Coping Through the Holidays

This blog explores some hard topics related to family relationships. It may bring up some difficult feelings. It also offers hope and strategies in coping with the holidays, and the difficult feelings that may come up. Trust your wisdom to know if this is something for you right now.

In the best of times, the holiday season can already be filled with an array of complex emotions. Throw in a global pandemic and many more will unfortunately be in for a very challenging holiday season. For every child falling asleep on Christmas eve, anxiously anticipating what Santa will bring them the next morning, buzzing with joy and hope, there is a child that is hiding, frozen in their room, protecting themselves from the sound of their parents fighting in the kitchen downstairs, desperately hoping that when they wake up in the morning, there will be calm, peace, no fighting, for once.

For every reconnection of a parent and child, after months, or even years of estrangement, beginning to repair the hurts of the past and move forward in a new direction, there is someone carrying the grief, the hurt, the pain of their childhood trauma, doing what they need to do to set firm boundaries with those who hurt them, knowing things will never be what they want them to be. There are many, many more experiences all the way in between what has just been described, and navigating these relationships is incredibly difficult.

I don’t say these things in any way to discount the joy, happiness, and connection that the holidays can bring. I say these things to acknowledge the deep diversity of experiences that exist within our humanity. Both the pain and the joy. The elation and the suffering. And as much as a space needs to be made to celebrate the good, a space needs to be made to acknowledge the hardships that come with this season as well.

The holidays can trigger intense hurt from our past. Many individuals carry the pain of very difficult childhoods, parents who were unable to show or give the love that was needed. As these children become adults, they begin to navigate how to heal these hurts, how to maintain, or not maintain, these parent child relationships. I want to stress that THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL approach to healing from wounds of our childhood in adult life. Sometimes maintaining these relationships, despite the hardships and struggle, is what is needed. Sometimes, cutting one's self off from these relationships is the best thing for them. AND, just because what works for us now, does not mean this will always be what we need. What is needed to heal can change over time. Family relationships are complex.

I hope this blog can help you know that you are not alone in these difficulties. The experience of having a parent struggling with alcohol abuse and the impacts that can have on children is unfortunately all too common. This is just one example. If you are struggling with these wounds, know that you are not alone. Of course that will not make the pain go away, but perhaps it can help to make it bearable. Think about the others that may be reading this, that may resonate with how you feel, that may understand what it’s like to carry the grief, the feelings of unworthiness, unlovability, and disconnection from those who were supposed to offer just the opposite. Perhaps just take a moment to pause, and to send your compassionate energy to them. Sending a message of love and acceptance. Notice what that feels like for you to send out to these fellow humans. Now, see if you can extend that same energy to yourself. It may be harder, it may not be something you’re used to, but you deserve it. You do. Just let that simmer, and notice how you feel. Extending this compassion to self and others reminds us of our common humanity. To continue this experience, consider following this link: a meditation on the commonality of suffering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12pKAKoK4eM&t=1s

For the next part of this blog, I’d like to expand on ways to cope with the difficult emotions that may come up this holiday season. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but consider using it as a starting point, or adding to what you already know.

Here are some other ways of wading through these complex feelings in the holidays season. I am going to break into 2 categories: 1. Emotional processing. 2. Shifting attention and direction.

1. Emotional processing means creating space for us to feel what we need to feel. To begin to take the lid off the jar of emotions we have been tightly sealing. To let ourselves be sad without judgement. To let ourselves be angry without judgement. Even to let yourself judge yourself...without judgement. Here are some ways of doing this this holiday season:

-Journalling: Name the feelings that you feel. If you name it you can tame it. Putting the thoughts and feelings that are in our mind on paper can be a huge step towards calming the chaos inside. Note the language you use. Shifting from "I am sad" to "I am feeling sad" can in and of itself create some distance from the feeling, help us interact with it ore easily. After having written what you feel, what’s going through your mind, write a second entry. This time, write this letter in response to what you just wrote. What would you want to say to yourself? How might you respond, if you were responding to a compassionate friend? What would they want to hear?

