BEAT HOLIDAY STRESS BEFORE IT STARTS // 4 tips to manage anxiety about the holidays

Foreign what's going on? Welcome back to my channel. Even if the holidays are not your thing, it doesn't mean that it has to be like that forever. There are things that you can do to put yourself in the best position possible to handle, maybe the downs of the season or the family drama that unfortunately might come up. So we want to be able to help you put yourself in the best position possible to handle whatever comes your way, maybe even enjoy a little bit of the magic of the season, but also at least not make it as bad as the year before. So it's all about setting boundaries, putting yourself in the best position possible to handle whatever comes your way, and make sure that no matter what is going on, you do your best to put yourself first. First, the first thing you have to remember is that you have to be realistic. If creating some magical winter wonderland holiday season is not your thing, don't expect yourself to do that. Your house doesn't have to look like it's come from a page of a magazine or make everything look like Pinterest or create this amazing scene and atmosphere. Whatever the case may be. I hear it all in my office. But be realistic based on even your creativity skills, but just what you're capable of doing emotionally and physically. You don't have to create some crazy magical thing. If that's out of your realm of honestly being able to do that. Just enjoying the holiday season is enough. If it's always been a struggle before, you don't have to do something that's entirely unrealistic based on where you are, your personality, your skill, or even the amount of money that you have. Because when we are unrealistic and we try to do things that are out of our realm of capabilities or abilities or what we're able to do physically and emotionally, we end up just being over it. It creates more stress and it might even leave you broke. So just be realistic and rethink the things that you're trying to do. It's nice to go above and beyond. It's nice to try and make your loved one's happy. But if it's causing you more stress than it's worth, rethink how realistic you're being based on where you're at and what you need. This season. A second big piece of this is have fun. I know that sounds crazy, but so many times I'm having conversations in my office with my clients, and they're not having fun. They're. They're so worried about all the food they have to cook or the presents they have to buy or the parties that they think they have to attend or they've over committed and they don't take a Saturday afternoon and pack up the kids with thermoses of hot chocolate and go look at Christmas lights. They miss the magical moments or being able to just be mindful throughout the day and the whole season becomes a blur. All of the holidays you turn into this misery because they're not able to be mindful. They're not aware of what's going on and they're so worried about pleasing everybody else and we'll get there, but they can't even allow themselves to have fun or they forget to have fun. So what is it about the holidays that you love or don't love? Are you over committing? Are you doing things that sucking the life out of your ability to have fun? I know again, it sounds super crazy and super simple, but a lot of times this happens. We're so wrapped up in everything that comes with the season that we forget to have fun. The third thing that tends to be a big game changer when it comes to preparing yourself for the holidays is to make sure you do what's best for you. And if you're anticipating things like family gatherings, sometimes even changing the date of things if possible, can take the stress off. Because we're associating so much stress with December 24th or December 25th, or we always get together two days after Christmas or you're trying to run around like crazy and pack it all in, but maybe if you did something in November, it would take the stress off you. My family, we changed part of our holiday season to early November because traveling from Christmas to New Year's, when we all used to be able to do that, was just becoming too much to manage and figure out and navigate. So we were able to move some things and honestly nobody cared. As long as we're all together, we don't care. When we get together. Yeah, there's other people involved and you have to take a other people's needs into consideration. But your needs matter too. You have to do what's best for you. If you're in this constant anticipation of family gatherings and dates and you're struggling with maybe the association of dates and past stress, talk to your family or your friends or whatever's going on, whoever you're getting together with, and tell them where you're at and tell them what you need. Nine times out of 10 when I've talked with clients about working through this, the other people in their lives come back with A. Oh, I totally understand. Let's figure something else out, because we don't want you to not be involved at all. People are generally willing to work with us in our needs. We just think that we're going to throw a wrench into everything and everybody's going to hate us and nobody's going to want us there. And, and that's usually not the case. So you don't have to focus on just pleasing everybody else all the time. And quite frankly, if you do that, you're going to end up resenting those relationships. You're not going to have fun. You're not going to be able to enjoy what you're trying to do, to prepare