Grinning With A Clenched Jaw: How To Get Through the Holidays Unscathed

This time of year can shake up our usual routines and can be more challenging than other times of year. For some, it’s a really ‘bad’ season. For others, it’s pretty bad and a little good—for some about even on the bad and good, and for others, more good than bad.

If you are in any way activated, unbalanced or dysregulated during the holiday season, this post may help you navigate your challenges with more ease. Disclaimer: I do come from a Christmas background, lightly sprinkled with Christianity and Tolstoy from my formative years. My default communication-of-ideas can’t help but be somewhat based in past experiences and current observations within my framework as a therapist. And yet, perhaps some of these themes and tips may transcend culture and identity—being helpful for those who struggle during these months. Consider:

What are your expectations during this season? What you want to get from the holidays? Are these expectations realistic, do they involve how you want other people to behave? What if you didn’t have expectations (easier said than done)?

After a challenging experience (going to a gathering, party, being alone) when things didn’t work out as your hoped (or expected), think about the experience as a partial success rather than a complete failure. This can make it easier to see what you can learn from it, maintaining feeling rational (rather than emotionally dysregulated).

This time of year is temporary—there is an end date to the celebrations, the rituals, the family dynamics, the buying and spending, the indulging…

Practice good old health habits. Rest, sleep, drink water, eat some balanced meals, move your body, avoid the over-indulging, track how substances impact your mind, body and spirit. Talk to a person who helps you feel regulated, more calm.

Notice your early warning signals that your emotions are getting bigger. Emotions can get amplified this time of year—sadness, worry, isolation, loneliness, memories of painful holiday experiences. How can you self-soothe? This may be going inward— taking time on your own to go for a walk, listen to music, journal, breathe. Or it could be helpful to engage outward, have a simple positive interaction with a stranger or neighbor, go to a class, be with others without engaging—going to the library, the grocery store, a craft fair. Acknowledging that you are having an emotion is also key. Once an emotion starts, it needs to run its course. Oftentimes our thinking blocks or intesifies an emotion, leading to an emotion getting stuck, which then leads to some mental messes.

Old dynamics can take front and center—if you suspect or know you will be around a person, group or place that is triggering, or that can regress you to acting in a way that feels younger, Ask yourself— how can I minimize my vulnerabilities before engaging with the person, place or thing? What needs to be accomplished, what really matters, what are your priorities? Planning ahead will also minimize last minute stress. Can you plan ahead, creating a concrete strategy that involves setting boundaries (leaving early, vowing to not ‘take the bait’, excusing yourself to the bathroom, etc…)

Consider reflecting on all the positive things in your life, how far you’ve come in a year, what is going well. Be intentional with this, turning away from ruminating about what is wrong or hard.

Create your own traditions, memories, legacy and/or ritual. What do you want from these months? Connect with what feels good, energizing, empowering.

Poetry as Therapy: How to Creatively Express the Tough Stuff

By making us stop for a moment, poetry gives us an opportunity to think about ourselves as human beings on this planet and what we mean to each other.

-Rita Dove

I have something incomprehensible to say, like bird song in the time of war

-Odysseus Elytis

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

-Viktor Frankl

Poetry is not a form of entertainment, and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but our anthropological, genetic goal, our linguistic, evolutionary beacon.

-Joseph Brodsky

Poems distill it all down, capturing the essence of a feeling, a hardship, an experience, a moment of living history. Poetry can be there for you during the most painful, confusing times. Connecting to a poem can provide some solace; you are not alone in your pain.

Poetry doesn’t take long to read, or absorb, or be affected by. Poems can cut through our mind-fog, our worry, depression or overwhelm—and can help us develop a healthier relationship with what pains us the most. Poems have an almost magical way of stirring up emotions, waking up senses—things that almost can’t be put into words—and yet are there, type print on paper or screen.

You can read poems—or you can consider writing one of your own. Writing poems can be revealing, healing and/or restorative. Writing can be a way to process, cope with, or express what is going on with you and what is going on around you. You are in control and hopefully empowered when you are choosing what words to include, delete or re-vamp. You are figuring out what is meaningful to you and expressing it. That can be healing, because it is your truth, your perspective.

In more therap-ish terms, poetry can be a way to externalize the internalized. To get it out. To put a name to what troubles you, inspires you, chases you.

You may be telling yourself you’ve never been interested in reading poems, let alone write one. Or that you don’t have any creative energy to think or write. That’s totally understandable. You don’t have to. And yet maybe the exercise below can ease some of those barriers—or pull those of you who are interested—towards an activity.

Exercise adapted from Poetic Medicine by John Fox:

1. What areas in your life are hard, painful, unresolved—or what is something you’ve been neglecting, yet you want to attend to, or investigate, or work on? Job stuff? Homelife dynamics? Family, spouse, child complexities? Patterns that keep repeating? Problems that haven’t been solved? Fears? Unknowns? Changes? Sorrows?

