Learn How to Relish Life and THRIVE!

Dear Dr. Debra - Holiday Season Challenges

Dear Dr. Debra—column December 17, 2003
Copyright Debra Mandel, Ph.D. 2007

Dear Readers,
I receive so many questions this time of year concerning how to best cope through the many challenges we face during the holiday season like family gatherings, party planning, gift giving/receiving and staying healthy. Unfortunately, I m never able to answer them all. I thought it would be a nice change from the format of my regular column to provide a summary of tips and suggestions for how to keep stress to a minimum and THIRVE through the holidays. Although this doesn t address individual conflicts and situations, hopefully you ll be able to modify the general guidelines to your unique experience.

1) Budget your time, energy and money. It doesn t do us or anyone who cares about us any good if we deplete our financial or emotional resources. It s great to be generous, but stay balanced.
2) Keep your expectations of yourself and others realistic. If you have conflicts with extended family members, don t expect these people to be any different during the holiday season than they are the rest of the year. Instead, take charge and accept responsibility for your own reactions and actions. Keep in mind that you have more power than you might think with regards to whether other people disappoint or hurt you.
3) Be careful not to over-commit yourself because of a need for approval or to avoid upsetting others. Yes, sometimes it s valuable to do things out of obligation to please someone you care about. But our efforts to keep others happy need to be balanced with taking care of our own needs as well. Otherwise we become resentful and we may confuse requests with demands when other people express their needs of us. It s fine to sometimes say no, even if others attempt to make you feel guilty for taking care of yourself.
4) Be sure to attend to the basics: eat well, get enough sleep/rest, exercise (unless medically prohibitive), stay attentive to your body s essential requirements. It s so easy to forget about the importance of keeping our physical being healthy and nurtured. Yet with all of the excitement (or unfortunately, for many, all of the angst) of the holiday season, it s crucial to keep ourselves well nourished. When we neglect our bodies, any kind of emotion makes us more vulnerable and less equipped to handle holiday challenges.
4) Embrace your feelings around the holidays, whatever they are. Many of us believe that we re supposed to be happy this time of year, yet we recognize we have a mixture of emotion. Some of us are dealing with loss, some with family discord, others with financial devastation, and so on. Holidays do not solve our problems. While it can be therapeutic to shelve our woes for a brief period of time, it s not wise to go into denial or to avoid our problems indefinitely.
5) Give yourself the best gift of all: choose your priorities carefully and stick to them. It s really okay to be selfish at times and to make decisions that serve our own needs. In the end, when we take good care of our own selves, we create a more genuine spirit of generosity to share with others.

I wish you all a meaningful holiday season!

Thank you for your letters!

Dr. Debra Mandel, psychologist, speaker, radio show host (SHRINK RAP-every Tues. 6:30 pm, on KCSN, 88.5 fm), and author of “Healing the Sensitive Heart,” has over twenty years experience helping individuals and couples learn to THRIVE. Contact Dr. Debra at 15720 Ventura Blvd. 305, Encino, CA 91436. Email: dmdoc@earthlink.net or telephone 310.477.4849. Visit her on the web at www.sensitiveheart.com for more information about her book and CDs, “The Abuser Friendly Syndrome” and “Creating Healthy Boundaries in the Workplace.