However, every subsequent family visit involves parents who are slightly older. Older parents have more health issues, more fears and anxieties, more specific needs and more hangups. Older parents are difficult to manage and harder to please. There starts to be a slow role reversal - one starts to become the parents in the relationships with one's mother and father. One needs to be more patient, more understanding and more accommodating. Which also means that one is more exhausted and more frustrated, and the joys of family visits become strained.

One possible difference between dealing with parents versus dealing with in-laws is the degree of honest communication and emotional closeness. With one's parents, it might be easier to argue, to air one's opinion, to push back and maybe even scold and fight. That’s because there is a rich history of a past relationship of closeness and trust, and memories of arguments followed by reconciliations. 

With in-laws, it is often the case that any suggestions or comments can be interpreted as disrespect or criticism. There is usually very little incentive to engage in providing honest feedback to the in-laws - it can negatively impact your relationship with them, and your relationship with your partner. While avoidance and non-engagement can seem great ways of minimizing arguments - silent conflict can be exhausting and nerve wracking too. Another coping mechanism is to motivate one's partner into talking to their parents - and that comes with its own costs if the partner is unwilling to have that conversation.

The strategy of intentional acceptance is one way of addressing family conflict (whether parents or in-laws). Actively accepting that parents or in-laws have the right to their own fears and anxieties. Actively accepting that parents and in-laws have the right to their own informed or mistaken views. Actively accepting that parents and in-laws have the right to choose their own behaviors (e.g., drinking chai at all times of the day or night), even if they are difficult to understand.​

Active acceptance of family allows us to spend time and energy pursuing family activities and create positive memories that can last a lifetime. Active acceptance of family makes that long journey to see them worth the effort. Active acceptance of family allows us to reconnect with aging versions of our parents and in-laws and to try and love them just the same.

The other day I was working with a client who talked about the difficulties in breaking bad habits. Simple bad habits like lazing in bed, having a soda with every meal, snacking mindlessly ... And we decided to create the Smallest Stumbling Block to break up their bad habits. We decided to do something that required almost zero effort, but made it just that little bit harder to do that bad habit. ​

Like charging your phone away from your bed so that you're forced to get out. Leaving your soda out before mealtime because nobody likes warm soda. Chewing gum or filling up on beverages so that you have a full belly and don't feel like snacking. 

None of these solutions break the bad habit completely, but they do show that even minor inconveniences can make us behave differently. The smallest stumbling block can help us realize that we can change ourselves and change our environments to get rid of our bad habits.

Create enough small, stumbling blocks and your bad habits will have a hard time catching up with you.

With all these fears, I imagined that a socially anxious person would be shaking in fear in their therapy session. And I was happy and surprised to find that my expectations were completely off the mark. The socially anxious persons that I worked with were some of the most intelligent, perceptive and thoughtful people. They were attuned to their environments, and were highly empathic of others. They were funny and smart and brave in facing their fears.

Despite all these amazing qualities, socially anxious people had intense fears about how they would be judged by others. So what was going on?

It's because they used their best skills towards others. They were perceptive of others' thoughts and behavior, compassionate and accepting of others, and sensitive towards others' negative moods. For themselves and their own behaviors and thoughts - they reserved the highest standards, the toughest punishments and the harshest criticisms. 

For a socially anxious person - it was hard not aiming for perfection for themselves. And easy to forgive others for not being perfect. Slowly, over several therapy sessions, we turned that sense of forgiveness, compassion and caring towards their own core self. So that they could share their talents, their wit and their sense of humor with everyone, instead of hiding away.