This is a transcript of one of the last Mindsprings Zoom sessions before the Christmas break, giving some of my top tips for navigating the mental health rapids of the holiday season. We start again with the 3x weekly Zooms on the 6th January!
Introduction to Holiday Do's and Don'ts
So before we run out of time, I just wanted to run through some of these do's and don'ts. So these are things I've collated over the years in my work as a therapist, thinking about how we get stressed and how we can perhaps regulate ourselves better.
These are the ten do's and don'ts that I find are quite useful over the Christmas break.
DO Lower Your Expectations
We might have a very high standard for our Christmas. Everybody, particularly the media. builds Christmas up to be some, Hallmark extravaganza of perfection, like a kind of John Lewis advert.
But the reality is that Christmas is just a load of people coming together, often family, often in-laws, and it's never going to be like a John Lewis advert, it's never going to be like a Hallmark movie. So we can just lower our expectations and just enjoy Christmas. Whatever presents itself. So, the first thing is to do lower your expectations about what Christmas is going to be like.
DON"T Neglect Your Routine
And the second one is don't skip your routine.
The thing about Christmas, particularly when you have Christmas and then New Year and that weird period in between, is that everything seems to go out of the window. Particularly if you're a regular meditator. We, we stop meditating. You're like: "oh, I'm going to lie in, or I'm hungover, or I ate too much food", but see if you can try and keep regular meditations, or regular exercise, regular walks, so that there's some sort of routine to get you through the week.
So don't skip your routine just because it's Christmas, or just because you're at your parent's house, or just because you're at your sibling's house. Do try and keep exercising, keep your meditation up, or whatever it is that you do on a regular basis for your mental health.
DO Claim Your Space
We've already talked about an obvious sanctuary, which is the loo, or the toilet, or the bathroom. It's okay to leave the proceedings and just go and have some you time. Even if that's a little walk in the garden, or, just a walk down the street, if you need to actually leave the house, it's okay to have some space, and one of the things that can feel really oppressive about Christmas is that sense of claustrophobia, that you're not allowed to exit the family ritual, but you are, you're you're okay, it's okay for you to go and get some fresh air.
Or just to sit in the toilet and do some bathroom breathing. It's okay.
DON'T Over Volunteer
And the fourth is don't over volunteer. Now, there's a lot that goes on at Christmas, and then there's a lot of grandstanding about what goes on at Christmas. Ultimately, cooking a Christmas dinner is a lot of work, but it's not solving world poverty. There are more complicated things in life than cooking some food and putting it on plates. And although a lot of family dynamics revolve around making a great mountain out of things, don't feel that you have to do more than perhaps other people. Don't over volunteer your time.
It's okay for you to sit back and let somebody else take the strain. Don't make yourself a martyr.
DO Plan an Exit Strategy
This could be just going for a walk, but also don't be afraid of saying, "oh, we're just going to stay to a little pudding and then we're going to head off. Or I need to get back for the animals. We've got another thing tomorrow." It's okay to not stay the full, session, particularly if you're finding it wearisome or tiring or triggering.
You don't have to stay forever. And particularly if you know that it's going to be a bit, fraying for the nerves, you can make your exit strategy explicit before you've even got there. Say, I'm just going to stay for a few hours, or we're going to stay until such and such a time, and then we're going to head off.
And then the sixth one is really, important.
DON'T Overindulge
Don't overindulge and mistake it as self soothing. So in the Transforming the Trigger Thoughts course, we talk about defences, how we armour ourselves against anxiety by doing all these odd behaviours, over exercising, for example, being over controlling or over tidy, or over eating or over drinking, and Christmas, of course, is a terrible temptation to just drown out the noise in our head or the family dynamics that are troubling us, by eating too much and drinking too much.
And this can have terrible consequences, not least on our waistline or on our liver health, but also because we can then end up saying things or doing things from alcohol or from overeating or over too much sugar that can just make everything worse. So Just be mindful of not disguising overeating or over drinking as self soothing.
It's not really self soothing, it's a defense. The best way of tackling your anxiety is actually just to name it, see it, survive it, and then move on.
DO Keep Your Sense of Humor
This is really great advice in all situations: try and have a good laugh. One of the greatest things you can do in these, festive, frazzled moments is to take a step back and imagine that you're watching a soap opera or a Richard Curtis movie and frame what is happening as a moment of comedy or a moment of light, comic drama. Keep your sense of humour, be able to step back and see things as comedy rather than tragedy.
DON'T Fight Every Battle
Don't fight every battle, particularly when you're in a family setting, particularly if you're not in your birth family and you find your in-laws' political views or cultural views very triggering. You don't have to score every point. And being right isn't the same as being kind. So sometimes, even if someone said something that is, for you, beyond the pale, it might be more skillful just to go to the bathroom, go out into the garden, take a walk rather than die on that particular hillside. So pick your battles or, if possible, don't battle at all because Christmas is, after all, a time of peace.
And then the final two are very important.
DO Rest
Christmas/New Year is one of the rare occasions where we might get a whole string of days where we don't have to go to work. And then it's a great shame if we use that time, or rather misuse that time, in constant running around and frantic firefighting and stressing.
It's okay, in fact, socially sanctioned, to go upstairs and have a little nap. To go and lie down for 40 winks. To not watch television, perhaps, but have a little snooze in the armchair next door. Make sure that your Christmas is also a time for rest for you. Even if you're hosting Christmas, it's still okay to excuse yourself and go and have a little l, 40 winks.
DON'T Forget it's Your Holiday Too
And the final one is an extension of that. Christmas is a holiday. Christmas is a holy time, it's a time for reflection. Buried underneath all that chocolate and tinsel and wrapping paper is a sacred moment. It's the solstice, either if you're in the southern hemisphere it's the Longest day, or if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the shortest day.
It's a magical time, and the reason that Christmas falls where it does is because this is a sacred time. It's a time for reflection, it's a time for magical things to happen. So don't lose sight of that. Make sure that you too celebrate. Celebrate yourself, celebrate the connections that you have, the friends that you have and make sure that you don't lose sight of the holiness of the holiday.
It's a really, precious time for rest and connection, but also a time for something more profound, something more sacred to emerge. this, of course, is the, in many ways, the ultimate antidote to frazzle. It's to sink down and connect into the really important things: consciousness, the preciousness of your human birth, connections with the people but also the non-human world, the animals, plants, the landscape.
So do make sure that you get out into the nature and see the natural world at this solstice time.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
I hope that this has been helpful. Some of this might be useful. As I say, there's a recording of this which I'll post so you can access this on the website. I'll put it in the free library so even if you're not a subscriber you can, join in. And I sincerely hope that you have a really holy - in all senses of that word, holy with an H and also holy with a WH - a wholly restful, and nourishing Christmas, and you don't let habits of frazzle and overwhelm eat away at what should be a very restorative time.
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