How to Not Lose Your Mind During the Holidays

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

You’ve done an immense amount of work on yourself: addressing generational patterns, learning to feel your feelings, re-parenting your inner child. You’ve really made a ton of progress! But maintaining that new level of healing and awareness when you cross the threshold into your family’s home, it can feel like all that growth goes out the window. 

You’re a grown adult on the outside but you morph into a teenage rage monster in a matter of minutes. We’ve all been there. You think it’s going to essentially be “show and tell” for all your new pockets of growth and maturity, but somehow you’re yelling at your sister for taking too long in the bathroom.

The ability to maintain your growth, healing and earned maturity in the presence of your family of origin is called “differentiation of self.” Staying differentiated from your family of origin (aka, maintaining the level of holistic health of your current day-to-day life) can be super tricky!

Below are some tips that come straight from the front lines of the therapy office, as I’ve been having this conversation on repeat in the weeks leading up to the holidays.

• Consider Shortening the length of your stay.
  • Better to risk being a little rude about duration than to blow up on grandma about her politics.
  • This isn’t rocket science: a shorter but drama-free trip is better than a longer but tumultuous trip.
• Boundaries
  • Have some phrases ready to go that support your boundaries.
    • “No thanks. I’m not drinking right now.”
    • “I am not comfortable with talking about that.”
    • “I can’t see how this topic will do anything but cause an argument so I’m going to just skip it.”
    • “We always end up yelling at each other when we play Monopoly. Let’s play Charades instead.”
  • Think ahead. Have a plan. Be clear and concise.
• Have a safe word.
  • If you have a friend, partner, kid, whomever with you, establish a safe word to use if someone’s in a situation they need/want out of.
• Figure out some distracting plans that can diffuse tension in a bind.
  • Let’s all go look at Christmas lights.
    • “We’re going to go drive around and show <whomever> where I went to school.”
    • “I forgot to get batteries for a gift.”
    • “Let’s make Grandma’s Christmas cookies.”
  • Whatever. Just have some ideas to change things up quickly if you get in a pinch.
• Have a clear hierarchy of priorities.
  • Would it mean the most to you to have a good talk with your dad over coffee?
  • Do you want to be sure to not get into an argument with your brother in law?
  • Decide for yourself the one or two most important things to you to accomplish or avoid during the holiday visit. As long as you can hold on to those, everything else is lagniappe. 
• Remind yourself of your top values.
  • Values vary from person to person. (Here is some guidance on how to discover your values if you haven’t ever considered what yours are.)
  • If my current values are health, growth and taking good care of others, then I’m not going to eat crazy off my diet during the holidays, I’m going to regularly assess if I am maintaining my growth while spending time with family. And I’m going to do my best to make sure that people feel loved and seen.
  • Again, if you maintain clarity on your core values over the holidays, the rest of thing things that could take your energy can just fall to the wayside.
  • Something to consider: Your values with your family may not be your normal life values. And guess what? That’s totally ok. This moment is about preservation! 
  • If you normally like to address conflict in a certain way with those close to you but that hasn’t proved fruitful with your mother, use your wisdom and insight to “call and audible” and shift your value to harmony for this trip, temporarily. 

In short: think ahead and have a plan. This alone will go a long way in helping you maintain your sense of self in the presence of those who have driven up your therapy bills for years. If anyone asks you for last minute gift ideas, tell them they can pay for an hour of therapy with your favorite therapist because you’re going to need a session after this. 🙂