The holidays can be a challenging time for a variety of reasons. In counseling sessions, patients frequently present with concerns about how they can cope with difficult family dynamics, addiction, or any number of other issues. Television, movies, social media and more often portray the holidays as idyllic events that are all magic and no distress. It’s not realistic.
And for those of us trying to cope with parent-child estrangement during the holidays, we may be facing the task of re-inventing family traditions. Triggers abound, and at a time of year when we yearn for togetherness and love, it can be difficult to experience any joy at all.
Some of us even go so far as to predict that Thanksgiving or Christmas is going to be a bad day. And absolutely, there’s a case to be made for this unexpected change to adversely affect those holidays. But keep in mind that going into the holidays with such a mindset also lends to manifesting bad days.
What if you chose to reframe as well as re-invent? We aren’t talking about turning these holidays into blissful, distress-free occasions; we’re talking about having a realistic goal of staying below the “severe” emotional distress threshold.
Resisting the reality of our circumstances means we’re likely to make our own internal struggles worse. Yes, a portrait of a holiday without our children could understandably appear dreary and sad. If you work to reframe your situation and to accept how things really are, you have an opportunity for a better outcome.
You could choose to cry in bed all day for the holiday. That’s a guaranteed bad day, and it would be disingenuous to claim there’s not some element of choice in that behavior. Don’t forget that this change also means that you are no longer tied to old traditions. What would you advise your own best friend to do instead on the holiday? And can you be your own best friend to get through this?
