Holiday Coping Tips

The holiday season can be hard for many of us. As every barista, grocer teller and passerby chirps “happy holidays” with a well-meaning smile, a little part of you might wince or cringe. The holidays can be a time of great loneliness and sorrow for some, and for others the holidays might bring challenging if not unbearable encounters with our families. It can be really isolating to feel like the only scrooge on the block.

Here are 3 coping tips for getting through the holiday season:

1. You are not alone

If the holidays are challenging for you for any reason, know first and foremost that you are not alone. Whether you are estranged from family intentionally or tragically; whether you are alone on the holidays or feel isolated with your struggles: you are not the only one. At all times of the year, but especially over the holiday season, it can feel like you are the only one going through what you are going through. Shame, and stigma contribute to this, and over the holidays there seems to be a bothersome expectation that we be happy and cheerful, when we may feel anything but, and for valid reasons.

Chances are, if you dig beneath the surface of appearances, you may have someone in your circle who is feeling exactly the same way as you are. Especially as we celebrate the second holidays season in a pandemic, there are more people struggling than not. Even if you have a small social circle, and honestly feel you can’t name anyone else who may relate, even just knowing you are not alone can soften the shame and bring some relief. As therapists you can take our word for it: there are millions of people who are struggling, and persevering, just like you. You are not “bad” or “wrong” for struggling right now, for not liking the holiday season, and you are not alone in this.

2. This too shall pass

I am someone who has always struggled with the holidays. The holidays are replete with painful memories of absences, emotional cut offs, expected and unexpected fights, disappointments, isolation, and other themes of family dysfunction.

Though some of these struggles surely persisted the rest of the year, there is often a magnifying glass held up over the holidays. When that’s combined with pressure from the media to be ‘one happy family’, and social comparison against those who have it better, we can end up feeling a lot of sadness and shame. It can be relieving to remember that the winter holidays last only a very short time of the 365 days of the year. Know that this too shall pass, and often it will pass all too quickly!

Despite all the challenges I have had with the holidays, I’ve often felt a twinge of sadness when they were over, even when they were hard, because there is often still something worth salvaging amidst the struggle that was unappreciated at the time when I focused only on what was dysfunctional. This brings me to the next tip:

3. Gratitude

No matter how hard the holidays are, there is always something to be grateful for. Being grateful for the small things can lift our spirits, especially in hard times. If you don’t take my word for it, I can assure you that the clinical research shows that gratitude can lift our mood, improve our mental health and overall well-being.

It’s important to say that gratitude is not spiritual bypassing, which means dismissing struggle or trauma under a cloying gloss of everything is love and light. Gratitude is looking at the whole scope of our experience, and being grateful for the diamonds in the rough. Whether that’s a home cooked piece of banana bread we have at an otherwise irritating family function, or the joy we get playing with a young niece while we ‘hide’ from the family members who annoy us, or curling up in bed alone and watching a movie that has nothing to do with the holidays, or being grateful for our access to heat, clean water and a bed: gratitude can shift our state of being and bring balance to our evaluation of our experiences.

Try it: for every day of this holiday season until the new year, name 10 things you are grateful for every night before bed, or first thing in the morning. I assure you that you will notice for yourself how this lifts your spirits even ever so slightly.

If you are struggling over the holidays and feel you need extra support, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we can connect you with one of our skilled and compassionate counsellors.