Staying Sane During the Holiday Season [Part 1]
As the end of another year approaches, so, too, does the holiday season…which can bring up a range of emotions (and may differ for each of us!). For some, it can bring excitement, happiness, and warmth. For others, it may trigger past traumas, stress, and grief — or perhaps a combination of feelings.
This episode is part one of a three part mini-series to help us prepare and approach the holiday season with a strategic plan, so we can end the year and move into the new year minimizing stress and regret, and supporting ourselves in ways that will help us emerge into 2023 refreshed and rejuvenated.
Key moments include:
2:50 – A how-to guide on staying connected during the holiday period.
4:04 – The importance of taking time to carve out and use your imagination so you can get an idea of what you are wanting and what you want to value.
5:56 – When feeling loss or devastation, how to skip channeling a toxic positivity mindset to help you delve into the pain you’re keeping away, and finding things that will help with healing.
9:23 – How you can shift the focus of the holiday in your household.
13:58 – On not ignoring the pain and stress that you're experiencing (and what to do instead).
20:38 – How you can approach this holiday time so you have a different experience.
24:27 – How the holidays can be a valuable time to review your habits and routines.
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Please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for treatment by a healthcare or mental health professional. This content is created for education and entertainment purposes only.
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This transcript was created by A.I. — please forgive translation mistakes.
[00:00:00] Welcome to I Thought I Was Over This.
[00:00:05] I'm your host, Dr. Kimber, a licensed clinical psychologist, trauma healer, and fellow life journeyer. Every episode we dive into the science of humaning. Whether you find yourself feeling like you've just hit an iceberg and don't know where help is coming from, or you're ready to trade in your raft for something bigger, you aren't alone.
[00:00:27] Grab what you need, get comfortable, and let's do this.
[00:00:35] Thank you for being here. I am so grateful to be with you. This is the start of a new three part series about remaining present and connected during the holidays. And if this is your first time, welcome. I’m grateful that you're here, thanking the person who shared this podcast or however you found your way here.
[00:01:00] I hope that you find it helpful, and one of my goals for this podcast is to help you feel lighter. I think during the holidays we can have such high expectations of ourselves, of the people around us, that we can lose sight of what the holidays are meant to do, which is replenish and rejuvenate us. So today's episode is going to dive into what do you want to feel like during the holidays and how do you wanna end your year?
[00:01:38] How can you minimize stress and regret, and do we really need to approach the holidays with a strategic plan? My answer would definitely be yes. Intentionality requires awareness. It also requires some discipline. And it really is a way to emerge into 2023 refreshed and rejuvenated. I realize as I use the words refresh and rejuvenated that your household may be experiencing the type of turmoil, or you yourself have the stress and the turmoil, and there's no way you can imagine feeling refreshed, and I understand that.
[00:02:26] How can you emerge if there are situations that are ringing you dry and stealing your energy and bringing more and more stress? And so this episode I'm gonna try to address what do you do when you know that it's not going to be this merry holiday season? How can you stay connected? How can you be grounded?
[00:02:54] How can you impact your own mental health in the areas that you might be able to control. A glimpse for the upcoming episodes, we're gonna look at grief and loss that can really feel in your face during the holidays. And also, I'm gonna dive into family dynamics, including if you are orphaned. And you don't feel like you're a part of a family right now, how can you navigate this time that is stereotypically a time of coming together.
[00:03:29] So that's what is coming ahead. So in this week's episode, I wanna explore what do you want your holidays to look like? What can you control in your holiday season and what are things that are outside of your control? No, we're not too far away. I would love for you to take the time in the next week to really carve out this time for using your imagination, you know, so that you can get an idea of what are you wanting? What do you want to value?
[00:04:09] So often we can get trapped in the tyranny of the urgent and the chaos of having our routines changed, having more social commitments, even just all that can be required around prep, all of that can pull you off so that you just feel like you're just addressing the next stress over and over. So asking the question, what do you want to feel like and what do you want to be valued in the holiday season?
[00:04:44] can sometimes really help you get closer to making that happen. And I want to be clear here. You may be saying to yourself, What are you talking about? The holidays are the absolute worst. I'm reminded of all that. I have lost the friends, the family that have died. I'm reminded of the disappointments, my disconnections.
