Here's the situation... You're in college but you've come home for the Holidays. Your friends and family say "You've changed since you've been gone." And they aren't happy about it.

How to deal?

The fact is, you probably have changed. We are all the product of our experiences. In Japan, the traditional view is that once a Japanese person visits a foreign country he or she is no longer completely Japanese because of how the experience of leaving the island changes them.

Whether we travel to foreign countries or go off to college or go off to war, we are changed in ways we may not entirely realize. And change can be threatening to those close to us. But your heart, and what is at your core―that which makes others love and care for you―remains intact.

The key is to share your new experiences in a way that makes your friends and family feel close to you. One way to do that is to make an effort to ask them how their lives have progressed since your departure. Being a good listener rather than immediately launching into your laundry list of exciting new friends and interests is one way to reach out and show them that they remain important to you. Then treat yourselves to a movie or a meal at a favorite restaurant to re-establish familiar relationship cadences, if you will.

Before you know it they'll tell you it feels as though you were never gone at all.