recipes. So that's something that is really important to them, how they honor of being vegan and, you know, loving animals and everything that goes along with that.

That's something that's spiritual for them. So, you know, again, think out of the box and say, you know, what is something that we all feel connected to in a larger space that we can do together. So as I was just mentioning, this is maybe like finding a cause, you know, that's bigger than you or your family. World hunger is something also reducing crime, helping the homeless. If you want to go out and, you know, hand out maybe water bottles and a little some food or something to the homeless during the summer when it's hot, thinking about them, how do you want to give back?

And having the family get together and coming up with this is really, really a cool way to be feeling connected. You know, volunteering your time as a family on these issues within the community, you know, really makes you feel connected. It makes you feel good and you teach great values to your kids. You also can take a look at your own values and views about the world, keeping a journal of your thoughts and sharing those with your family, things you hear about what's important to you.

You know, what affects you more than you realized. And you'll have a conversation about that. Also, set aside family time for form of devotion that's compatible with your beliefs. So this could be, again, during prayer, together, meditating together, contemplation, taking a walk in nature, going down to the beach again, being, you know, some kind of mindfulness about things that are important to you. So be open to your family's suggestions.

If it's something you haven't tried before, just say, OK, yeah, let's try it tonight and we'll see if, you know, maybe we'll all connect on it because I never thought about it before in that way. So, again, being open really shows, your honor and your respect for each other and not saying like, oh, that's silly, I'm not into that or that's your thing. Right? Like, OK, I'll try. It can't hurt.

Right. That's important. Another thing is coping with stress and crisis is a big part of having a strong family. So crisis is a time of decision and the outcome which may be positive or negative. So some families fall apart when faced with crisis, like an illness, a death or financial setbacks in all families experience the challenge of a crisis at certain times, no matter what everybody does. Strong families, however, have the ability to pull together and draw on each other's strengths.

When they're faced with the stress of crisis, they pool their resources, work together, get help from outside support systems, keep communication open in the face of strong emotions of crisis, and draw on their shared spiritual beliefs. So when a family is strong, it's able to maintain the flexible. Agility necessary to weather the crisis and family members expect a positive resolution in the end so that we're not going to fall apart and we know that we can put our differences aside and really come together and be there for each other.

So we have a good outcome. So some things to try to deal with. Stress and crisis is, you know, include in family discussions at dinner, hypothetical questions involving crises like what would you do in case of an earthquake or a hurricane or if your parent became ill, if there were a national emergency such as war or I guess we could say covid. Right. That was a national emergency. You know, what would we do? How would we handle that?

Use discretion in talking about these topics with young kids. You don't want to scare your children because they might get frightened, but they can learn that if their parents can handle these situations, so can they. You also can examine the level of stress experienced by family members and you stress reduction techniques for managing it like exercise, cultivating a hobby, talking about stressors, doing breathing techniques. So it's good to talk about, you know, if these things happen, how would we handle them?

And sometimes you just have to come together. I can you know, I shared with you in the past that my mom had dementia. And before she went into a nursing home, me, my brother and sister all helped out. She had some caregivers, but and there are different levels. You know, my sister definitely did the most and I'm grateful for that. But, you know, we all always had to communicate who's going to go over who's going to take mom to this appointment, who's going to do that.

And, you know, we're all very busy people with their own businesses and lives, but we were able to come together and that was definitely stressful and crisis situation. And then she went to the nursing home and we would communicate then to you know, I did her laundry when she was in there. You know, my sister could visit more than me. My brother would go and see her. So we communicate like, what are you going to go?

When can you go? What can you do for mom, you know, dealing with paperwork, finances. So that was a crisis for us. And we all feel now that she's passed, that we all did do a really good job. And she knew that we were there for her. And that was a real strong value for all of us, for her to feel good about that. So we didn't really talk about it before. We just had we just kind of fell into it.

But based on our family, we're able to to walk through that and do the right thing. So that's just an example. So talking about it at a time might have been a little more helpful and giving us some direction because we had our moments where, you know, we got frustrated, which is normal, but talking through it and saying, you know, who would do what and how to handle it, those are just really good discussions to have.