[00:05:11] I feel more lonely during the holidays. And this can be true. It can be true. And I want to ask you, how can you add to this experience if you are experiencing significant family losses, they're going to be felt here. Parents, children, extended relationships of people that are dear to you who are no longer around.
[00:05:41] These situations and feelings you can't change. And I'm not proposing that you look to change your mind, have what I would call toxic positivity, only focus on feelings and thoughts that are positive, but instead, I want you to ask yourself, how can you experience the devastating loss that you feel during the holidays
[00:06:10] And not feel alone? Who can you connect with? What do you need to do? What invitations do you need to secure? If you can, what activities? What might you be able to do that is within your power and control to help you navigate the devastating loss that comes up over the holidays? This is the type of thing that I wanna encourage you to do that we're not trying to take away the disappointments, the devastation.
[00:06:45] Instead, we're trying to find neighboring feelings and connections in order to help you navigate them. If you are missing someone who is no longer with us on this earth, what could be an idea of bringing this person closer? So that you are feeling more connected, maybe you can invite others to share their memories with you.
[00:07:14] Maybe there's a ritual or routine or a favorite dish that this person made. How can you keep fostering this significant relationship now even though the person has gone? These are the types of questions that help us get through grief and loss. Help us get through devastation, and I know that I'm gonna dive more into this in a future episode, but I wanna bring this example here because if you're somebody who is feeling the significant loss, we can just plow through the holidays.
[00:07:54] We can just try to get through them. We can survive. Maybe we start engaging in the addictions that we have for these types of situations, and I wanna propose that there might be another way to get through this pain. How can you do that staying connected with others? Because our neurobiology, we’re created to be connected.
[00:08:21] We’re created to be seen. We’re created to be understood. So how can you keep persisting until you can find those people in your life where you feel seen and heard? Again, we can't change the situation, but we can create space for others to come alongside of us as we have to navigate the grief, the stress, whatever it is.
[00:08:51] If you find yourself in a situation where you are financially challenged right now. Maybe you've had a job loss or inflation has taken any excess that you may have used to save for gifts or presents. I mean, we live in this day and age in the world that we can be very consumeristic, especially here in the United States.
[00:09:20] How can you shift the focus of the holiday in your house, especially if you have children? How can you honor your financial strain and also make space for rejuvenation? How can you take charge of your holiday, making it your own, not necessarily making it about gift giving or making elaborate meals, you know, how can you create something that is less stressful for you and your family, depending on the season that you're in?
[00:09:54] And not to make stress bad, stress isn't bad. It's necessary, it's helpful. But when we're overrunning, when we are filled up with stress. It's not helpful. We can create trauma all around us. We can create drama all around us. So we need to be able to navigate the stress and make it more bite size for ourselves.
[00:10:19] And so how might you do that? And some of the ways that I would say, you know, in our house we have a daughter living outside of the home, so when she comes home, the question becomes, what do you want your holiday to look like? What are your desires? We ask everyone in our family, what do you want your holiday to look like at the end of this break for you?
[00:10:43] This school break. What do you wanna feel like? What experiences would you like to have? Not that we're gonna, as parents, make those all happen, but it gives us an idea of what's meaningful and valuable to each of our family members, and so then we can try to make sure that those get scheduled in. I personally think that so many traditions in the United States around gift getting are so overwhelming.
[00:11:14] How many gifts can a person appreciate? And one of the practices when my children were young that I did, was giving them a marketing 101 lesson every time you went to the store explaining, Oh yes, you, you would like those sunglasses because they have Disney princesses on. And they have, look, they've put them right by the checkout stand, so of course you want them because, oh my goodness, they're at your eye level repeatedly, over and over and over again.
[00:11:48] I would talk to my children about exposure, about advertising, about how it influences what they want, so that at a young age they can come up and recognize, Oh, there is a massive wanter inside of all of us. And if we feed that fire, we can be focused on consumer values rather than experiences, rather than focusing on spending time together.
[00:12:19] And so how are you cultivating in your household or in yourself? A posture of connection. Posture of being seen, seeing others. At the end of your holiday, whatever that looks like are you rested? Are you rejuvenated? Really making space for feelings, making space for others can help you navigate any negative reality that you are facing.
