December is Stress-Free Family Holidays Month
Oh, hi! Happy Stress-Free Family Holidays Month. Did you know that’s a thing? I certainly didn’t, but like a dusty folding table you lug up from your basement for a winter potluck, the internet is full of “guides” about how to navigate this time of year. Practices like boundary-setting and managing expectations are all fantastic, and for some, they’re vital. For me, however, practices like these don’t quite get to the beating, messy heart of it all. Instead, I feel myself wrestling with this question: How can I hold many truths?
In my experience, the holiday season exists on quite the spectrum. On one end are the bustling gatherings, the accumulation and giving of gifts, perhaps the travel. Everything moves at a clip that feels less steady and more sugar-filled, intoxicated, or caffeinated. At the other end is the figurative fireplace; the coziness of it all, the stillness, and (if you live in a state with all four seasons), the warmth that settles when you come in from the snow.
So, too, does this spectrum exist in our public discourse. Like so many, I’ve spent time on one end of it: reading headlines and posts over my morning coffee, listening to news about the wars abroad and the violence at home, and replying, constantly replying. I’ve also lived on the other end: removing apps, launching wholesale condemnations of social media platforms (sometimes on the platforms themselves), or else tuning others out entirely, leaving my cell phone charging in the kitchen, and just going to bed. In my opinion, both approaches have the potential for being highly reactive, although the reactivity itself assumes different forms. But what’s more, I’m not convinced that either approach is helping those who really need it.
As a human being with a lot of complicated thoughts, feelings, and ideas bumping around in my brain and body, I think that each side of this holiday season spectrum is a perfectly fine place to visit, but neither space is truly inhabitable, at least for very long. Certainly, neither is a stable enough place to call “home.” Whenever I notice two seemingly opposing poles in my own life, or in a situation that a client describes to me in session, I begin to wonder about that middle space and what lives there. Occupying this middle space can be an uncomfortable thing to do. It forces us to hold many truths, all simultaneously. This holiday season, I’m doing my best to encourage others - and myself - to notice that discomfort, even for just a few moments, before attaching a determinative action to it: either expressing it, or ejecting it.
Instead of ending this post with a pertinent sentence, poignant quote, or call to action, here’s an idea that I turn to often: turn on a song (or record) you love, maybe because it reminds you of all the best parts of wintertime, or the holidays, or your community. Or maybe you just like it. Now turn up the volume, and enjoy.
