The Therapy Edit - On 3 steps to reduce festive stress

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

In this solo episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna shares a few of her tried and tested tips for reducing your stress levels in the run up to the festive season.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi everyone, it's that time of year, isn't it? Where stress and overwhelm can so easily start to pick up. And if you're feeling it, I am feeling it. I will never forget this moment. It must have been years ago now where we, I think it was Christmas Eve and we were going to the theatre. It was a pantomime. It was a Christmas pantomime and my husband ran back to the car to go and get some coats and he came back to join us and he said, oh no, it's so sad. I just spoke to this woman who was loading stuff up in a car and I asked her if I could help her and she just said, I can't wait for it

to be over. He said, isn't that so sad? I said, no, I actually really, really get it. I really get it. And if you're a woman or a mom who is very responsible for making Christmas happen, often it can go fully, not completely known by other members of family, all that goes into it. Now, I'm incredibly grateful my husband will pitch in, but it's just one of those things. It's just one of those things that I guess I have more of a hand in, partly by choice, but also just time-wise. So I'm feeling the stress starting to pick up here. And I have created a little mini bite-sized course called the Merry and Perfect Christmas course and it's just four little videos that you can find on my website. They're £12 and it is just, I'm going to give you some tips now, but it will go into this a little bit more just to give you.

almost a framework of ways just to take some of the stress out of Christmas. So here we go. Here's my three-step tip to taking some of the stress out of this festive time. Number one, do a tradition inventory. Now think about all the traditions that your family have picked up along the way, whether it's something that has been done generational, whether it is something that has been brought in since you've had children. And my husband and I have different traditions that we've grown up with.

So kind of merged them together somehow we, I remember him just being so surprised that we opened some presents before breakfast. And I was really surprised that they waited until after dinner. And it was this enmeshing of all of these different traditions, kind of merging them together, conflicting over some, but finding our way through. But have a little think. What do you always do? think about maybe you might write them down what do you always do now i want you to spend a moment looking at this list through the eyes of how you're feeling through the eyes of the resources and the capacity that you have and i want you to be really honest with yourself as you look through

this list of traditions and things that you've always done i want you to think about what what makes your heart leap what makes your stomach drop what makes your shoulders clench and tense I want you to think about what have you not got capacity for what traditions may have just been traditions because they're nice but actually when you think about it in the current context or where you're at financially at the moment, where your family are at at the moment, I want you to look through the lens of now. And I want you to think that traditions are only really traditions worth keeping if they serve you. So what of that list perhaps this year may need to be skipped, may need to be reduced, may need to be delegated, may need to be taken

off completely. Actually, if you're really honest with yourself, it might feel like a relief not to do it. So have that inventory, have that list, reflect on it, talk about it with a partner if you need to and if you can. Number two, put it into action. Now, if you were to go without doing some of these things. What does that mean? What might that look like? Are there conversations that need to be had? Who do you need to speak to? What do you need to do? Or maybe even let everyone know that you're not going to do. I remember years ago, I think it was about four years ago now, where I thought about sending all the Christmas cards, because that's just what we'd always done. My mom absolutely loves every year designing a Christmas card and handmaking these

Christmas cards. That has been something that she has always done. So I've grown up with Christmas cards being a big thing. They'd be strung up on a wall in our house and we would add to them every day as they came through the letterbox from friends and family members. And I remember this one Christmas just sitting there and I think I was heavily pregnant and I thought, right, and he'd start the Christmas cards and I thought, you know what, that just feels like a mountain. It feels like a lot. I do not have capacity for it. I just don't have the energy for it. And I thought to myself, what if I didn't? And it felt like the most renegade, rebellious thing to even contemplate that I would not do this thing that had always been done. And my husband comes from quite a traditional family as well,

where they, they too had always done the Christmas cards. And I remember thinking, what if I didn't? What if I didn't? The more I thought about it, the more liberating it felt to even think that that be something that I didn't have to do. And I didn't. And what did I do? I didn't spend that money. I didn't sit for hours, just constantly writing cards. And I'm not someone who can just write simple to so-and-so, love from so-and-so. I always feel like I have to justify sending a card by writing a little essay in. So it would take me quite a while to write these cards. And it felt very liberating. So what I did, I think back then, I wrote a Facebook message and said, we're not sending cards this year and said, I'm donating that money that we would have spent on cards

and stamps to charity. I was letting people know, giving them the option not to send me one because they were not going to get one back. Now we've done it for four years and we barely get any cards. I think we've been crossed off a few lists and I'm grateful for that. And I really had to sit with that fear of upsetting people offending some old relatives perhaps and just know that we needed to make that decision for ourselves. More recently, a family member said in a group on our on our phones, on our WhatsApp, you know what we can't afford to buy everyone at Christmas present this year. Can we do Secret Santa? And I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief. everyone breathed a sigh of relief. So it's been a good number of years now where we just do not buy

presents for everyone. And that was somebody stepping out there and saying, you know what, we can't do what we've always done. We can't do what we've always done. And it might just be that in having these conversations, you find that others may even be relieved, that you're stepping out of a tradition. So what do you need to do in order to relieve yourself or of this. Now number three is about managing the disappointment because let's say you decide that we did elf on the shelf last year because that is what everyone was doing on Instagram. We didn't do. I've never done that. And my kids are disappointed that we're not engaging in this fun thing that their friends might be talking about at school. And I say to them,

I know it's so fun, isn't it? But the elf, we don't have an elf. And they're disappointed. but I have to manage that. And I think sometimes we just, we so fear the disappointment or upsetting others. We so fear maybe resentment coming our way or people not understanding why perhaps we can't do what we might have done. Perhaps you're saying, you know what, we just can't host this year? I know it's our turn and I'm really sorry and we just, we just can't, we just can't do it. Or, you know what, we really just need a Christmas together.

whatever it might be. We've had a hard year. We just need a slow Christmas. We don't want to trek across the country this year. Now I think it's also really helpful to think of this as for now, not necessarily forever, because sometimes when we're addressing things, we can think that this is it now. We're never going to do that again. But actually, your energy levels might be different next year. Your resources might be different next year. But how can you honor where you are at now? and I know I mentioned resentment from other people, but actually what about the resentment that we can feel when we know we're spending something that we do not have, be it financially, be it energy?

You know, we're doing that in a spirit of resentment and frustration and you have no idea what this has cost me. You have no idea what this sacrifice has been behind the scenes. So as we're saying to people, you know what, I can't do that this year. not doing that this year. You're actually enabling yourself to let go of what could be resentment that is going towards that person and they might have no idea. So as we're doing this for ourselves, we're doing this for other people. Now we can be kind and sacrificial and sometimes maintaining relationships requires us to be a little bit sacrificial. So it's a bit of a case

basis really, isn't it? And sometimes we need to weigh up other people's temporary discomfort for the health of our mind or the health of our family. Just a little something to get you thinking as your mind is rushing ahead about actually what might you just be doing because you've always done it. What tradition may not be serving you this year? Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit.

If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe, review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three books, Mind Over Mother, know your worth and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book you don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a month.

They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on anamatha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.