[00:12:51] We are wired, and I know I said this earlier, but we're wired for connections to help us get through the hardness of life. And what trauma keeps doing is pulls you into what's not working and what's going wrong. It will invite you to get overwhelmed. It will invite you to numb out. And so when we know that trauma is going to be present, such as you have a significant member in your family who has died, and so that loss is going to be facing you every holiday season.
[00:13:29] How can you honor that? How can you create space so that you get in touch with that, you feel it, you experience it, and you invite others to be there with you to help you navigate that, such as doing something that was a favorite of that family member. The idea is not to ignore the pain and the suffering that we have going on or the stresses.
[00:13:59] But how can you get outside of the trauma response, which is overwhelm, which is numbing, which is going to addictions, whether that be overspending or alcohol or numbing out with Netflix, whatever it is, right? I mean, I just think in the mental health field sometimes we really don't focus on how much people spend
[00:14:27] as a way to get a dopamine rush, as a way to get out of the dullness, the boringness of their life. It's a problem. So how can you, you may not have this problem, but if you do, if you notice that every year you regret how much you've spent, how can you approach this holiday season different? How can you do it
[00:14:53] differently? So my first point here is really to take a look at what are the feelings, what are the experiences that you'd like to cultivate, and how can you create the space to navigate what's in front of you? So I like to create spiritual space throughout all of November and December, and I do that by trying to take off whatever I can on my plate.
[00:15:18] I reduce the time that I spend watching tv. I also have a messier house. I really try to stick to my schedules so I don't get hit all at once with everything that is going to be added, such as social events or preparing for visitors, gifts, those kind of things. I prioritize sleep. I prioritize my prayer time. I prioritize my meditation.
[00:15:51] I am a recovering cortisol junkie. And when I start getting stressed, I can get insomnia. I can minimize the need for sleep. I can stay up reading books if I'm on vacation. Oh my goodness, if I'm in a good book, I can be like, Oh, I'm gonna read this all night. So those are things that I try to avoid in order to feel present and be here for the long haul of the holidays.
[00:16:21] Now, occasionally I do indulge in reading for many hours into the night, but I've accommodated that by doing it during times when I may be able to sleep in. So the second part of this episode, what stresses you out about the holidays and how can you solve those problems? There can often be financial stress, whether it be that you're taking time off or purchasing presents.
[00:16:52] I think even the amount of information that we are presented with, like the catalogs or the amount of advertising that happens, I mean, I can feel so bombarded and that actually can add a lot of stress. And one of the things I've done is I just immediately throw things away, get off catalog lists. I think even things like Black Friday, you know, in years past, I have found that I can get swept up in the deals.
[00:17:24] That's what they're hoping. You're gonna walk out of there with many things you didn't need, but it seems like such a good deal that you can purchase it. So I always say, if you are gonna shop Black Friday, go in with a list. Don't veer from the list. Keep a budget. I find when it comes to Black Friday, I am one that adopts rei’s slogan of getting outside and I just get so overwhelmed.
[00:17:55] I do love small business Saturdays. And that was more my jam. I really try to support local businesses. And purchase there. I wanna remind you that when we use cash, we have a different internal experience. We actually can feel the weightiness of spending when we use cash versus when we use a credit card.
[00:18:22] I always encourage people, stay away from payment plans, adjust your expectations of what the holiday should look like, rather than going on a payment plan. There could be lots of other stresses that you have, and my question to you would be, how can you delegate that? Can you reduce any of the things that you think you need to do?
[00:18:45] How can you infuse fun? Like for us, we love baking and making Christmas cookies. One of the ways that we do that is we invite friends over and we bake together. So that we get to enjoy one another's company, but also get to indulge in a tradition that we enjoy. When we are decorating the house, you know, we infuse fun by playing music and making sure we have sugar cookies.
[00:19:21] So how can you give yourself permission to create fun? If you're writing Christmas cards, how can you make that as fun and enjoyable as possible? I think in the holidays so often we can find ourselves regretting, whether it's regretting spending time in a way that we wish we wouldn't have had to or regretting purchases.
[00:19:50] And so how can you use what you regretted last year, if you take the time to reflect on that, what were your regrets from last year? And how can that inform how you're gonna approach the holidays this year? So the last point that I have for today before we wrap up is, what about this strategic plan for the holidays?
[00:20:14] Well, I am a big fan because you're pulled in so many ways. There's so much to do. Potentially, you know, what can you do? Or you can even feel so numb or lonely and left out. And so how can you approach this time to give you a different experience, a different feeling? For me that really is about putting things on a schedule, putting things on the calendar, identifying like having those conversations, Hey, what's important?
