Maintaining Joy Over The Holidays
The holiday season can be a beautiful buffet of family gatherings, gift giving and nourishing conversations for some, but for others, it can be a time that triggers feelings of loneliness and anxiety. For so many, the holidays are just something to ‘get through,’ an obligation or reminder of the lack of celebration, support and love you receive from your family.
I think we all have an image of what Christmas or our holidays are ‘supposed’ to look and feel like. In reality, it can punctuate our loneliness, isolation, or family issues. Of course, the pandemic has only kept us further apart from our loved ones, making it difficult to travel or meet in big groups to be physically in the same room with our support system.
It can be unsettling and confusing to be feeling sadness, regret or abandonment during a time that is intended for us to be happy, joyful and content.
Maybe it’s failed expectations, maybe it’s family difficulties or general anxieties, or maybe it’s feeling like “I am not enough.”
If this resonates with you, here are a few points on how to create joy for yourself during the holiday season.
Connect and reach out to people in your community with whom you feel safe and comfortable. Sometimes our immediate and extended family are not those people, and that’s okay.
If your family dynamic is very stressful, try to create self-care breaks, before, during and after you spend time with your family. Go for a walk, find a quiet place to settle your own nervous system, find a spot to breathe and meditate. It’s important to set boundaries with respect to the time you spend together.
Set healthy boundaries ahead of time. Express your boundaries when it comes to your time and space, and be clear about your needs and expectations. As Terry Real, PhD., says, healthy communication is the cherishing of the other while cherishing ourselves. Remember, healthy boundaries are an act of love for yourself and others.
Define for yourself what joy means to you, and follow your joy! Sometimes this means limiting your time with certain people or not spending time with them at all. You are worthy of love and happiness and don’t require any external validation to do what you feel is best for your mental and physical health.
Set realistic expectations for the holidays. It may not look, feel or be what you want, but accepting what it is can bring more peace and balance to the family dynamic and peace and acceptance within yourself.
Seek help to heal childhood trauma. We cannot change what has happened to us, but we can go back and look at it together to make sense of it. As Daniel Siegel says in, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (2010), “Making sense is a source of strength and resilience… making sense is essential to our well-being and happiness.”
Interested in exploring and healing the relationship you have with yourself and others? I work with individual adult clients in Edmonton who are open to growth, guidance and positive change. My specialty is adult individual counselling and psychological healing through therapeutic approaches such as Attachment Theories, Parts Work, Trauma Theories and mindfulness. I have personally seen these modalities help my patients with family dynamics and childhood trauma.
