Keeping Emotions in Check During Holiday Season

The winter holidays often prompt us to think of our past.  Sometimes we look back upon earlier years with great warmth and sentiment, and sometimes we look back with horror or disgust.  Frequently, the holidays call up all sorts of memories, both positive and negative, both happy and unhappy, making this season a very emotionally-laden time of year.

When you become flooded with emotions – fearfulness, anger, anxiety, sadness, excitement, love, hope, pain, and joy – sometimes it seems almost too much to bear.  That is when we become tempted to avoid our feelings in a variety of creative escape plans.  The best prescription for the holiday season is to practice moderation when tempted to drown emotions through unhealthy comforts.

Food is a great way to pass on traditions, share time and enjoyment with family and friends, rejoice in the abundance of the season, and celebrate happy times.  Food can also be used to numb out our feelings.  To eat and eat and eat, to the point of being stuffed allows us to put our emotions aside and just focus on the feelings of fullness.  To indulge in sweets and treats and large portions may comfort us briefly by pushing down overwhelming feelings.  However, as we know, we must always pay for our indiscretions later, when we get on the scale or try on our jeans.  When tempted to put food over your feelings, try to stay in the moment and just let the feelings have their moment, then pass.  They won’t stay with you forever, just for a time.

Likewise, many people turn to alcohol to drown out excessive feelings, even when the feelings are happy.  The holidays can produce such rich emotional experiences, that sometimes they are so happy and exciting and joyful that people can become uncomfortable with the sheer amount of bliss they are feeling and they may reach for a cocktail to take it down a notch.  On the other hand, I think we’re all familiar with using alcohol to make our family members more tolerable or to forget bad events of the past.  Either way, adding too much alcohol to something never makes it better, and you can end up with a serious substance abuse problem when the holidays are over if you’re not careful.

Shopping is another activity that can get out of hand when one is trying to stuff down feelings.  Perhaps you are remembering horrible events from the past, old hurts, old embarrassments, old pain, and in order to erase those memories, you think you can buy your way out of them.  If you just have the right dishes, and the perfect tablecloth, and the most beautiful decorations, and the most exquisite gifts, and the most elaborate party, then maybe the past won’t seem so bad, or your present condition won’t be so noticeable.  Too many people use thousands of dollars to try to decorate a bad marriage during the holidays, only leaving the marriage in worse shape when the credit card bills show up in January.  Try to resist the urge to hide difficult emotions with money.

This holiday season, allow yourself time to cry and smile, weep and laugh, remember the past with honor and with sadness, grieve for lost loved ones and grieve for parts of yourself that you have lost and have not yet found again.  Enjoy the beautiful parts and endure the not-so-beautiful parts.  Live in your emotions, don’t chase them away.