Embracing a New Perspective on Holidays: Combating Stress and Finding Gratitude

Hello and welcome to In the Rising a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema. And you know, for me, cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fit after breast cancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. Hello, hello, welcome to In the Rising podcast. I am really happy to speak with you today. It's another one of those solo casts, so no one that I'm interviewing today, but I am really eager to talk about this topic. Today is November 20th and it's a few short days before Thanksgiving in 2023. And I want to talk about holiday stress, food and all of the wonderful things that the holidays can bring. And now the holidays, I think, get kind of a bad rap. I don't know what your thoughts are, because the moment you say holidays, you think about long lines at the airport. You have to buy this present. Oh my gosh, did you get the sale on Black Friday? Was that even a sale on Black Friday? Did they write, you know, put up the prices, what have not beforehand. So there are all these things that we're trying to figure out and go through in the holiday season, but it is also stressful and you know admitting to myself that this year, two of my family members are in the hospital during the holidays. It's not exactly the same type of holiday feel that it was a few years ago or or even in my childhood, and so I wanted to talk about three specific items with you today, because other people may be also navigating the holiday season in a very different place in life. So one of the things, when we're going through navigating holidays and you're going through and you're planning and you have all these things of do do, gotta be here, gotta see this, gotta say that, gotta send this, is to just acknowledge your own emotions around it. I was recommended this exercise and at first I thought, of course, I know what I value, and I realized that a lot of the things that I valued about myself, about things that I had planned for myself or my family expectations, a lot of those values were old and some of those values weren't my own. They were ones that I adopted, and now, when we say tradition, obviously that means there's an adoption of some event, of something to do, something to say, and that connects us to the generation above us two, three, 10 generations right back, and there is a lot of value with that. But when you are not conscious of that connection or those feelings around it, a lot of resentment can come up. And this was actually brought up to me by one of my own patients who was seeing me through the holidays. It was right by Christmas and she I've mentioned her before she said you know, cancer was one of the best things that ever happened to me. And I was floored by that statement because that was not the experience I was perceiving from most of the people that I was working with who were going through cancer. But she said real quickly you know, I don't do traditions to do traditions, I do things that I feel bring value to my family and myself and sending those Christmas cards every year do not bring value to me or my family. And she said it with such a true caring about her family. And she said, right after her experience with me and she said right after her experience with cancer, she stops sending Christmas cards and hasn't been sending them for 20 years. And she says I feel very good about it and I honestly do not really send them either anymore, because I always think about her, but this was such a huge Push. You have to write these cards, you have to get it in the mail, you have to talk to people that you haven't spoken to all year, or you have to write about what you've done all year to people who, quite frankly, may not even care whether you share the last name or not, but there was a relief in acknowledging her own emotions around something, and it changed her own course of action. The second thing I wanted to talk about was expectations, and not just the ones you have for yourself, but the ones others have for you you know what I'm talking about and the ones that you even have for other people. Now, expectations we need expectations, right, I'm the one who drinks all the Kool-Aid about, have a vision for your life and have an expectation that things are going to work well, but when it comes to holidays and all of these people who you have no control over their feelings, you have no control over their actions, it leads to a lot of disconnect. So what about looking at a holiday tradition differently and what are your own expectations out of it when you have acknowledged your current values. And so that is something I'm going to link below in this podcast is an entire list of values, over 50 values. Who knew there were over 50 values? But looking at them and really circling, make your top 10, make your top five and say I am going to follow these because they're true for me now and the values that are really important at 18 may or may not be really important to you at 88. But it it really drives our behavior and it really drives the attitude about certain things, including our traditions. So having expectations around that is important. Having the right expectations around celebrating the holiday period. What, what is the purpose for you? Is it really to buy lots of gifts? Because if that's what you really want to do, then that's OK too. I love gifts, like it's one of my love languages. So I am not saying gift giving is not great or receiving gifts is not great, but what is really the push behind it for you? And we all know that somewhere we are supposed to talk about gratitude, and that gratitude can be in the form of gifts, things that you can touch, monetary gifts. They can also be in the form of a kindness and action, a thought, a special word or a special statement to someone, and also acknowledging that, with that full expectation, you have a different view of what the holiday season means to you this year Because, quite frankly, next year is next year, but this year so much is happening. What is really your expectation for yourself to celebrate Not just others but yourself in that? And lastly, I really want to talk about support systems, as I was reading through Google and I came across an article I'll link that below to where a woman is going through breast cancer while raising six children, and just the toll. And what about if this holiday season, you are experiencing your own health event? For some people it may be more of a health crisis, for others it's a health event and for others it's a series of health events and it's left the crisis stage and now it's in a treatment phase. What does this holiday season mean? And for a lot of the patients and clients that I've interacted with, it really pulled out a lot of grief, and a lot of grief around what the holiday season should be. So grief around the expectation and acknowledging that we could all use a support system at this time is so critical Before we go and we say this to all the time to fill your own cup. But just because you say it doesn't mean it's easy. There's a lot of stimulus right now. Right, if you need any sort of truck, there's a commercial on every few seconds. If you need anything from Amazon or Target my favorite store it is on a commercial. They will send you the text messages, they will send you the emails. There is constant stimulation out there about what you need to get to feel fulfilled. But taking almost a pause and doing a mini hibernation I read that somewhere and I thought that's kind of neat. I like the mini hibernation idea and taking that hibernation at any point in time, up to including the holiday. There are no rules that say you have to be somewhere on a certain day and sometimes celebrating a holiday or a tradition, the fact that it's not even celebrated on a specific day, can release some pressure. The fact is, you may be celebrating that holiday with only specific people that aren't on the list of expectees. It's kind of like a wedding list where everyone expects to be invited but you're only having 50 of your closest friends and not 500. Either way, someone may not be happy, but really, who is filling your cup, you have to be responsible for filling your own. And taking this little break and pause in life to bake the cookies, because you want to bake the cookies you want to bake and not the ones that so-and-so-and-so likes. Or this person has this dietary need and this person has that dietary need, and you have your own dietary need speaking from someone who likes her own dietary food in there. So it is important just to take that moment and pause. And when we say support system, sometimes that can mean you being your biggest advocate of what you can and cannot do and what you will and will not do. So navigating the stress, the candy, the food, the holidays, the travel if we acknowledge our emotions around it, really look at our values and expectations Again, I'm putting a whole list of values down below this podcast and also acknowledging our support system and the value that having an adequate system can bring. We'll hopefully help you navigate your holiday season for 2023 as best as you can. I wish you many, many blessings, a lot of love and a lot of care through these seasons. I will speak to you one more time between now and Christmas and then one more time before the end of the year. So I also want to extend gratitude, extend gratitude to everyone that's listened to podcast, my podcast, throughout the years. This is year four, my fourth year anniversary is coming up, and it means so much to me to still look at my statistics also called vanity metrics and actually realize how many people are taking the time to listen to the people that I have on as guests or my own solo podcast, and it really does provide me a great deal of feeling and purpose and meaning to know that so many people have shared this podcast and find value in it. So I ask, if you do find value, that you do share it with someone and putting it in the hands and ears of someone that it will make a difference for can have more meaning than you even imagine. I am so grateful again for you and until next time, let's keep building one another up.