yourself to enjoy. So speaking up for your needs and doing what's best for you is really important when possible. So speak up for yourself. Advocate for yourself. If you have a partner or friends or your family, whoever is involved, talk with them about where you're at. And again, most people are going to work with you. They're not going to say, oh, you can't get together December 26th, forget it. We're not having the holidays together. Hopefully people will be understanding, but you have to advocate for yourself. So if you're having all kinds of misery through the holiday season and you're anticipating all these gatherings and you're dreading it, what do you have to lose by speaking up for yourself and trying to do what's best for you and. Or your family and doing what you need to preserve your sanity and actually enjoy the season? And the last big piece of encouragement that I have for you when it comes to preparing for the holidays is figure out where your boundaries are. We know, based on past history of holidays, how things go at the dinner table, how things look at family gatherings or parties or work parties. If you need this, text people ahead of time and say, look, I. I don't want to talk about the divorce this year. Please respect that. And if you don't, I'm going to need to leave or I'm going to need to remove myself from the conversation. That's okay. Set those boundaries. Nothing is more awkward than sitting at a party or at a dinner table and everybody else is able to just say what they want and speak how they want, and you're sitting there biting your tongue. And because you're afraid to set boundaries and speak up for yourself, it sucks. It's a miserable feeling, and it's not going to add to the fun of your holidays, and it's going to take away from any magic that you're trying to create. So know your boundaries. Know again what you're able to tolerate. If you're going through something, speak up for yourself ahead of time. Send an email, send a message, ask your spouse or somebody who you're really close to at that gathering that if this topic comes up to encourage other people to change the subject. If you don't feel like speaking up, get people on your side. Very seldom is it gonna happen where you're in a conversation and somebody brings up something that you don't want to talk about or you're not comfortable with and you say, look, I would respect it if we just don't talk about that right now. Very seldom is somebody going to be like, well, that's too bad, we're talking about it anyway. Right? You might have family and, or friends that are like that, but then it's up to you to really evaluate those relationships and figure out how to navigate those situations. But more often than not, people will back off. They might be a little taken aback because if you've never spoken up for yourself or set boundaries, it might be like a whoa, where did this come from? But there's no better time to start speaking, speaking up for yourself then, now, then as soon as you can. So set those boundaries, have a plan in place. Know what you need. Look at the things maybe in the past that have caused you some stress or what you're going through now that you're like, oh, I really hope XYZ doesn't come up at the dinner table. Figure out what might cause a little bit of stress for you or what's caused stress in the past, or reach out to people, get people on your side, have a plan, set those boundaries, and then reinforce them. And with boundaries, you do not have to tolerate being disrespected. So you're always going to get what you tolerate. If the situation is miserable and you don't set boundaries, people are going to talk about whatever they want to talk about. And if that's you and your life, you're just going to be sitting there taking it because you haven't told them otherwise. You haven't told them, look, I really don't want to talk about this. That's a very clear boundary. It's respectful. And if they don't like it, why should you have to suffer when everybody else gets to talk about and do whatever they want? So speak up for yourself. Come up with a plan. Figure out what your expectations are and set those boundaries so that you can enjoy the holiday season and not be miserable and at the dinner table or maybe at that family party or at that gathering that always brings so much stress. Preparing for the holidays isn't just about buying gifts, decorating a tree, putting candles out, making your house look like it's, you know, stepped out of the COVID of a magazine, whatever it is. It's about preparing yourself emotionally for making sure that you're ready to handle, maybe whatever stress might come your way, but also head off any stress that has already happened that you've maybe not set boundaries around. If the holidays have caused some stress or anxiety or struggle in the past, they don't always have to look like that. These suggestions might not make it 100% better, but if you focus on you, you make yourself a priority, you set boundaries, you do what's best for you, and you speak up for yourself, it's bound to make it at least a little bit better for yourself. So if the holidays are a struggle or you're already anticipating them, thinking about all the things you have to do, all the things you have to buy, the things you have to cook, the parties you have to go to, stop over committing, do what you need to do, take care of yourself. And again, it's worth giving all of this a shot so that you can at least enjoy the holidays just a little more than maybe you did last year.