When The Holidays Are Hard

The holidays are here, and it's a difficult time for some people. There are lots of ideas about what the holidays should be like: a loving, supportive family all gathering together to celebrate, sharing family time, all getting along well. Just add snow and something wonderful cooking in the kitchen. We want the Norman Rockwell view of the holidays.

As it turns out, even Norman Rockwell didn't have that happy family. I recently read American Mirror, a new Rockwell biography by Deborah Solomon with a psychological look at the artist's life and work. His childhood years weren't that happy. His mother was a hypochondriac, self-involved, and they lived in a boarding house for many years because she was too overwhelmed to cook or care for the family. As adults, he and his brother stopped any contact, with his brother writing to lament the fact that he didn't know anything about Norman or his family. In his own adult life, happiness and close family relationships were elusive. Norman was married 3 times, worked 7 days a week until he got dementia, and wasn't that involved as a husband or father. Appearances aren't always what they seem: even the families portrayed in his paintings were usually assembled groups of strangers.

There is pressure during the holidays to have a close family, decorate your home, buy meaningful and expensive gifts, cook excellent meals, and feel happy inside.

What if you don't feel happy?

Not all families are close. For some people, the holidays underscore the gap where meaningful extended family relationships don't exist. You may have had an emotional cut-off in your family, with some family members not speaking to you.

This might be your first holiday season after the death of a family member or person close to you.

This could be your first year coping with the changes and loss of a divorce. Maybe you share custody of your children and will be without them for some or all of the holidays.

You might be coping with depression. For people with Seasonal Affective Disorder, these short winter days can be extremely challenging, even before you add in holiday tasks.

How can you rethink the holidays if it seems overwhelming or difficult?

1. Give yourself options. You can keep the usual traditions, or give yourself permission to change things up.

2. Do extreme self care. During the holidays, keep up your exercise, your healthy eating plan, and schedule some alone time.

3. Do something different. If you have never volunteered before, starting now might really give your mood a boost and put things in perspective. No matter what your loss or difficulty, there is always someone who needs your help.

4. Give yourself permission to say no. Several of my clients that have become sober this
year are opting out of party situations that might put their sobriety at risk. Great choice! You can also take your own car to visit family, and shorten up the time frames on visits with family members who stress you out.

5. Carry your own holiday boundaries. In family gatherings and work events, seek out the people you enjoy and resonate with. Focus on the people you enjoy. Minimize the contact with the Debbie Downers, and other toxic people in your family. Be pleasant but brief.

6. Take your inner adult with you to visit the family. Even the famous family therapist Murray Bowen wrote in an article called "Going Home" that when he went home to see his parents for the holidays he struggled to keep channeling his inner adult and stay differentiated in a healthy way. There is something about that primordial soup of undifferentiated ego mass that tries to suck you into feeling powerless and 8 years old. Don't go there!

7. Consider making plans to invite people you know who might be alone at the holidays to join you.

8. Show flexibility. If the children aren't with you on Christmas, have some fun making another day Christmas. It's your mood and spirit they will remember, not the date.

9. Take the focus off of buying stuff. Focus instead on experiences and relationships. It's not about stuff, or creating debt for January.

10. Use this holiday season to listen to music that inspires you, develop your spiritual side, and begin envisioning what you would like to create in the new year as we wrap up 2015.

11. Reach out for more healthy support: people who care and are a good influence on you.

12. Avoid alcohol if you are feeling down. Alcohol is a depressant. It will make you feel worse.

Create a holiday season that suits you. Don't give in to the pressure, hype and expectations to do things that no longer work for you. It's time for your own kind of holiday, and you're just the person who can make that happen. The first holiday season following a loss can be difficult. You can choose your response to the loss, and find ways to be kind and gentle to yourself through a challenging holiday season.

'Tis The Season : 10 Holiday Tips to Keep You Merry

December brings up a lot of different things for people. It can bring stress if you get overwhelmed by all the tasks you have to get through. December can bring up memories of past holidays, whether sad or joyful. It can bring up grief if you are dealing with a loss this past year or two. For children, the holiday season often brings anticipation. Some adults feel the gravitational pull of their family of origin sucking them back in to unhealthy patterns.

Even one of the founders of family therapy, Murray Bowen, wrote an essay called "Going Home" in which he explained how he could be a happily individuated adult most of the year, but could regress when back visiting his parents, like at holiday times. It is so easy to get pulled in to old patterns if you're not conscious and intentional.