-Talk to a friend. Holding feelings inside can be incredibly difficult when we do it all on our own. Having the space of a compassionate friend can somehow incredibly lighten this load.

-Meditate. There are a number of types of meditation. Meditation allows us to learn to experience our difficult emotions, to learn to not be as afraid of them, to move from “I am overwhelmed” to “I am feeling overwhelmed, in this moment in time”. Here is just one app that you may consider exploring: https://wakingup.com/

2. Shifting attention and direction. Sometimes, the emotions are just so big that it can be too much to sit in at that moment. This is when I often use the analogy of a water tap. Emotional processing is slowly letting out the water (emotions) but sometimes we need to close it to not feel so overwhelmed. When we do this, it’s important to tell the part of ourself that is feeling overwhelmed that we will be back to give it space and love. Here are some strategies:

-Gratitude practice: What do you have to be grateful for? Get specific, it doesn’t need to be big. Look around you. In this space right now I can name 5 things: I am grateful to have the ability to write and share my thoughts with you in the hope it may help. I am grateful to be able to look out a window from the comfort of my desk. I am grateful for the peace that comes with sipping my morning coffee. I am grateful that I can open youtube and throw on virtually any song that I want as I write. I am grateful that I do not need to worry about where my next meal will come from. I am grateful for rest over the holidays.

-Do something that brings you a sense of accomplishment: wash some dishes, fold some clothes (note to self, I know what I’ll be doing after this), go for a walk, listen to a podcast, whatever it is, doesn’t need to be big, in fact, start small, those small steps are what creates the momentum for even bigger shifts.

-Exercise: Unfortunately, this is not possible for everyone, both due to Covid, and not everyone is able bodied. However, even with these limitations, ask yourself, what can I do to get my heart rate going? Maybe it’s a walk, maybe it’s running up and down the stairs. Maybe, if these things aren’t possible, it’s doing what we call “progressive muscle relaxation”. This exercise involves tensing the various areas of our body for 5-10 seconds at a time, and then relaxing them. Although not quite the same as exercising, this does work out our muscles in a similar way to weight training, and can bring a sense of calm and comfort. https://citycentrehealthcare.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Progressive-Muscle-Relaxation.pdf

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and I want to emphasize that the goal here is not to completely alleviate yourself of suffering. If there are wounds that you have, they will be painful sometimes. I hope that these thoughts can help you bear these difficult emotions in a new way, so they do not overwhelm. I hope they can provide some reprieve, as you navigate both the difficulties, and the joys, of this holiday season.

Sending compassion to all this holiday season.

Dan

Therapy: How the heck does it work?!

How does one change? This is a key question psychologists, therapists, philosophers, and many others have pondered and sought different answers to over the years. For the pioneer of the field of therapy, Sigmund Freud, the idea was that insight alone can lead to healing. Freud believed through exploration of the past, dream analysis and unearthing the unconscious, that naturally, change in emotions, behaviours and thoughts, would follow.

Behaviourists believed (if you haven’t guessed already) that focussing on behaviour change was more important than continuously learning about one's self and their past. This led to therapies that focussed on identifying target behaviours of change, and using different methods such as exposure therapy, behavioural activation and reinforcement/reward scheduling.

Cognitive theorists believed that one's problems in psychotherapy could not be alleviated through insight or behaviour change alone, but through changes in thinking. Aaron Beck was a pioneer of this model (later the Cognitivists and Behaviourists joined forces to bring CBT to the forefront). This therapy focusses on identifying, analyzing and re-shaping the negative thoughts, assumptions and conclusions that we have drawn about ourselves and our life.

All of these mechanisms certainly play some role in the therapeutic process, however, the most consistent finding of research has been the role of the therapeutic relationship. Do you feel heard? Do you feel like your therapist cares? Do you feel you are working towards some concrete goals? Do you feel safe? (If you're answering no to these questions, time to find another therapist). The answers to all of these questions, it turns out, seems to be one of, if not the, best predictors of positive outcomes in therapy.

