Whether you celebrate or not, the holiday season can be stressful for many reasons. From difficult emotions like sadness, anger or resentment that show up or don't show up anywhere, to the pressure to perfect everything for everyone, there are a lot of possibilities for emotional burnout.
I am no stranger to painful emotions reappearing around this time of the year. Christmas made me feel lonely and guilty for years after I moved across the country and broke up with my family and friends.
The move was a deliberate decision that my husband and I made shortly after we got married. We weren't strangers to uproot our lives – we left most of our families, friends, and even parts of us who moved to America a decade ago. But that's one thing you have to do when you are single and another when you are growing up as a new family and your parents and siblings are not helping you build a life.
One of the unintended consequences that we had not considered was that we were not with our families during the holidays, birthdays, and other important moments in our lives. Once we had children, it was often impossible to travel home, and however hard we tried to make the best of it, the vacation underpinned sadness, isolation, and depression.
The most painful thing for me was that our children had no grandparents, aunts or cousins for most of the year – and this pain intensified during the holidays.
Especially in the early years I felt enormously guilty for taking away the feeling of community and family support from my children. The sadness was often debilitating. I tried to give my babies a happy face, but inside I was often lonely and depressed.
I also had to face the growing feeling of abandonment that I felt every time my family could not or did not want to spend the vacation with us. For many years I didn't feel supported, unimportant and unloved. This only brought my childhood experiences of feeling neglected and invisible to the surface. Eventually I realized I had to move my past to heal as I experience the present.
Over the years I have learned to withdraw from my pain and to look at it differently. My perspective slowly changed as I learned to set healthier boundaries, have more realistic goals and expectations, resolve my previous trauma, seek support, and take care of my own needs. Mindfulness and willingness to work made everything possible.
1. Practice mindfulness.
When things get tough, we have to try to accept and allow what is happening right now – that is the essence of mindfulness. Blinders away, we can learn to watch what happened and ride the wave of our feelings around that.
This is difficult work, so we tend to avoid it. We run the other way. We bury her at work, get a drink to take the edge off, or turn on our TV to distract her. We pretend we're fine and we prevail and think we've outwitted our feelings. But the pain is still there, lingering, festering, and ready to explode at the worst possible moment.
It is important to practice mindfulness and learn to watch our thoughts and feelings in less turbulent times when things are relatively simple. Then, when we build our mindfulness muscles, we can practice bringing them to harder moments.
Don't be afraid to feel your feelings – the more you defend yourself, the stronger they become. If you are slightly overwhelmed, plan ahead. Plan time to feel bad, rage, cry, talk to someone, keep a diary. Do it in a safe place and best with the support of a friend or a professional.
The goal is to feel all the emotions you hold on to and relieve this pressure carefully so that it doesn't come out inappropriate (or misguided) at the holiday table.
2. Confirm your feelings.
Allowing, accepting and validating your feelings is of crucial importance for emotional well-being. No matter whether it is guilt, anger or grief, they have their place and are all valid. Neither good nor bad, our feelings are ambassadors – they inform us as we live our lives. And we have to listen.
Growing up in a debilitating environment was my weakest link. My feelings were never accepted and I was often threatened to stop showing them or had problems. It was incredibly debilitating when no one said, "I understand." Instead, my emotional statements were met with contempt, anger, and punishment. I learned to bury my feelings and to detach myself from my emotional self.
As an adult, I was constantly looking for others to validate myself. It was frustrating and often made me reject, lonely and insecure. Finally, I learned to listen to my feelings and to acknowledge that it was okay to feel the way I felt, that I had the right to feel that way, and that it made perfect sense to feel the way I did gave what happened. I've learned to just let my feelings go.
Let yourself feel and hear what the feeling tries to tell you. You may need to apologize and repair a lost connection (fault). Maybe it's time to draw new boundaries, restore balance, or protect your mental or physical well-being (anger). You may have to accept that an important relationship has failed and continue (grief).
Our feelings are there to guide us and help us make the most informed decisions. The better we listen, the faster we learn and recover.
3. Practice self-compassion and body-mind self-care.
We tend to go back to our pre-programmed patterns and behaviors around our nuclear family, replay our childhood roles, and fall into habits that we thought we had broken down a long time ago. Don't get ready when this happens – it's natural and your awareness of it is the first step to change it. And we can start for the first time by practicing self-pity and taking care of our needs.