Here are some ideas for staying emotionally healthy during December and into the New Year:

1. If you have experienced a loss this year --- the death of a close family member or close friend, a divorce, separation or break-up, or a move far from your support system, be patient with yourself during the holidays. You will need to rethink of all your usual December traditions so you can decide whether you want to keep or change them this year. Be flexible with your plans, and don't take on too much. Focus on what will be comforting and supportive.

2. Stay an adult this holiday season. Reconsider demands and expectations made by your family of origin, or your partner's family. Part of individuating is making choices about what is meaningful and enjoyable for you, rather than just doing things by autopilot.

3. Give yourself permission to mix up old patterns. At family gatherings, exercise your power to move closer and visit with the family members you really enjoy and admire. Move away from the negative and toxic people.

4. Keep up your healthy self-care patterns throughout this busy month: keep exercising, eating healthy (even if it's before a holiday party so you're not tempted to eat the wrong things), and get enough sleep and alone time.

5. Share the tasks. Women often feel more burden for holiday tasks. I always encourage families I see in family counseling to hold a family meeting to get everyone signed up to share holiday tasks. Sort through the regular tasks to check and make sure that you focus on holiday traditions that bring joy, as opposed to those that are just an energy drain. People enjoy the holidays more when they help create them, so don't do it all yourself. Share the cooking, the shopping, the decorating and wrapping. Even small children can have fun wrapping gifts if you loosen your standards and provide lots of tape.

6. Get outside yourself. Reach out to an elderly neighbor or volunteer with a local food bank or charity which needs extra help during December in your local community. I promise it will lift your spirits, no matter what you have going on in your own life. Develop your spiritual side.

7. Say 'no' to invitations which sound emotionally taxing. Carry your own boundaries throughout the season. Preserve some down time.

8. Go for the joy. Be sure to sprinkle in some holiday joy. What are the sensory experiences that will activate your creativity, senses and holiday memories? Do you like to smell cookies baking or walk through a Christmas tree lot? Would you enjoy looking at happy photos of holidays past? Could you enjoy a holiday Christmas movie fest? Do you delight in hanging some festive lights? Spending time with children also helps you rekindle the joy of the season.

9. Break up the visit. If you are visiting family during the holiday season or you will be hosting family staying at your house, think through ways to streamline and make the visit less intense. Have some breakfast foods out that guests can do self-serve. Get out for a walk by yourself, and get those endorphins pumping. Don't expect yourself to be "on" for days at a time. Taking a break from hosting or being hosted can help everyone stay less frayed. Help guests to do some things independently if possible.

10. As New Year's Day approaches, think about creating a vision board for 2015. You can use a piece of poster board to pull out pictures and ideas that inspire you in how you want to grow and what you want to experience in the beautiful new year ahead of us. It will serve to remind you that the holidays, while stressful, are fleeting. The last month of the year is a great time to begin setting your intensions for an emotionally healthy 2015, with new goals and new plans.

Move as lightly as you can through the next 4 weeks. A few last inspiring pre-holiday thoughts:

If you are facing a judgmental or critical family, or tend towards perfectionism: "The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." -Anna Quindlen

If you're worn out by holiday crowds and shopping: "Sharing the holiday with other people, and feeling that you're giving of yourself, gets you past all the commercialism." -Caroline Kennedy

If you need inspiration: "The holiday season is a time for storytelling, and whether you are hearing the story of a candelabra staying lit for more than a week, or a baby born in a barn without proper medical supervision, these stories are about miracles." -Lemony Snicket

Take good care of yourself as you navigate a healthy holiday season. Be sensitive to what you are needing, rather than do things just out of obligation. Give yourself permission to do December your own way.

Home for the Holidays? Take Your Grown-Up Self with You!

It's been said that it takes quite a bit of skill and internal strength to individuate— to be close to others but also hold onto to your uniqueness. Some people are given the emotional freedom in their families growing up to develop their unique self without threatening the family set-point. Other people never got that freedom growing up, and are in a quandary about how to walk this balance in adult relationships. If you didn't get support for developing your unique self growing up, you may feel defensive about protecting yourself and needing to be secretive.

Great intimacy requires separateness. In couples, part of keeping the magic and desire is realizing you never fully know or own the other person. We need to be able to flow between attachment and separateness. Both are essential.
 
