Inner Winter at Christmas Time

I am going to be in my winter around Christmas, and I am going to be visiting my partners family with my partner. I am concerned because they often have a different schedule than I am used to. It is common for them to eat dinner at what I consider to be a late time, I.E. past 9pm. I struggle with this even when I am not in my winter. Around my period I am particularly sensitive, and I am not comfortable with eating this late.

One way I could manage this situation is to bring a bag of my own food, and if I need to I can eat early and head to bed before they eat.

Another idea I had is to talk to my partner and see if he can support me, perhaps suggesting to his family that we eat earlier. Then I realised that this is not very empowering for me, and puts a lot of weight onto my partner.

However, talking directly to his family seems out of reach to me. I feel like speaking out would be speaking out of turn, given how much I know them and feel comfortable with them.

I also can get overwhelmed in the moment and loose the ability to talk or explain myself. I usually just hide away when this happens. However, I would prefer not to have to hide away, snacking on my own food alone!

How can I communicate explicitly, when I am not in overwhelm, whilst not overstepping the mark as a guest?

 

 

Answer:

What is the result you want if you could have anything? Perhaps don’t focus so much on what time dinner happens, but what do you really want the experience to be like on this visit? What is important to you?

Allow yourself to explore this and find a result that feels good to you, then you’ll be able to build an intentional model that resonates. If there are things that need to be communicated, you’ll have everything you need to do that.

Our brain likes to make things big and scary, what if it could be fun and easy?