Human homeostasis refers to the body’s ability to physically regulate its inner environment to ensure its balance in response to fluctuations in the outside environment. In other words, the body does stuff to keep itself okay regardless of what’s going on around it. When the body can’t keep itself balanced, the result is disease or even death. In short: it’s vital that the human body can maintain its balance.
Homeostasis is a term that can apply to more than just the body’s system; it also applies to every kind of system imaginable. A family is a system too – which means that every family has a homeostasis. To help out the “balance of the family,” different people play different roles (one may be the family hero, another the scapegoat, and so on…). With every family member fulfilling specific roles, family systems can ensure that the homeostasis remains what they know and expect it to be.
Unlike the body’s homeostasis (which helps a body do well and survive), family homeostasis has nothing to do with a family operating effectively. For example, if a family member is struggling with an addiction issue, and another family member is enabling that person, the homeostasis is not representative of a healthy system, but it is balanced all the same.
If the person struggling with addiction gets better, it throws off the homeostasis of the family. After all, what role does that leave for the enabler if the one who was addicted (scapegoat) no longer needs to be enabled? The roles are shaken and a family crisis emerges. More than likely, the system will try to force someone new into the scapegoat role (“Well, he’s doing better, but now his younger brother is a problem…”).
Often when people go away from their family unit (whether to college or the military or simply just move away for a period of time), they tend to grow and change. When they return to their family – sometimes for a Thanksgiving meal – there is a tendency for the family to not want to accept the new or evolved role into their system. More often than not, the family then begins to attempt to restore balance in the homeostasis that they know, and that is a very natural occurrence.
Restoring balance in a family is natural, but it isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes we have to accept change, learn from it, and grow from it – and that can be difficult. Change is constant and inevitable: All things change.
The question we ultimately face is this: Do we need to cling to the past and try to make our loved ones who we want or need them to be – or can we accept change in those we love and accept them for who they are now?