In parenting, we aren't really forming the child's self; it's more like we need to watch for who we have been sent and how we can help each child develop their unique strengths and interests. Children come through us, not of us, as philosopher Kahlil Gibran wrote.

Assuming other people want and need exactly what you do is a problem. More evolved people can tolerate spaces in togetherness, and embrace differences, within families, with friends, and in intimate relationships.

How do we differentiate? How can we become more individuated in a healthy way? How can we manage all the togetherness and stress at the holidays and stay connected and grounded?

Say what you want, like, and feel, without apology.

Watch your timing, being aware of when it is better to refrain from speaking.

Drop the defensiveness.

Have boundaries and a bottom line.

Listen to others.

Ask questions, and listen to the responses.

Stop criticizing others.

Give others respect and love.
 
Realize you can say "no."

Keep growing—challenge yourself all to learn new skills, meet new people, and try new things.

Give up judging others or seeking approval from them as much as possible.

Our sense of self is perpetually under construction. We should continue to develop ourselves throughout our lives.
 
Many people feel pretty individuated until the holidays come and they spend time with their extended family. Even Murray Bowen, one of the founders of family therapy, wrote a biographical essay about the challenges for his own sense of self in going home again for the holidays. Bowen, despite coining the term individuation, could feel the pull of his parents and family roles when he went home to visit. Going home made him feel like a child, but not in a good way.
 
As the holiday season is here, and we make plans to spend time with extended family, let's practice these healthy habits of accepting the differences between ourselves and others. You're probably not going to change any of your siblings, parents, or adult children during the holiday visit. Practice acceptance where you can, attach and join in when you are able, and move towards healthy self-care and individuation where and when possible.

It's easy to get overwhelmed with other people's agendas if you are surrounded by family for a big block of time. Take back some control by creating a little time alone to be by yourself. You can go for a walk or to the gym, journal, go outside, or take a drive. A bit of time to do self-care and get grounded may help put both your needs and the family needs in perspective.
 
Here's wishing my readers a happy, healthy holiday season and lots of differentiation of self and growth in the new year.

Keeping the Happy in your Holidays

Remember when you were a child and the holidays were pretty magical? It might have been your favorite part of the year, other than your birthday.

Too often, adults dread the turn of the calendar to November, with the extra workload of the holidays: cooking, shopping, meal planning, wrapping gifts, more demands on your time, extra expenses, decorating, cleaning, entertaining, thinking of brilliant gift ideas. It's enough to make one want to schedule a long nap to rest up!

It's time to take back your holidays. This article is geared to help you stage your own holiday makeover so that you can put the joy and meaning back into the season, and not go passively into all the regular routines without some careful checking in with yourself and the people who matter most to you.

It can be helpful to make a list of the holiday tasks you normally do, and consider what brings you the most joy. If you live alone, you can do this by yourself. If you live with family, you can have a meeting with the family to find out what means most to each person. What is each person's favorite part of each holiday? What can you cut out because the effort isn't worth it?

Try to delegate and find out who can do what task to help bring the holidays together. Could meals be made into shared events where each person contributes a dish? Could your son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter home from college help you with decorating and un-decorating? Could you bring food in? Could you make things more casual? Ask for help! Some of the joy is in putting the holiday together, not just showing up for it. Don't hog all the tasks for yourself, or you are likely to resent it (and your resentment will leak out).

Could you schedule some self-care into your holiday season? Perhaps you could schedule some breaks for you to exercise, get a massage, watch a favorite holiday movie, or do something else that restores you. If you have been losing weight and taking care of yourself, maybe you want to reconstruct your holiday menus to not create backward motion on your health goals. You can also increase non-food related holiday activities, like seeing a play or a concert together. Those peanut butter balls are not going to be easy to burn off after the holidays. If we get a little creative, spending time together doing active things can be a refreshing change from one holiday meal after another.

Think creatively about doing things in a new way that would fit your life now. This would be a good time to suggest drawing names for gifts in your family, rather than trying to find and fund gifts for every single person. It's not worth stressing yourself out, or incurring debt that could depress you in January when you get the bills. Perhaps you can make this a cash-only holiday season, and avoid charging on credit cards.