That being said, therapy shouldn’t last forever, and so how can this safety, this feeling of empathy, being heard and seen without judgement, be carried forward once therapy is complete? This is where the mechanism of self-compassion is a game changer. Self-compassion is a way of accessing our inner resources to provide that same level of compassion that we can sometimes more easily feel towards others, and applying it to ourselves. It is taking the ingredients of the therapeutic relationship, bottling them up and having them as a resource for ourself, always.

What if instead of criticizing yourself for being too quick to anger, or procrastinating, or overly placating others, you sought to understand these behaviours as parts of yourself all doing their best to prevent you from experiencing further hurt? Maybe the placating part learned to do this when it was younger because it was the only way to stay safe from their quick to anger father? Perhaps this angry part came later as a way to assert your needs, because the placating part was neglecting them (for understandable reasons). What if we treated these parts of ourself with compassion and understanding for how they needed to adapt back then, to keep you safe? To protect from further harm? Maybe this understanding and compassion could lead to a deeper kind of healing, both in ourselves, our relationships, and even the world.

You may be thinking: “But Dan, won’t showing care and understanding towards these behaviours just make them more likely to continue?” Well, as with my previous blog, the adage “What we resist persists” applies here too, and the research seems to bear this out. Individuals who are compassionate towards themselves, often experience greater symptom alleviation, greater focus and greater ability to move towards their goals.

“There is no force in the world but love, and when you carry it within you, if you simply have it, even if you remain baffled as to how to use it, it will work its radiant effects and help you out of and beyond yourself: one must never lose this belief, one must simply (and if it were nothing else) endure in it!”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

For an exploration in to self-compassion through meditation, check out the links below!

https://insighttimer.com/therapistrefresh/guided-meditations/resourcing-all-parts-of-ourselves-in-a-difficult-time

https://chrisgermer.com/meditations/

https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#guided-meditations

Comparing yourself to the you of yesterday.

As I began to sit down and write this blog, I started with about five different hooks. Do I start with a quote about something you might relate to? Do I reference one of my favourite TV shows? Do I start with some controversial statement that makes you want to read deeper to get at what I’m really saying? Will this, sixth go around, ultimately be the one I choose to go with? I guess only time will tell.

As I reflected on this process, I thought about the irony of writing a blog post about the the way we are conditioned to compare ourselves to others, and how, at a subconscious level, I was doing that very thing. How can I make this blog better than others out there? How can I make this original and stand out? The reality is, I will never be the best blogger in the world, there will always be someone better. And that’s kind of the point of this blog.

When we compare ourselves to other people, it is almost inevitable that we will always fall short. There will always be someone who is “better” than you in some way. I don’t have what they have. I’m not as liked as they are. They are so much further ahead than I am. Although it can be helpful to have a measuring stick, something to work towards, this comparison of others can leave us feeling self-critical, angry, and at its worst, actually prevents us from moving forward towards our goals in life.

Fortunately there are alternatives to this game. Rather than comparing yourself to others, try comparing yourself to the you of yesterday. What is one simple thing you can do today, that will be an improvement on the day before? Maybe it’s as simple as deciding to floss your teeth today, or opening up that software program to start your taxes. First, you will need to define your aim. What domains in your life do you want to improve? Do you want to be more productive at work? Do you want to be a better friend? Do you want to exercise more? All of these aims may seem daunting at first, but if you compare yourself to...you and start very small, the momentum can build, and increase your motivation.

This strategy draws on a number of psychological theories on human behaviour and emotion that are quite well documented to help people build motivation and achieve their goals.

1.When we set clear goals, that are connected to our values in life, we are more likely to make steps towards achieving those goals.

2. When we break things into small tasks, this can lessen anxiety, and make things feel more manageable, reducing avoidance behaviours.

3. When we are able to start engaging in a task, we feel a sense of accomplishment, which can propel us to move forward to keep that feeling going, creating a domino effect.

4. Finally, providing yourself with a reward after completing these small tasks will send a message to your brain that what you just did is important, and make it more likely that this behaviour may be repeated in the future.

Comparing yourself to the you that you were yesterday is a great way of starting to engage these principals, and make the progress you want in life, without as much of that self-criticism!