The Therapy Edit - On 5 ways to reduce stress this Christmas

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

If you feel your shoulders tensing with each opening of the advent calendar doors, you're not alone. Here are five things from my How to Have a Merry Imperfect Christmas guide that will help.You can buy the bitesize video guide from themothermindway.com. Four ten minute videos to reframe the way you feel about the festivities this year.

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. Welcome to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. It's so good to have you here. As the advert start coming, I mean, I feel like they started a while ago for all of the things that we apparently need this Christmas and as our ears fill with all of the Christmas music and Michael Boubley is on D-Frost. I wanted to bring you five little tips to help alleviate some of the stress this Christmas, some of that emotional mental load, just that physical stress that

we can often feel when our shoulders start to tense as we think ahead of all of the things that need to be done and all of the challenges and the dynamics and the expectations that just add to that feeling of stress. I remember a few years ago we went to see a pantomime with the kids and my husband he dashed back to the car to grab some coats and he came back and he said oh my goodness it was so sad. I was getting the coats from the car and I saw this this lady struggling with all of the shopping bags and just seeming really, just emotional and overwhelmed as she put them in the car. And he said, you know, you're okay. And she said, I just want it to be over. I just want Christmas to be over. It's so stressful. I can't wait

for it to be over. And he said, isn't it sad that she felt that way? I said, I completely and utterly relate so often the load of Christmas kind of falls on the mother and I think in the light of the last year and the last Christmas I don't know what that was like for you with all of the different restrictions but it it was complicated it was sad it was we needed so much more I think than what we were able to have last year so I think often what happens is then that we play so much more hope and expectation on the one to come. Now stress sits in the gap between our expectations and our hopes and the fantasy of what that Christmas will look like and the actual reality of the day-to-day mundane and what it's like when you get a bunch of people together with

all of the dynamics that come with it. So we're going to address some of that stress with these five tips so that we will not find ourselves loading the car with the bags wishing for it all to be over. So number one, take yourself into account. As you're planning and you're thinking ahead of how to make this time brilliant for the kids and the people that perhaps you're hosting, you know, take yourself into account. What do you need? How are you feeling? It's so easy to focus on facilitating it for everyone else. But actually, when that loads, it's heavily on your shoulders. It's so important that you take yourself into account, especially after this last year, you know, what resources do you have available to you? You know, where are your, where are your

energy levels? Where are you factoring yourself into this Christmas? What do you need to as you're there thinking about everyone else's needs? Because as we need, know. If we continue to overlook our own needs, our own emotional, mental, physical needs consistently, then that's going to lead to overwhelm and burnout and stress and resentment and exhaustion and frustration. So as you are thinking about everybody else and planning for everybody else, you are valuable too. You are as worthy of having a restful, enjoyable time as the people that you were trying to facilitate that for. So just take yourself into account.

Number two, challenge traditions. Now, traditions, we so often do them because it's just the way we always have. You know, how many Christmas traditions do you have that you just do because that's what you do? Now, traditions are only traditions if they serve you, if they're adding something. You know, what traditions might you just be doing,

doing as you've always done out of habit, that actually, you know, can you side step it this year? I stopped sending Christmas cards. Now that was a massive thing for me to do a few years ago, but that was one tradition that actually just had to go. You know, is it sending Christmas cards? Is it cooking everything from scratch or buying gifts for everybody? Do your resources allow for those traditions to be enjoyable things, or actually can they be readdressed, adjusted. Sometimes I think we can be surprised. I think there are traditions that we've addressed

over the last few years of buying everyone presents. And I can't remember who said, you know, why don't we just do Secret Santa, relieve some of the financial pressure, relieve some of the, you know, just the length of the list. And people were relieved. Because actually the traditional.

of buying everything for everyone just didn't. It wasn't serving us anymore. It was actually adding more pressure than it was bringing joy. So how can you look at the traditions that you always do because you've always done them and just do a little inventory of what might not be serving you anymore as a family or as an individual? Might you sidestep it even if it's just for this year as you take into account the fact that you've got so much to rest and recover for. the third tip I have is to use a pausing technique when invited to things our diaries so often feel so quickly over the festive season and actually I think we probably need more breathing space and space to process things people's social energy people's physical energy probably

going to be a little bit lower because we haven't been flexing that muscle of socialising as much as we did pre-pundemic so therefore social events and gatherings can really take it out of people especially children so when the invitations come can you adopt a pausing technique and it might simply just be let me check my diary and then it gives you that opportunity to go back to your diary and look at the wider picture of your week and imagine and think ahead to what resources you might have available or might not have available as you take that into account. So use a pausing technique. I will check my diary and get back to you. And even if that day or that evening is free, you might think, you know what, that's wedged in between two other things and we might just be

a bit tired, we might be a bit shattered, we might need some downtime. So actually, in light of the bigger picture of the week, we're not going to do that. So number four, keep one part of your routine in. What refuels you? What grounds you? What do you do in normal day-to-day, non-festive life that gives you something that you need? It might be a walk, it might be a workout, it might be meeting up with a certain friend on a certain day. What can you try and keep in as part of your routine? Because we know so well that often over Christmas and over these busy periods, the normal routine goes out the window but actually there might be things that you really need this Christmas just to keep in there and create it as an expectation so for me it's just going out for a walk

around the block each day it might be a long one it might simply be a bit of fresh air but if that is the expectation is that every day mum needs to go for her walk then that's more likely to be facilitated it's more likely to happen so as you look ahead and the risk of those things getting so deprioritized that they don't happen, which ones are important? Which ones can you keep in and hold on to, knowing that it gives you something you need as things get busy? And finally, just acknowledging the difference between the fantasy

and the reality we often have at these times, you know, the fantasy of everyone getting on and having a wonderful, time memories being made, brilliant food, whatever that fantasy might be for you. And then just thinking about the reality, the reality of someone's probably going to fall out, someone's probably going to have a little fight and a tussle over toys, something's probably going to get burnt, someone's going to say something inappropriate, and that's the normal, isn't it? I think looking at the Christmas nativity scene, we see the fantasy, we see the perfection, we see the warmth and the joy of that moment, where we know in reality,

that nativity scene would have been smelly, it would have been loud, it would have been chaotic, the baby probably would have been screaming, we know the reality of birth, yet often what we focus on is the fantasy. Now it's great, it's great to dream, isn't it? But again, going back to what I said at the start is the difference between the fantasy and the reality, the wider that gap, that's often where the stress lies. So where can we just gently encourage ourselves when we find ourselves placing so much pressure on what is really just a few days? Where can we coach ourselves just to gently bring in that reality? Just so that our expectations are in a healthier place in a in a place that is more likely to be in line with what actually happens so as you

head towards Christmas in the coming days and weeks how can you embrace the merry imperfect Christmas now these are some of the tips that I shared in my um how to have a merry and perfect Christmas guide and I would love to give you 10% off using the code the therapy edit 10 and that's on the Mother Mind Way website and it's just a little video guide just supporting you through the next weeks in light of the year that you've just had. So I hope that will also be helpful for you. So have a merry imperfect Christmas and go gentle on yourself. Take care. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram and

and Martha, you might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.