How to Handle Your Emotions Through the Holiday Season

Are you grappling with grief, stress, and overwhelm during this holiday season? As your guiding light through these emotional mazes, I invite you to embark on a healing journey with me. Together, we'll confront the pain of regret, the power of self-forgiveness, and the liberation that comes with creating space for ourselves amidst the familial turmoil. We'll harness the strength that lies in confronting what serves us and discarding what doesn't, empowering you to take back control and emerge braver and stronger.

Listen as I share strategies to hold the reins amidst external chaos and the secret to practicing acceptance. We'll delve deep to shatter the shackles of past trauma and commit to positive change. Remember, you're not broken, and your suffering ends here! Let's step into a happier, healthier, and braver version of you. Tune in, and let's spread this journey of healing far and wide.

In this episode, I talk about the following:
1. Dealing with grief and the importance of giving oneself the space to feel and process it.
2. Managing family confrontations and setting boundaries.
3. Overcoming overwhelm and stress during the holidays.

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💗 Dr. Steph
@DrStephanieLopez
www.brave-method.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Hi, I'm Dr Steph and I'm here to guide you on your journey to healing from a difficult relationship with your mother, whether she was narcissistic, emotionally immature or just plain toxic. I want you to know that you are in fact, not broken and you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You can break the cycle. You are a strong, capable woman who can handle any challenge that comes your way, and I'm going to show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back. I want to give you a quick update after last week's episode. So I am a little over one week into not drinking coffee and I miss it. Man, oh man. I was so addicted, I miss it so much. But I don't know if you saw, but in my Instagram stories I did a poll and I was just curious how many people have quit drinking coffee? Because I was like you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's a decent number out there. Well, I was surprised and simultaneously impressed by how many of you had. 42% of you have quit drinking coffee. That's mind blowing. You're amazing, okay. And then 30, 38% of you said I am not interested in quitting because coffee equals joy. And I'm just here to say that I feel you, I get you and life does not feel the same way right now. Not to be dramatic or anything, it's like, okay, seriously stuff. But seriously it was, I guess, a lot for me, but it was a treat for me every day and I liked it. So one of my one-on-one clients, she goes you should try drinking tea. I've never been a tea drinker. And then she's like it's like a warm hug rather than a jet engine, and I definitely love hugs and I got to say I got used to the jet engine. So all right, enough on that, let's dive into the episode.

Speaker 1: 3:12

If you are listening to this episode the week it was released and you live in the US, then happy Thanksgiving or happy Thanksgiving week. I know that the holidays can bring about a wide variety of emotions positive and not so positive Joy, excitement, happiness, and then, on the flip side, overwhelm, worry, grief, loneliness, stress, all of it perhaps, and I want to talk about some of that today. So I know that your experience is unique and it's not the same as mine and it's not the same as other people listening to this episode. So it may just be useful for you to have the lens of is this useful to me? As you listen to me talk through these examples and these recommendations, just is it useful or not useful, rather than listening with the lens of like, oh, I've heard this before or I've tried that before. When we take on this, is this useful for me? It keeps our mind open and that is always helpful, in my opinion.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Today, I want to talk about three emotional experiences in particular grief, overwhelm and stress, in particular, with family member confrontations. So let's dive into grief first. Grief can be so multi-layered. Maybe you're grieving over someone who passed away. Maybe you're grieving over multiple people who passed away. Maybe you're grieving over what you thought would be. Maybe you have this image of your mom being there, your dad being there, and it's not the same as what you imagined or what you see other people. What do you see other people's families looking like? Maybe it's something entirely different, but you still recognize there's grief present.

