Resilience for the Holidays
I know from being a human and from being a therapist that holidays can bring up a whole bunch of mixed feelings. It is important to acknowledge this because the message that we overwhelmingly receive from “Big Holiday” is: BE GRATEFUL, THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR!!! AHHH WHY AREN’T YOU EXCITED?
In reality, this is just one time of the year, and doesn’t have to be “good” or “bad” at all. So to combat all of the hype and feelings of how we “should” feel, we can check the facts and remember that December is just a month, like any other, and we are allowed to feel however we actually feel without judging ourselves.
If you are feeling any anxiety or overwhelm or even uncomfortable excitement about the holidays this year, remember that it’s ok to feel this way. There are also a few DBT skills that you can start using now to feel a bit more resilient and prepared when the chaos of the holiday season descends upon us.
ABC PLEASE
There is a set of skills in DBT referred to as ABC Please. I’m not going to go into all of them in full detail here, but I’ll give you the gist so you can use them as you prepare for the season. We plan ahead so much for holidays- grocery lists, present lists, to-dos, and yet we rarely plan ahead for our own mental health.
ABC Please are all about resilience. They are the emotional piggy bank that we want to fill up so that we have something to pull from on a tough day. We spend so much time trying to deal with tough emotions and situations after they’ve happened, but these skills are all about increasing our resilience so that we feel prepared before tough times inevitably come up. So how do we build resilience?
Accumulate positives in the short term: add activities to your day that purposefully create positive emotions, like joy or love. Be mindful that you are doing these activities to create positive experiences for yourself. Examples are reading a book that brings you joy, going to karaoke with friends, booking a workout class, or calling a friend.
Build mastery: do one thing each day that makes you feel accomplished. This should be a task that is hard, but doable. Examples- making your bed, showering, working on a scarf you are knitting, or lifting weights. As you get more consistent with the task, you can start increasing the difficulty. Make sure you are mindful of that feeling of “I did something I set out to do” when it happens.
Cope ahead:
-Think about tough situations ahead of time and identify what you’re worried about. If you’re going home for the holidays and you’re worried you’ll have nothing to say at the holiday party, for example, identify that specific situation and the emotion (anxiety) that might make it hard to be skillful.
-Next, decide how you will cope. You might pick 3 ice breakers to have on hand at the holiday party, or you might bring a friend.
-Imagine yourself in the feared situation, and imagine yourself coping effectively. Picture yourself at the holiday party, feeling anxious, and then rehearse in your mind coping- you use your ice breakers to start up a conversation and you become engaged and more at ease, and you feel your anxiety start to decrease.
-Relax after you rehearse. This allows your body, as well as your mind, to learn that the feared situation is something you really can live through and be okay.
PLEASE: Please is an acronym that reminds us to take care of our minds by taking care of our bodies. Treat (P)hysical I(l)lness, (E)at balanced meals, (A)void mood-altering substances, (S)leep, and (E)xercise or movement. In general, these ideas might seem “basic” or simple, but these are usually the first things we forget about when we are stressed, leaving us feeling burnt out instead of resilient. Before the holidays even happen, you can focus on taking care of yourself- seeing a doctor for an injury or sickness, be mindful of how and what you are eating, notice how substances affect you (coffee, alcohol, taking prescribed meds, etc), prioritize your sleep and notice how you feel when you add movement to your day. Bringing extra awareness to PLEASE can help us feel more prepared and centered when tough or unexpected situations come our way.
Wishing you a resilient holiday season. You’ve got this.