You might have to update your holiday plans given the changes that have occurred in the past year. I am working with people in counseling that have moved into a smaller home space this year, and have had to rethink having all the adult kids stay over. Maybe the adult kids can stay in a nearby hotel, and meet up for some part of each day with you if you are hosting.

If you have divorced, been through a break-up or death this year in your life, it's definitely time to revisit your take on the holidays. Give yourself the permission and authority to rewrite the regular traditions, or keep them the same depending on what feels most comforting to you.

Seek peace and acceptance with your family during the holiday season. Don't expect miracles. Try to lower your sensitivities to slights, be generous with your forgiveness, and realize it's not your job to judge other family members. Choose to wage tolerance and extend yourself if you can.

Cut where you like, but don't cut out the meaningful things. If faith is important to you, or volunteering in some way during the holidays to get some perspective, then schedule that in first. It could be that you want to extend your holiday season and make plans to see close friends before or after, rather than getting too stressed and tired.

Keeping your own energy level up is important. Try to get your rest, exercise, and not get overwhelmed. Try to set boundaries with negative, toxic, demanding, and unreasonable people. Pay special attention to pacing yourself. Take breaks from entertaining and hosting.

Take control, and make this your new, updated, and improved holiday season. You just might have a lot more fun, and bring back some of the magic. Lighten up, and go for the joy!

The Gift of Forgiveness

There are only a couple of weeks left until we wrap up 2010. It seems an appropriate time to think about mending fences in our lives, and see what we can each do personally to apologize, forgive, and lighten the emotional load we take into the fresh new year. As each year passes, the enlightened soul realizes that our time on the earth is finite. The years pass more and more quickly. Sometimes we can't even remember why we carry a grudge against a family member or friend.It is time to unpack the baggage.

Healthy people apologize freely. They realize noone is perfect, not even themselves. Often in the quickness of daily life, we forget to consider the impact of our words, actions,or tone on the people who are close to us. We may disappoint others and let them down. I have seen family members melt in my counseling office when a heartfelt apology is given freely, with the genuine intent to learn and do better in the relationship. Apologizing to anyone you have hurt this year will likely bring you closer, but,at the very least,it will give you more peace internally. To give a satisfying apology, one must be able to get past the ego and pride, and recognize our own human frailty.

Forgiving others for the hurt they may have caused you is something smart that emotionally intelligent people do often. Holding grudges and resentment is like eating poison every day. Why would you want to do that? One of my favorite lines from the Course in Miracles is,"Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" There is no benefit to holding on to resentment, and it could negatively impact your mental or physical health.Forgiveness is something you do for your own well-being, not because someone earns it. After all, if we aren't perfect, how can we expect that everyone else is going to read our script?

This Christmas season, be generous with your apologies and your forgiveness. Doing your part to own your own shadow self,in Jungian terms, makes it easier for others to do the same. By apologizing for your own thoughtlessness, selfishness, or hurtfulness to those you love, and forgiving their slights towards you, you will be better prepared to begin the new year with lighghtness and more room for joy.I wish you a happy holiday season and a lighter 2011!

Dealing With Difficult People

Into each life, it seems, a few difficult people must be sprinkled. Knowing how to spot them, and what to do with people who annoy ,or are toxic to you, is an important skill to develop. Effectively managing your relationship with difficult people can lower your sress level, cut the drama you experience, and keep your expectations in check. As the holiday season approaches, many people prepare to spend time with extended family. Sometimes the coming family togetherness brings warm feelings, but for others it means managing challenging personalities all gathered up at your house!

Here are some of the difficult people, profiled for your convenience. Just to be seasonal, let's picture them all around your Thanksgiving table. Got the picture? There are:

1.Negative Nancy-Everything is horrible. I hate turkey. I'm bored. My nose hurts.

2.The Energy Vampire-What can you do for me next?

3.The Critic-I'd give that pumpkin pie 2 points on a 10 point scale.It's not like Mom's.

4.The Dumper- Shall we sit down and talk some more about my problems?

5.Touchy, Touchy- I am easily hurt by everyone at any moment. Can you all walk on eggshells please?

6.Mr. Perfect- I can never ever apologize, because I have very little insight, a big ego, and I prefer to blame others rather than look at my part in any situation.

7.The Bully- And for my next act, I think I will intimidate everyone else here for the holiday, because I like to run the show.

8.Miss Fussy-Is there butter in that? I can't eat butter! Can't we have some other kind of vegetable? I don't do peas.