Speaker 1: 5:11

So one of the most important things is to give yourself space to feel through that, and I am all for ditching any rules or perceived rules that exist. No timeline or limit in terms of how short or how long you're allowed to grieve and this is probably not the first time you've heard that, but I just really want to reiterate that there is no timeline or limit in terms of how short or how long you are allowed to grieve. You get to choose and you get to honor yourself, and that's one of the best gifts that you can give yourself is to not ignore yourself and to not abandon yourself and to honor yourself. So if this is you and this is resonating with you, I just want to say that I'm sending you so much love and so much strength, and I wish I could take away your pain. And I also want to share something else that may stretch your thinking a bit. Before I dive in.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Just as you're listening, ask yourself the question is there even a 1% chance that what Steph is saying could apply to me? Okay, here we go. Could part of your grief be regret? Could part of your grief be a sign that there is an opportunity to forgive yourself? If you're thinking like, okay, what the heck, steph? I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Let's say that your sister passed away and the last few years before that happened, you didn't see her for the holidays, or, and maybe it was by your choice, or maybe you spent a small amount of time with her, or maybe you didn't have a conversation that part of you really wanted to have for a long time. Part of you, that part of you in particular, may be grieving what could have been different if a different decision was made, which makes sense and, to be completely honest, is a normal reaction. And if this feels true here's what I want you to know it is safe to forgive yourself. You do not have to punish yourself, you do not have to be hard on yourself. You can forgive yourself. I mean, this is not going to be new information to you, but you know you made the best decision given the information you had at the time, and you are human and that's okay. And so so much relief can come when there's an opportunity to forgive ourselves and we allow ourselves to do that, and so I don't want you to gloss over that, because that may be more relevant to you than you originally would have guessed. And again, whether or not that feels true for you, just allow yourself to ditch any rules about what is supposed to be and allow yourself to feel through those emotions and allow that grieving part of you to feel heard and seen. Okay, all right.

Speaker 1: 8:23

The next thing that I want to talk about is if there's like a confrontation with your family member, or maybe you're anticipating one with your family members during the holidays. So let's say that you have set some boundaries and others are not fond of those boundaries. For instance, maybe if it's with your emotionally immature or narcissistic mother, you've reduced how often you visit or how often you allow visits from them. You are allowed to set boundaries for what works for you and your immediate family, and others are not always going to be happy with that, and while I'm sure that you know that, it can still feel challenging when there's a lot of pushback. So if you hear comments like, why are you not seeing us anymore? Why can't I come to visit more often? Why did you change your mind about visiting, I want to give you at least one useful tip here. When there have been a lot of issues in the relationship and there's a lot of strain, it can be pretty easy to set a boundary with zero explanation and, technically, boundaries don't need an explanation.

Speaker 1: 9:33

No is sufficient and I assume you've heard that before and, at the same time, in certain circumstances, seeing the other person as human and seeing what is underneath their words can often create a shift. I'm not talking about a major shift here, but a subtle, helpful shift. So what do I mean by this? For instance, let's say, your emotionally mature mother is asking why can't I visit more often? What I see underneath that statement is hurt. I see sadness, I see feelings of rejection. Those are all feelings that we have all felt and we can all resonate with, and if I were speaking to her, I might say something like this If I were in your shoes, I think I would feel hurt, and then you could ask her does that feel true for you?

Speaker 1: 10:34

And then keep going. My intention is not to hurt you Now. Don't say that. If it's not true, okay, I want you to speak honestly and openly. What I've noticed is that I don't show up as my best self when we're together, when I feel triggered, and I don't want to show up in that way in front of my kids. So that's something that I'm working on and I want space while I'm doing that work. So, essentially, you are seeing her first, you are seeing how she's likely interpreting your boundary, and then you're asking her does that feel true? And then you're sharing your intention, which again share your real intention. If what I said does not resonate, do not say that. This is not like a time to just use words that are not true. It's got to be from your heart and then just speak openly about yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:27

If you keep getting triggered in her presence, that is something that you need to work on and I imagine that's why you're here, right, because you want to work on that. Anyways, really sit with that and you might be thinking, god, stuff that really feels terrifying, like. I've tried talking to her. She doesn't respond well, and you might be right, because if we think about narcissistic tendencies and emotionally immature tendencies, there's a continuum, right, like we've got full blown NPD narcissistic personality disorder and then we have like a few narcissistic tendencies, and so this recommendation maybe is not the best for somebody on the super, super high end, right, and you're going to be the best judge for that. Now, the response that you get might vary drastically, and let that be okay. If she doesn't respond well, that's okay, and if she does, that's okay too, because here's the thing People can have their own experiences. What if we allow people to have their own thoughts, their own feelings in their own opinions without feeling the need to change it.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Okay, so, if this is resonating with you, what's important is that you create space to see what's not being said between the two of you, acknowledge that and then share your intention and share your truth and I know that this can be a sticky situation and there is a lot to this. I'm not going to solve it all in one podcast episode. To be completely honest, it's not going to be solved listening to all the podcast episodes, because there's deeper work that has to be done. I do hope this is helpful for you, though. Finally, let's move on to the last piece that I wanted to cover today, which is overwhelm and stress, because I know that a lot of you tend to experience that in the holidays, and here's what I want to say the holidays are not the cause of your stress and overwhelm, and I understand why you think that, especially when it's coming from external circumstances, situations and people, and that is totally okay.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Society, it perpetuates this belief. Certain things are stressful and there's nothing you can do about it, and you've likely heard people say I'm so stressed out, this is so stressful, the holidays are so overwhelming. You've heard that, right, yeah, and when it comes to the holidays, there are a lot of shoulds present. There are a lot of beliefs about what is supposed to happen, what's not supposed to happen, who you're supposed to see, when you're supposed to see them and how things are supposed to go or not go, and I have felt that so deeply and across families and even inside of families, it's not consistent. These beliefs tend to be drastically different, and if that resonates with you, then this is important for you to know.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Saying that a situation is so stressful is a lot like turning the oven on and accidentally burning yourself and then blaming the oven. I almost said onion. So what is actually going on? Was it actually the oven's fault that you burned yourself? No, even though it might be convenient to blame the oven, I almost said onion again. What is going on? We are just going to keep rolling with it. Hopefully I'm entertaining you. It might be convenient to blame the oven. We honestly, I've done something like that and I'm guessing you have to. It's pretty common. Now here's another way to think about this.

