S3 E17: Why You Need A Self Care Plan for the Winter Holiday Season
Unusual times call for unusual amounts of self care - the holidays can be tough in a normal year, but in 2020, there’s extra uncertainty and grief piled on top, so we need self care (actual, replenishing self care, not just clichés or shoulds) more than ever. I describe some of the condition that might be making this season more stressful, along with some easy ways to support yourself through it!
RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone, welcome to Episode 17 of Being A Whole Person, and today we're talking about having a specific self care plan for the winter holiday season.
I apologize to those of you in the southern hemisphere - this is going to be kind of Northern Hemisphere-centric, but the holiday season stuff you might still find applicable, and can save some of the winter parts of it for when you have winter.
So, we're transitioning into winter right now in the Northern Hemisphere, and we have various cues that make us say, “Okay, it feels like winter.” Now, some of us have colder weather and even snow, definitely having less daylight and an earlier sunset, and that weaker sun angle. I'm really sensitive to that. It's things like that, that give us that different winter energy.
Based on how we respond to light, and those seasonal cues, in terms of our own energy, this might be a tough transition. I always find it kind of tough. I used to hate November, because it was the month of darkness. And when I lived in Minnesota for most of my life before this, it was the month where all the beautiful colors and leaves on the trees dropped, and we were left with bleak, brown empty trees. So naturally, those things coming together sometimes seem like they're unappealing.
So, what took me from full-on hating November and thinking it was the worst month? First, a friend planted the seed for me and said that February is way harder in terms of winter than November, it's not even that cold yet. I tried to see the positives of November after that. And, just knowing transitions are hard. It's normal for transitions to be hard, and if you plan ahead for self care that really fits the season you're in, you can really be prepared, and that has made all the difference for me, which is exactly why it's the topic of this episode.
I know we're not quite in December yet, but I really feel like December is this time of conflicted energy - you have the frenetic busyness of the holiday season pitted against the need to hibernate. You're probably familiar with the word hygge, which is that Danish word that means making the season cozy, giving yourself happiness during the winter. I'm all about leaning into that and December, but sometimes it seems kind of incompatible with all that is going on. And of course, this year is not the same as most years, what I would say in a usual year, as far as the factors that you might need to consider during the holiday season.
We generally have this frantic energy, because it seems like there are so many expectations for just doing a lot of things. You have to get all your gifts, you have to do all your baking, you have to go to all the parties. Quick disclaimer, this might seem a little bit Christmas-centric, and I don't mean to exclude anybody. That's just what I celebrate, mainly out of tradition, but it's also kind of what takes over the larger narrative and informs the messages that you're hearing about the holiday season. So I'm not focusing on it because I think it's most important, it's just kind of what is taking over the larger message.
There's a lot going on, and there might be a lot going on for you. Work season-wise, I used to have lots of holiday gigs, so December felt like a crazy season for me. Of course, that's not really happening right now. Maybe if you sell a lot of arts or products that are gift items, you might be super busy right now with producing things for the holidays, even though we're in a pandemic. And there are always a lot of family obligations to navigate around the holidays based on what you're going to do whether you're going to travel, and those actually might be more difficult this year.
I know now, in 2020, what's expected of you probably varies even more widely this year, because some of that busyness and expectation might still be there, but then other parts really might not be, and it might feel kind of weird to feel a lot of energy and stimuli in one area, and then feel this absence in other areas. Like, I know a lot of you probably are not getting together with your families in person this year, which, that's my situation, I don't feel good about getting on a plane, and I really think that staying home is the safer option this year.
I know it's a really hard thing to not be able to gather with your family, even if, you know, it's just for this year, and it's to keep people safe, you might be processing a lot of emotions around that. So in the absence of that, and probably a lot of other events, and face to face activities, if you're thinking, “I don't do anything anymore, I hardly leave the house,” that doesn't mean that you're not still stressed out, because let's face it, we've been doing this pandemic thing for eight months, the numbers are going up exponentially. It's pretty scary. We're processing a lot right now. If you're listening to this in the future, I hope things are better by now.
But the basic message still stands, we might need to be more intentional about self care right now. You might need extra self compassion, even if you're feeling okay. You're allowed to take more time for yourself, even if it doesn't feel like you have the space for that. If it feels like you don't have the time, or the energy, you probably don't have time not to.