And I know a lot of people avoid talking about this stuff because it's uncomfortable. Right. And you don't want to think about someone dying or becoming ill or, you know, having a pandemic, going to war. All those things are pretty scary. But talking about it helps the family connect and helps everyone feel more reassured that, you know, whatever does happen, we're in this together and we can be there for each other. So if what I've been saying is of interest to you and you want to develop a plan to build a strong family, I'm going to give you some more ideas here.

So to kind of summarize, so I want to just acknowledge that some people believe that their families are too troubled to change and they feel that their families bring out the worst in each other and that they are plagued with insurmountable problems. They feel hopeless about change in their family life. However, many strong families have emerged from this place of despair, often in the face of a family crisis, to achieve a quality of strength, support and vitality that I never thought would be possible.

And people can learn from their failures. So it may take a trained eye of a professional therapist to help a family move from this feeling of failure is one of success, and an outsider can often observe patterns that family members themselves are not able to see. So having the support of a therapist can lead a family one step at a time through the process of identifying problems, developing strategies for dealing with each other's problems, and then following through. And even the most troubled families can grow with this type of support.

A family has everything to gain by deciding to work on building its strength, and home should be a vital, secure and enhancing place where comfort and support reside and working with families, which I do at times, or just even individuals. And they go home and teach their family the cognitive behavioral therapy about being able to express what their thoughts are and saying, this is what I think right now about the family or you in particular. I don't know if it's true, but this is my thought, which makes me feel sad.

And but to be able to start doing the dialog, even say you went home and just say, I really feel sad. I don't feel like our family's strong and B can create. What does that mean to you? That we're not strong in sharing that, you know, maybe a family dinner like your family to be stronger? And how do you feel about that? This is important to me. These are some ideas. Would you like to.

Would you like to work on that? And just starting that dialog and finding out what everybody else's thoughts are about what a strong family is, not how they feel, what their thoughts are and what that would mean to them. So one way to start the process of strengthening your family is some step. I'm going to give you now, so you first want to look at the strengths your family already has and each member, the family can identify positive qualities that exist in even the most troubled of households.

So what I was saying before was going home is there talking and saying I'd like to build our family, make it stronger, you know, let each person in the family discuss their strong points without condemnation, just free flowing conversation. You can also visualize what you like your family to be. Right. So when I was 18 about sharing what you're thinking, same thing is visualizer and let each family member make up a wish list of things they would like to see in the family.

And then you can discuss these points and let the feedback be warm and accepting be open. Also, you can identify specific goals. So each family member should come up with a list of specific goals that they would like to see the family aim toward. They should be things that can be accomplished, like going to a movie together or having dinner together every night, then agree on five of the most important goals and put a date beside each goal. Also put people in charge of each of the goals so one person will be responsible for ensuring that his or her assigned goal is accomplished by the agreed upon date and, you know, maybe talks and problem solving skills and how to reach that goal and understand that this is just the beginning.

Strengthening a family takes time and commitment, and it's a process, not a one time event. And we can take it step by step. And sometimes you might take three steps forward and one step back. But if your goal, if everybody's goal is we want to be a stronger family, we want to be a stronger community, we want to be a stronger even friend group, you know, let's talk about that. Let's make time for each other.

That's that's probably one of the most important things. And I'm guilty of that, too. Sometimes I need to make more time so I can get to spend time with friends, other family members, you know, making that phone call. Even if somebody lives across the country to connect with them and stay connected, it just makes such a huge difference. So, again, I know I talked I use the word family during this podcast. Right. But whatever your family is to you is a family.

And if you want to make it stronger, where can you start making those steps and working? You start communicating. So I hope this podcast was helpful. I hope it made you start thinking about things. I hope you enjoyed the poem at the beginning about taking risks and ask yourself, am I taking risk by being close to someone, by sharing how I feel, by making myself vulnerable. And if I need some help with that, what can I do?

Maybe go see a therapist and talk to someone, maybe talk to a friend to get support for you, to be able to go talk and share something, maybe with the parents, something you haven't told your parent before but you want to start talking about. So there's lots and lots of ideas. I know I could go on forever, but I'm just wanted you to think again out of the box so you can feel more fulfilled and stronger connected to whoever your, quote, family is in your life.

So that's it for today. Again, I hope this was helpful for you.

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