Speaker 1: 15:24

There was a member of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, eddie Murray, and he was asked by a reporter how he handled the stress and the pressure of a series of games, including the World Series, and the reporter said something to him along the lines of like everybody's counting on you to get the team through this. If you don't, this could make or break your career. Your career might be in jeopardy. So he's like laying it on thick. Every game that, and every time that you're on bat, is the difference between winning or not winning the championship. Like, really, really like piling on the guilt, so to speak. What is your reaction to that? Sounds pretty stressful, right, it was all on his shoulders if he wanted to continue a thriving career and help his team. Want to know how he responded? Here's what he said I make my own pressure. I make my own pressure.

Speaker 1: 16:29

When and where are you giving your power away to external situations and external circumstances? I want you to really sit with that. Where am I giving my power away when it comes to stress? If you blame your external circumstances, you're doing the same thing that I mentioned with the oven blaming the oven for burning you, and I know like that can feel hard. But do you want your happiness just to be at the whim of whatever goes on around you? My guess is not so much. Probably, you want to feel in control, right? You resonate with wanting to feel in control when you don't, which is a sign you are giving your power away.

Speaker 1: 17:15

If you keep believing that the holidays and external situations are in charge of how you feel, whether that shows up as anxiety, overwhelm, an emotional breakdown, something else you will stay stuck and never feel in control of your own happiness. So what can you do today, right now, to get in the driver's seat of your emotional reactions, no matter what's going on around you? I'm going to give you three tips. First practice analyzing data and ask yourself what should am I allowing to drive my life in this season? It could be small things like having unrealistic expectations for the holidays and what they're supposed to look like and how your kids are supposed to behave, how your family should show up. It could be falling into people pleasing mode and driving around the entire state to see family members, even though that does not feel good for you. I think you see where I'm going here. This is your permission slip to break the freaking rules. Break them, baby. Break them. There are no shunts, let it go. Second practice activating choice and ask yourself is there even a 1% chance that I'm giving my power away, like Steph said, and if so, where might I be doing so?

Speaker 1: 18:42

Third, practice absolute acceptance and shift into the mindset that everyone is allowed to have their own emotions, their own thoughts and their own opinions. For example, if you decide to celebrate Christmas on another day other than December 25th, I know you might not actually celebrate Christmas, so this is just an example. By the way, that's what we're doing. We are not celebrating on the 25th of this year because that's what works for us. People might have opinions about that, they might have emotions about that, but what if you allow them to have their emotions, their opinions, their thoughts, and you let go of the desire and the tendency to change it? You just let go. And if you're like sounds nice, steph, how do you do that? How do you let it go? That is what I work closely with clients on.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Every single thing in this podcast is where we go deep to break these barriers that are getting in the way, and I know today we covered a lot of ground.

Speaker 1: 19:46

So I really want you to take a few minutes, think through, okay, what is useful for me, what's not useful, and jot down a few things that you're gonna start doing differently. Make that commitment to yourself. I wanna thank you so much for being here. If you are enjoying this podcast, please take a few moments to rate and review this show. Your ratings are what tell the platform to spread it to more women, and so I just appreciate you. I thank you in advance and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you for listening today. If you're ready to heal, so that triggering situations no longer control you and so that you can feel empowered, brave and thrive in any situation, dm me the word brave on Instagram and I'll send you a training where you will learn three of the most common mistakes driven women are making that are keeping them stuck in negative emotions, and what you can do instead.