I also want to address grief. This is the time of year when we tend to feel grief and loss more acutely. I feel this more in the fall season, because it's the season of everything dying and going dormant. And more darkness, literal darkness, can correspond to emotional darkness. Then I know, if the holidays are regularly a difficult time if you've had loss in your family, I'm very sorry about that. I know that there might be extra layers on top of that this year.
There's the grief of all that is normal - we have a lot of traditions during the holiday season, and that really provides a sense of security. If you don't have that, that might be really hard, on top of everything already not seeming normal.
I also just want to say, you might be familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief. The five stages she listed are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. There's another model of the seven stages of grief that is popular, starting with shock and denial, pain and guilt, moving on to anger and bargaining, depression, the upward turn, reconstruction and working through and then acceptance and hope.
Well, no matter what model, you might be looking at for stages of grief, they're not always linear. People talk about them like they're linear, but they might overlap with each other, you might bounce between two of them, you might feel acceptance for a while and then come back around to depression. There are any number of ways that this might present itself.
So, I just want to affirm that if you're processing grief of any kind, it's tough, it might not look like you expect it to. That's just another reason why you might need extra care right now. We're processing a collective trauma, and the holidays bring up a lot of feelings and memories, even in normal times. So you might be carrying around a lot. You might be carrying around more than you realize right now.
So what do we do with that?
You can allow yourself to be, in the words of my friend Sara Garnier, ridiculously tender with yourself. She was a guest on the show back in the first season, and had some amazing perspectives on self compassion. I'll link to that episode in the show notes. I highly recommend going back to it.
You have permission to feel however you feel about your feelings. You might have a complicated stew of feelings right now. You might feel a little bit weird feeling joy right now, amidst all the suffering and that's normal too. It's also okay to feel the joy, it's okay to celebrate, it's okay to celebrate in a different way than you're used to.
I really think that if you can do something that feels good every day, that can go a lot further than you think it can, especially the fun kind of creativity. I've been taking on lots of different craft projects lately, and that has felt really fun to me. Whereas, I have not been doing very much composing lately, and if that's what feels good right now, I'm good with that.
If you need support in the feel good creativity department, I have a great five day free email course that gives you a prompt each day for ridiculously easy creativity paired with a wellness prompt that will help you get your mind in the right place, feel safe, get your nervous system feeling more regulated. People thought it was really fun, and really helpful. So I’ll link to that in the show notes.
Overall, just making time for more rest is really going to be your friend. It's what our bodies really want in this dark winter season. Like, deep down, we're just a bunch of bears, we kind of want to hibernate, and the more you can allow yourself to lean into that, the better. I know that we don't actually fully hibernate, and you might not have the option of taking a lot of time off or anything like that, but we can at least let ourselves rest more and not feel bad about it.
And tune out noise where we can - unsubscribing from all those holiday sale emails might be a great idea if you're someone who gets overstimulated by too much information. Whatever you need to do to make your mind a little more at ease. Seeking support from a therapist might be a great idea, from family or friends, and I'm here to support you too.
If you want to be really intentional about your self care through the season, and you want to make sure that you're doing the kind of self care that will actually satisfy you and your needs, not just like throwing a bath bomb in the tub and being like, “Why am I not happy?” I'm giving a workshop called Build Your Seasonal Self Care Survival Kit. It's going to be this Tuesday, November 24 at 10am. Pacific. If you're hearing this later than that, the replay will be available to buy for a few more weeks afterwards, since I don't want to leave you hanging, but I also want to do the workshop before American Thanksgiving, since that is a major holiday that a lot of people will need to plan for, navigate a lot of feelings around, and probably deal with a lot of uncertainty.
Even when you can't count on external events going the way that you want them to, as 2020 has shown us, you can have supportive practices in place. So you know you can count on yourself to show up with that support. In this workshop, I'll share my favorite tips with you for replenishing energy throughout this very unusual holiday season, but more importantly, you'll learn how to plan for self care even in times when you can't necessarily plan ahead. You will leave with a personal menu, not a list that you have to follow, but a menu that you can choose from your own self care practices that will support you, both in times of feeling depleted and times of celebrating. I'm really excited about this. And in order to make it accessible for you, I am going to make it a sliding scale offering between $5-30, whatever you choose to pay.
So I hope you can join me for that, it's going to be really fun, and there's a link in the show notes to sign up for that as well. I hope you can make the space for more self care in this season, and always, but especially in times when you might need it the most. Wishing you a great week, and I will see you next time.
Pianist and composer