What is one negative emotion you feel during the holidays?  Why?

The holidays are a perfect storm for high emotion—both positive and negative.  Along with the wonderful emotions of anticipation, unselfishness, nostalgia, love, excitement and others of the Christmas season, many other emotions are common as well including guilt, overwhelm, stress, disappointment, inadequacy, loneliness and many others.  This is normal.  

The Storm of Holiday Emotions

Christmas time produces many triggers for emotions.  More demand on our time and schedules and energy, lots of decisions about what to do and what to buy, it stretches our finances, we interact with people we love or are away from them, we often interact with difficult family members, we have expectations that may or may not be met, and many more.  

Adding Negativity to Negative Emotions

In addition to these experiences and emotions, sometimes we ADD negativity to the negative.  We feel guilty that we’re so stressed out!  We tell ourselves we should be more calm.  We compare ourselves to others and feel inadequate that we should be doing more service or more family traditions or find a more meaningful gift.  We worry that we’re missing the reason for the season because things are so chaotic!  Here are a few ways we can deal with negative emotion that arises at Christmas time and limit additional unnecessary suffering we might create.  

Expect Some Negativity

Some of the added negativity we feel comes from the expectation that Christmas will be or should be a happier time of the year.  When difficult emotions pop up, we’re surprised.  And, we’re inclined to think something has gone wrong.  

The truth is that life is always 50% positive and 50% negative.  This is the human experience.  And this is true at Christmas time as well as other times of the year.  For more about why life has 50% negative emotion read this article.

Expectation Diffuses Disappointment

One thing we can do to eliminate some of the secondary negativity is to expectthat there will be some negative emotions at Christmas.   There is increased financial, physical and social demand during the holidays.  Of course, there will be some stress, anxiety and disappointment.  And it’s okay.  When we plan for it, we won’t be surprised when it happens.  We’ll just recognize it and not add more negativity to it.  

No matter how we choose to live our holiday season there will be about 50% negative emotion.  For example, we may try to go to all the parties and events we are invited to.  And that may come with wonderful emotions such as inclusion, connection with others etc. However, it may also come with negative emotions such as exhaustion, overwhelm or even resentment.  Alternatively, we may choose to enjoy more simplicity and calm by saying no to some Christmas parties or traditions however, we may experience some disappointment or awkwardness maybe even some self-doubt. Nothing has gone wrong when we feel these emotions.  Life will be 50% positive and 50% negative regardless of what we choose.  When we expect negative emotion it can lessen the stress or guilt or frustration we feel when we experience it because we know it’s just part of life.  It’s a package deal.  

Process Negative Feelings Instead of Avoiding Them

Although our brains feel like negative emotions are dangerous, they aren’t.  Negative emotions can’t hurt us.  They are just neurotransmitters that pass through our bodies in order to send a message.  The more we shove negative emotions down, ignore them or even react to them—we often make the emotion grow bigger and last longer.  We can handle any emotion without making it bigger if we just stop and process it.  For more specifics on how to do this see the article on processing emotion.  

For example, yesterday as I was bustling around trying to stuff Christmas cards, order gifts on-line and pack for some family travel coming up, while trying to help with homework, piano practice, make dinner and entertain my 4-year-old—I was feeling stressed.  I felt like there was more to do than I could handle.  I noticed myself getting snappy and impatient with the kids and sneaking gummy bears from my closet.  

In the past I might have tried to convince myself everything was fine (resist) or eventually yelled (reacted), or even just continued to eat gummy bears (buffering) to avoid feeling stressed.  All of these would have added negative consequences.  But I stopped myself and acknowledged that I was stressed.  I named the emotion.  “I’m feeling stressed.” !  I just felt what it felt like in my body.  And after a couple of minutes I felt a little calmer.  I could think a little clearer.  

Utilize the Message the Negative Emotion is Sending

The brain has a reason for sending negative emotions; they send a message in order to get us to act in a particular way.   Negative emotions aren’t particularly enjoyable.  Given the choice many of us wouldn’t opt to feel them.  However, avoiding the emotion causes us to miss the message.  For example, yesterday when I was feeling stressed, my stress was a message that I was doing too much.  After I processed it, I stepped back and thought about my expectations.  They were unrealistic, so I cut out some things I had hoped to do, I prepared a more simple dinner than I had planned, and let some of the piano practicing be cut short.  Because I used the message my emotions flagged, I was able to enjoy the process a little more with my kids.  

Here are some messages our emotions are sending us: 

 
Disappointment tells us there is a gap between our expectation and reality.  
Stress tells us we are doing more than we have the time or energy for.  
Guilt tells us we value two things at the same time.  

Instead of being frustrated about our negative emotions, what if we just looked at them like text message alert systems letting us know when to slow down, what’s important to us and when we’re in danger.  This is a tremendous help!  

Recognize Indulgent Emotions

As we have discussed, emotions are helpful indicators of our thoughts and health status.  As we listen to them they can help us take necessary action. However, there are certain emotions that are not particularly helpful.  When you find yourself stuck in emotions like overwhelm, worry, resentment, procrastination, victimization, or shame. It’s important to look at why. Often it is a distorted thought that is driving these types of emotions.  These are not emotions that are useful to spend lots of time in. When we feel these, we will want to look at the thoughts creating these emotions.  See my article about how to do this.  

Tame the Storm of Negativity

As the storm of negative holiday emotions builds this year—you can tame it by expecting it, processing it, responding to the message the brain is trying to send, and not staying stuck in indulgent emotions.  Negative emotions are part of the package deal of the holidays.  However, we can eliminate additional negativity by changing how we respond to the negativity we are offered.  

How to Manage the Storm of Emotions at Christmas

1. Expect negativity.  Life is 50/50.
2. Process emotion instead of resisting, reacting or avoiding.
3. Recognize the message the emotion is sending.
4. Flag indulgent emotions and consider changing distorted thoughts.