Thriving Through the Holidays
From Ted
The holiday season is billed as the season that is supposed to contain the greatest joy and this raises people’s expectations for this time of year. In reality, research suggests that this season may be one of the most stressful and depressive for many people. The season’s holiday stories in books, on TV and in movies typically end on a happy note. At the end of the story everyone ends up understood, smiling, loving and miraculously united in mind, body and spirit.
Hope springs eternal in many of us that maybe this will be our year. Despite our experience, we believe that our history can be ignored. We think that we can just will things to be different. When once again, it does not happen this way, we feel the emptiness even more acutely and painfully. On the other hand, if we don’t even have the fantasy that the holiday season can be joyful, we are painfully reminded of that and feel depressed because signs of the season are everywhere we look, denting our denial of how things really are. This is especially true for families where there is a history of emotional distance and/or painful interactions. So, what are we to do? Here are some suggestions to help you thrive through the holiday season:
1. When going to visit family members, set boundaries in terms of how much time you will spend during any one visit. “I will be coming at 10:00AM and leaving at 2:00PM” is how I used to announce my intentions to my relatives. They would say “Oh, I wish you could stay longer”, and I would simply say “I do too”. There is no need for you to talk about why. With some families, it is pure fantasy to believe that they might understand, let alone agree with you or take that opportunity to change who they are and how they behave. Additionally, don’t stay at their house. Spend the money on a motel. The monetary cost of a motel is probably easier to bear than the emotional cost of staying in their homes (and may be cheaper than a couple of visits to your therapist to try and get over the trauma). If you are worried about what they will think and say about you, you are probably (like I was for a long time) under some significant illusion about what they already think and say about you.
2. Find some way to be with and help people. During the holidays I spent after my kid’s mom and I split, I was a single dad. The holiday season was filled with more sadness, grief and loss, than joy. One of the things that my children and I would do was make a big pot of my special spaghetti sauce, put it into quart jars, wrap them and deliver them to all of our special friends. We would just show up on their doorstep, wish them a happy holiday and take off to the next home. Sort of the spaghetti sauce Santa and his helpers. So instead of noticing only the emptiness of our holiday together we witnessed the looks of surprise and laughter that our actions created. Who knows if they ever ate the stuff? Others have volunteered at homeless shelters, helping serve a holiday meal. Research has recently confirmed that chemicals released in our brain as we are ‘doing good for others’ are anti-depressant in nature.
3. Find out about and attend gatherings where others are experiencing the same feelings. Many, many folks have a less than classic holiday season. You are not alone; you don’t have to do it alone. You will find people who love you just because you show up. This is especially helpful if you have no family or you are in the midst of frantic family events.
4. If you are gathering as a family and there is a glint of hope that you might be able to come to some agreements, talk early about what you would like to do, see happen, etc. Margie and I will be with our family for an extended period of time during this holiday season. What we are planning on doing, when we all get together, is sit down in one room, in a circle, and one by one, share (make a list of) of EVERYTHING that each of us wants to do, and who we would like to do it with. We then divide the days into thirds, and plot it out. That avoids the “Unexpressed Expectations = Premeditated Resentments/Depression experience.
5. See it as a learning experience. As some armchair philosophers propose, every experience we have can teach us something. A painful or less than perfect situation is known in some quarters as an AFGO. Another Freaking Growth Opportunity. (Well, they don’t actually use the word Freaking, but you get the idea). Stay open to what you are learning, how you are feeling and you will eventually begin to better shape your future holiday (and daily) experiences.
I wish for you many blessings this holiday season.