9.Scrooge- I can't possibly contribute anything to this gathering. I hate holidays and get-togethers. Bah Humbug. Can't wait until it's over, and I can crawl back in my hole.

10.Misbehaving- Don't mind me, I'll just be here telling inappropriate and off-color jokes.

We could go on and on, but you get the idea. It is helpful to identify the challenging people in your life, and rehearse a strategy for coping with them. First,
anticipate the contact. Make a plan. Can you manage the contact in some way that you keep it light, use humor to diffuse the difficult person, or put space between you? I have often encouraged my patients, over the years, to rechoreograph gatherings with difficult family members in a new way. Can you meet at a restaurant, so noone does dishes, and you can leave and not feel trapped? Can you go for a walk before or after the meal? Can you organize a card game or board game that will redirect the conversation in a lighter direction? Can you organize an activity or outing that gives everyone something else to focus on?

Perhaps your difficult person is at work, or is your spouse. Don't give up your personal power. The size of our character is determined by the size of the things that upset us. See if you can find ways to step away from someone who is frothing at the mouth with toxic content. Keep a sense of humor. Acknowledge their point and change your focus to someone else. Seat yourself next to people you enjoy at get-togethers. Shift the placecards if needed.(I give you permission.) Move about to find someone who makes you laugh or lifts you up! Smile and step away from toxic people, knowing that prolonged exposure will bring you down.

When necessary, set your own boundaries. We are each responsible for training other people how we want to be treated. We are allowed to not answer some questions, not share everything, not feel close or safe with some people. You can be nice and move along. Seek out YOUR people.

Have realistic expectations for the difficult people in your life. Preplan options for handling expected bad behavior, and keeping your own sanity and grace. I always like having choices, because it takes you out of a childlike or helpless role and makes you an active participant about how you wish to deal with toxic people and behaviors. You will feel proud of yourself for not letting the bad guys win.

Creating A Conscious Holiday Season

If Halloween stores have popped up all over, then the rest of the holidays can't be far behind! Time to begin rethinking Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years. Check your gut reaction to thinking about the holidays approaching. Do you feel dread? Overwhelmed? Tired? Time for a proactive first strike.

Time to think outside of the box about the holidays. Make a list of all the things you normally do to prepare or celebrate a holiday. Next, mark off things that you do out of tradition, or routine, but don't enjoy doing. Poll the members of your family about who really cares about what, and what each person really finds meaningful or enjoyable. Think creatively about what will work for your family NOW. For this reason, sending holiday cards has fallen off many people's list of holiday to do's, but going to church together or decorating the tree may be really important. Lots of holiday baking may not make sense when we are all watching our cholesterol, but watching "It's a wonderful life" as a family, or bundling up to see the December Newport Beach boat parade may really get you in the spirit.

Spreading tasks out, starting with the things that can be done earlier, can help reduce the stress. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Get everyone involved. If you lower your standards enough, your children can help with gift wrapping.(Just buy lots of tape!)I personally love Christmas trees that have been decorated by the children of the house. You can tell because all the ornaments are at their height or lower! Children and teens can feel proud of baking a favorite family dessert for the holiday, with a little help from you. Hold a family meeting with you, your partner, and the rest of the family, to see who can help with what tasks. This will help everyone sharing the joy of bringing the holidays home, rather than being something else mom organizes late at night instead of sleeping. Each person will enjoy it more if they invest in creating the holiday.

Don't be a perfectionist about the holiday season. You being relaxed and in a good mood is probably the most important thing. Rumor has it Martha Stewart has help, anyway. When there have been big changes in the family this year, and you are now a single parent, or newly divorced, or the family is coping with a seriously ill family member, it is time to rethink what makes sense in your changing situation. Consider a gathering where eveyone brings a dish to share, or you bring food in, or meet out someplace fun for a festive meal instead of a big ordeal. Don't hog all the 'fun' for yourself!

Now is the time to begin the conversation with the people closest to you about the upcoming holiday season. Empower yourself to think creatively. Imagine YOU enjoying the holidays, feeling relaxed, not overspending or overdoing. This could be fun. You are the choreographer of your best holiday season possible. Think consciously about your holidays, and pass it on! Don't be a holiday victim; speak up and shape the holiday you are needing this year.You can be a holday role model for others! 'Tis the season to engage your options and create some new traditions. I'm thinking pizza is red and green!