Dr. Don Wood explains why holidays trigger depression for some people: financial stress and unrealistic expectations shaped by glamorized memories. He recommends accepting smaller moments of joy and adjusting what you think the season should look like.
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Hi, it's Dr. Don Wood with the Inspired Performance Institute. During this holiday season, I just wanted to share some thoughts about how maybe you're experiencing this time of year. What I have found is we generally have two categories. People who just love this time of year get great joy out of it, and that's fantastic, and we're so happy for you. However, there's other people that do not get that kind of joy. In fact, actually becomes a time when where they actually feel down and feel maybe even depressed. Even at some point, some people get suicidal. So you're probably wondering, how could that be possible? Maybe they've got everything. They've got the nice house, they've got the presents, they've got everything, but they're still feeling like that. Or maybe they don't have any money and they're really struggling. They can't buy presents for their children. Well, that's an obvious reason why maybe they would feel down. But there's another reason why we sometimes get down and get depressed. And that's because we put expectations on how we're supposed to feel. So I know for me, as an example, I had an amazing childhood. I had great parents. We always had presents. And even though my parents may have been struggling, they certainly didn't show it to us. And so every family struggles at times, so it was always good times. So I tended to see Christmas as a very positive period in my life. Now, if you had experienced a completely different holiday season than I was experiencing, and then you have your own children, you may be feeling like, why can't I reach that? Why does everybody else have that? And so those expectations tend to. We glamour shot those events in our lives. For example, in the summer, we may glamour shot. You know, summer was the best time of my life. I had the most fun during summer yet. There may have been a lot of times during that summer that you were just sitting around doing nothing, maybe very bored. But we tend to remember those highlights, and that's great. And so when we compare those highlights to where we are now, you can see why maybe you would feel down. So the key is to really take the situation that you're in and feel the joy that you can understand that not every single moment of your life is. Has to be that glamour shot. It doesn't have to be like it is on TV to feel that joy. So we understand if you're feeling like that, there's a reason why you're feeling like that. And really, that's something that we can really help with. So you may want to check out what we're doing at the Inspired Performance Institute, and we look forward to either way. We hope you have a great holiday season.
