When You Don’t feel OK at “the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

by Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT

 

A Mixed (Gift) Bag

While the holidays can be a time for joy, connection, inspiration and delight, they can also be a time fraught with despair, loneliness, discouragement and compounded losses.  To truly prioritize mental and emotional health in our lives and communities, we must acknowledge both realities. If you find yourself feeling burdened with difficult emotions this holiday season, you are certainly not alone.

 

Merry, Bright, and Burdened

Sometimes our self-imposed holiday expectations can accentuate when we are feeling less than: merry, magnanimous, productive, content, excited, bustling, prepared, delighted.  Just because the holiday season appears like clockwork each year doesn’t mean our lived reality will synchronize effortlessly into a Hallmark-worthy “happy holiday”.  Even the spiritual meaning many of us hold and celebrate around the holidays, or “holy days”, does not preclude the difficult emotions that many face in difficult life seasons. In fact, most spiritual practices offer hope and comfort in suffering, and welcome the light in times of darkness. The holidays can encompass for us both joy and light, but also suffering and struggle. Perhaps both realities can exist together, if we let them. This is where hope is born.

Navigating Holiday Expectations

There’s nothing more lonely than feeling “outside” or “apart from”, especially when we compare  ourselves with others.  And feeling down during the holidays can highlight the loneliness we may feel if this collective holiday season doesn’t feel even remotely like the happiest time in our lives.  What holiday commercialism rarely portrays is the Both/And tension that is true to the core of real life.  We can be grieving the loss of a relationship or the death of an important person in our lives, and still feel like making cookies for neighbors, or hearing Christmas music.  Likewise, we can appreciate that there are holidays happening that we want to be a part of- but find that we somehow can’t muster the strength to participate in any “normal” ways, like we might have done in the past. The “most wonderful time of the year” may paradoxically feel like the hardest time in our lives. What then?

Real Life and Tinsel

It’s important to be honest about limitations you may face during the holidays. Especially when the emphasis is on more/better/brighter and increased joy and productivity.

As real as tinsel and Christmas Eve and bright, shining lights. As real as a quiet hearth, or missing people at the holiday feast table or wanting to stay in bed and avoid that looming social gathering. You can opt out of holiday obligations if your heart isn’t in them. Give yourself a chance to breathe. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and even New Years will go on, regardless. Our hardships, however, don’t stop for the holidays.

The Gift of Self-Care

So while we navigate our lives against the backdrop of holiday festivity, make space to stop and ask yourself what you really need this holiday season.  Concentrate on what will be most important to help get you through this time. Simplify routines or expectations of yourself or others, if needed. Reach out for support. Slow down and cue into spiritual or relational resources you are needing in this time. And above all, give yourself permission to be wherever you find yourself this season -whether utterly jolly or the  farthest thing from it. Being honest as you show up for the holidays gives others the permission to do the same. Your healthy, attuned self-awareness  and self-care may be the greatest gifts you can give yourself– and even your loved ones– this year. 

Awareness Appetizers

• Decide which traditions are most meaningful to you this season
• Simplify gift-giving and social engagements
• Give yourself permission to cancel or limit social plans if needed
• Communicate to friends and family that you are needing to simplify and focus on self-care this year
• Find what traditions/rituals bring hope and encouragement, and incorporate them into your holiday season
• Don’t let obligations or “shoulds” delegate how you spend your time or energy, at your own expense
• Seek out social support from those who encourage you
• Acknowledge that just showing up for your life may be giving your best effort at this time