2. Get paper and pen, and divide paper into two columns.

3. In the left column, write words about the stress, problem, or issue. You might include: difficult memories, how your body feels in that situation or place, qualities of a relationship. For example—tight jaw, no time to self-reflect, work past dinner time, will this ever end, slammed door, apathy and ignorance, when will we wake up? regrets upon regrets…

4. In the right column, write words, images, metaphors that nourish you, bring you relief. For example—spontaneous laughs, purification cry, the protest and the togetherness, letting go, sunrise, it’s not my fault, there’s still the stars at night, lavender smell after a good rain

5. Take words from each of your columns and link them together to make a poem. How can the nourishing words ease the stressful ones?

6. If you feel stuck, try using any of the words below, or ones you think of, to express metaphorically aspects of yourself, your life, your relationships, etc…to insert into your poem—wind, hurricane, drought, wildfire, prison, cell, mask, island, moon, black hole, galaxy, house, peach, apple, well, ditch, underpass, knife, ashes, stone, fountain, glove, jewels, fountain, statue, curtain, stage, concert hall, tower, microchip, virtual, masked, desert scorch, mountain snow…

7. The process of writing and discovering is just as important (if not more) than the product of the finished poem, so go easy on yourself.

If you are struggling with your emotions, therapy for highly sensitive people can help. Reach out to me through my contact form to start your healing journey.

10 Things Highly Sensitive People Can Do To Reduce Anxiety During Coronavirus Pandemic

During the blur of last week’s school closures, shopping jitters, and rapid adjustments, I kept my eye out for how my highly sensitive clients were doing. Highly sensitive people may be feeling the impacts of coronavirus more deeply—you may be feeling more worried, even panicky—especially if you feel like you are absorbing too much of the panic from others. I felt it important to support you sensitive folks during this time.

10 Tips for Highly Sensitive People

1. Understand the Bias

Our brains are wired to focus on the negative, on the threats (negativity bias). And what is the huge threat currently? A virus that we haven’t seen or dealt with before. An unknown outcome. Layer that with scary news articles, social media posts, and you may be being overly-bombarded with the flavors of fear, negativity and hopelessness. Know it is natural to lean towards the negative, and that bias doesn’t have to have the final word.

2. Balance the Negative with Positive, Get Intentional

Consciously, intentionally and hopefully habitually carve out time (20-30 second segments) to re-fill your hope, joy, gratitude, soothe-me tank. Shift your mind from what brings on the shallow breathing to something that softens your chest, calms your mind, gives you a slight smile.

And, when you realize you are experiencing something positive ( a laugh with a friend) take time to bathe in that moment, write it down, re-live it.

It is really important for those who experience things more deeply, with more sensitivity to prioritize balance during these times, because you are more susceptible to internalizing the fears—which lead to anxiety, depression, panic, emotional up’s and down’s, not fun interactions with family, etc…

3. Decrease or Limit the amount of negative news you read, watch or talk about

You can find the balance between keeping abreast of the current events, reading what you need to know and also looking for stories or current events that are also hopeful, beautiful and happy. Try a ratio of 5 positive readings, watchings or talking to 1 negative. Notice how that affects you.

4. Get Absorbed in an Activity

As you decrease the amount of negative news, social media, shows you take in, can you also find time to get engaged in an activity or hobby? What is on your bucket list that is do-able while you are at home? Ever wanted to do ___with your living space? Now might be that time.

5. Try out those buzzwords: Mindfulness, Relaxation, Meditation

There are apps, there are teachers streaming, there are yoga studios offering free online classes, there is a floor in your living space where you could focus on stepping, one foot at a time and noticing how narrow you can focus on stepping. This brings you more into the very present moment. So fear of the future, and worry of past mistakes can start to fade.

6. Go Outside, if you Can

You may or may not be able to take a walk or to go into nature. And if there is a safe way to do it—do it. Nature is comforting, re-caliberating, energizing. And if you can only open a window and breathe in air, experiment with that.

7. Engage with People who Lift You Up

When you are sensitive, you take in stimuli easily. It is important right now to limit who you engage with, and how. Decide what you want to talk about—if conversations, people situations are increasing your stress, try to limit those interactions.

8. Harness your Stress, Anxiety and Fear by Taking Action

That energy behind the worry and fear can be transformed into positive action. Can you help someone out right now? Sweep your floor? Leave kind notes in your neighbor’s mailbox? Dance wildly in your front window?

9. Take It a Day at a Time

If your schedule and routine has been up-ended, this newly unstructured time can add to the anxiety. If your income has radically changed, you are worried—and this is normal. You can find moments of balance if you try to stay in this day. Try to figure out a schedule for yourself—chunk it down into morning, afternoon and evening—or hourly if needed.

10. Reach out for Professional Support

There is no shame to ask for help—especially if you feel like the anxiety, fear and panic is just too much.

If you are experiencing anxiety because of the pandemic, counseling for highly sensitive people can help. Reach out to me through my contact form to start your healing journey.