[00:20:48] How can we make that happen? What do we value right now. Making a list and then putting it on the calendar. I love to use the holiday time as also a time of reflection as I get ready for the next year and every year I pick a spiritual discipline that I'm gonna engage in. There's lots of different ways that I do that, but for me this year it was confession.
[00:21:18] So I like to spend really the last part of the year, reflecting on what do I want to shift inside of me around my spiritual habits? We also, as a family, pick a social justice issue or an environmental justice issue each year. Last year, our environmental justice focus was replacing plastic soaps, like, you know, hand soaps, and
[00:21:47] shower gels, those kinds of things with bars of soap. So we've been slowly replacing those, figuring out what we need, what stands do we need, Cuz bar soaps can be a little messier. How do those work in the shower? You know, this isn't rocket science, but it does, when you are working on a habit, when you're changing things out, you have to learn, okay, how do we make this work?
[00:22:14] You know, some of the things we've done in prior years, we now have utensils that we take when we go out to different food courts, things like that, that use plastic wear. We take our utensils now, we are a household that officially doesn't have any paper towels, so these are some of the habits that we've done in years past.
[00:22:36] We also love to pick a word for the year, or I guess I should say I do. This year, it's been adventure. And that word adventure has really been about having a state of mind, not being about a destination or experiences. So I'm gonna, you know, be picking a new one this year. We also love, as a family, we make vision boards of what we, what kind of strikes us and where we, where we see ourselves.
[00:23:09] We kind of, then we review the vision board from the year before to see, oh, what did that say? What things were I drawn to? And how did that play out in real life? I also love Gretchen Rubin’s lists where she did, you know, 22 in 22, and she comes up with different things. For me this year I decided to do different ice cream flavors, which kind of goes hand in hand with my adventure.
[00:23:35] We don't have a lot of, you know, ice cream in our freezer that we keep, and so it's actually something that we go out to do, and we have some great local ice cream shops that make their ice cream handmade. And I can be a creature of habit getting the same thing. So this year I was like, Okay, you know, I'm gonna try 22 new flavors.
[00:23:57] And while that can seem, uh, boring, for me, it was a stretch and it, you know, kind of infused my life with something fun. And that's what I felt like I needed to focus on this year. So I will be taking time. What's gonna be my 23 in 23, and what might I need this next year, this upcoming year? So I think the holidays can also be a really valuable time to review your habits, your routines.
[00:24:29] What do you wanna change? What do you wanna go into? For me, that kind of replaces New Year's resolutions. If you don't have the habits in place, if you're not focusing on habits and routines, it's really hard to make your goals happen. And so I try to look at it more from a habit routine and let the outcomes be the outcomes that they are.
[00:24:52] That's my advice. Schedule things, schedule time for reflection. What days are you gonna decorate? Put it in the schedule. What days do you need to cook? Schedule experiences, schedule downtime. Have people give you lists. If you are a present buyer, how can you make those things easier or less burdensome? Is volunteering important to your family?
[00:25:16] What rituals can you do in your family that make meaning for all of you? My last question for you is what do you think absolutely needs to happen and can you this week look at, do you really need to do that? What would it be like for you to not do this thing that you think has to happen? What could be shifted in your thinking and what might be created if you let yourself off the hook
[00:25:47] from doing the thing that you think absolutely needs to happen? Well, in a nutshell, the idea is what can you imagine is in the future for your holiday? What can you make happen? What needs to be added or taken away in order for you to get psychological and social support that you might need or even enjoyment?
[00:26:15] How can you make the most of this time together? And if you find yourself alone, how can you navigate being alone in a way that helps you feel connected with others or connected with nature? Whatever it is that you are needing to be connected to, how can you make that happen? We are creatures with emotional and physical and spiritual, mental needs.
[00:26:41] So how can you be proactive in protecting these things, getting them met during a season that is so typically overwhelming or numbing? What can you do to create some amazing memories and connection regardless of what chaos or trauma or grief and sadness is going on in your life? How can you hold both? Hold the complexity?
[00:27:14] That life. The yin and the yang, the joy and the sorrow. It's been great to be with you. Make sure you schedule that time to envision your holiday. Until next time.