My programming was that of the perfect daughter / wife / mother who, to my own detriment, leaned back to take care of everyone's needs. I have neglected my own physical and emotional needs. I planned sophisticated menus, invited friends without obligation and tried to do everything for everyone: cheerful, helpful, supportive, patient and giving forever, and said "yes" to everyone except me. It was physically and emotionally demanding.
Through reflection, and a lot of journaling, I realized I was on the road to self-destruction. My hyperfunction hurt me both physically and emotionally and I had to do something else. The only thing that made a big difference was learning to put myself first and setting healthy boundaries in my relationships with others.
It is nice to have a giving personality and to be there for others, but if we do this to our own disadvantage, everyone will suffer. Neglecting yourself is not a virtue. Everyone is responsible for their own feelings and needs – you cannot do this work for others. Your job is to take care of yourself, body, mind and heart. If you fill your own tank, you can be there for others, but not before.
Don't neglect yourself. Take a long, soothing bath or shower, go for a walk with your dog, eat a high-protein breakfast, spend time in solitude, bake your favorite cookies, reconnect with yourself through diary and meditation, practice Gratitude and learn to say "no" support, take a nap. Pay attention to what you need and respond with love and care.
And if you stumble, love yourself. If you make mistakes, talk too much, get involved in a family drama, get lost – then it is really important to love you anyway. Love your shadows and imperfections when you think that they once helped you survive. Over time, you will transform them into strength, change, and growth.
4. Increase your resilience.
You are challenged during the holidays, that goes without saying. Trust that you are strong enough to ride the waves of emotions carefully. This change of perspective enables you to make better decisions in difficult situations.
Before I built my resilience toolbox, I responded emotionally to simple things like nasty comments, controversial children, or people who came too late simply because I was stressful (a lot of them self-imposed).
Carefully I learned to take a break between the trigger and the reaction. I watched my body tense, my heart started racing and negative thoughts came in. And I took a deep breath, watched how it changed and finally passed. If it didn't happen, I would do something about the situation and take it back like a walk. Or I would ask myself: "What do I need right now?" And gave it to me. Then I could come back and react, usually from a much quieter and supportive place.
Decide to be kind to yourself when you fight. Learn some coping strategies that you can use in times of need: hug yourself if you want to fall apart, take five extra breaths to restore your nervous system, go outside to get some fresh air, put on your headphones and play your favorite song for resilience aloud (mine is "unstoppable" by Sia).
There are many things you can do to calm your nervous system and strengthen your resistance. Practices that help you explore, sort, and process your emotions. Yoga, journaling, long walks, five minutes of quiet sitting or dancing every day are beneficial.
It's about paying attention to your inner world, recognizing when you're fighting, and giving yourself what you need to relax.
5. Avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms.
There are always temptations – food, alcohol, Netflix binge watching, social media scrolling, Christmas shopping, etc. These are perfectly fine in moderation and are often practical as a short-term change of pace.
But we have to consider when we try to distract ourselves and numb to escape because it only prolongs our suffering and delays the healing process. When we are deaf, we avoid vulnerability — the core of meaningful human experience — and we never solve and move about our problems. Engage consciously in your life, be open and accept what is. No more escaping. Trust that you are strong enough to go through the pain and get to the other side.
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I used to have the feeling that I somehow had to get through the holidays. I have perfected and over-functionalized to counteract the inner feelings of lack, guilt and abandonment.
It was most difficult when I was a young mother, did not have sufficient support and had unresolved feelings since childhood that were triggered without my awareness. Nowadays, holidays are a mixture of joy and sadness, appreciation and letting go, and I'm not easily overwhelmed by all of this.
I now concentrate on growth and health, build up my own family traditions, have good memories and enjoy the moment. I no longer wallow in self-pity and feel like a victim of circumstances, and I no longer allow negative thoughts and feelings to dominate my head and heart. I stay vigilant and when I stumble I remember that although I am imperfect, I am enough.
About Joanna Ciolek
Joanna Ciolek is a self-taught artist who regains self-criticism and advocacy for mindfulness. If you feel stuck, burned out, or unfulfilled, sign up for The Mindfulness Journal and rediscover your inner voice, self-love, and acceptance. For deeper self-reflection and healing work, get The Art Of Untangling, a prompt-based diary that will help you overcome your struggles and change your life. Follow Joanna on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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