Life & Therapy

Here they come! The winter holidays can be stressful, and also can bring up many emotions. Some of these emotions can be good ones, some not so good. If you are lonely, or have financial stress, or recently went through a loss, the holidays can be downright frustrating. I’ve made a little list of some possible strategies for taking the edge off the holiday madness.

1. If you are visiting with family, go easy on yourself. Sometimes family can bring out old behaviors that you may not be so proud of. Rather than expecting yourself to be perfect, see if you can be self-forgiving. Remind yourself of who you are in your regular life, because it is easy to feel like you are still a child when you’re with family.
2. If you have a lot of invites, try this sorting process. How many of these invites feel like guilty obligation minus the actual desire to go? How many are ones that you actually want to accept? Only accept the ones you want to! If a friendship would fall apart because you didn’t show up to a party, it probably is a friendship that needs examining.
3. Schedule relaxing time for yourself. This could mean scheduling a massage, or taking a long bath, or just vegging out and watching a movie. Try to give yourself a slot of time where you are not doing anything for anyone.
4. Gifts- this area can be an emotional landmine. Many people spend more on gifts than they can afford, and often for the wrong reasons. If you are buying gifts because you feel guilty, for example, then you are giving the recipient your guilt all wrapped up in the gift. Sort through your feelings and figure out who you genuinely want to buy gifts for. For those people you do want to give gifts to, simple & thoughtful is often better than expensive and elaborate. There are tons of ideas online for simple, inexpensive, but thoughtful gifts. You can let everyone else know that you would like to keep the holidays simple this year, and therefore you are not doing gifts- this lets them off the hook, too.
5. Try to be open to feeling whatever emotions you feel during the holidays. Just because “cheer” is being thrown at you in the form of canned music, ads, TV shows, and more, this doesn’t mean you feel cheerful. There is no such thing as a “wrong” emotion, and trying not to feel something is a sure-fired way to make the feeling much bigger and stronger. Let yourself feel whatever it is, and it is more likely to pass through you, so that you are free to feel other things.
6. If you are feeling overwhelmed by stress and emotion, try this little exercise. Give yourself five minutes to do nothing but breathe and count. Pick a number, like 4 or 5, and breathe in, counting slowly up to that number. Then breathe out, again counting up to that number. Do nothing else but breathe and count until you feel a little calmer. Repeat as necessary.
7. If your emotions still feel too overwhelming, and you have no one to talk to, and if you feel like you are in crisis, you can call a crisis line and get some immediate help & support. In Boulder, the 24-hour crisis line number is: 303-447-1665.