The Hidden Emotional Burden of the Holidays

You can also read this article in Psychology Today here

Hello there,

Here is Part Two of the three-part series on the unusual combination of emotions many of us experience as the holidays approach. I hope you enjoy it – and the holidays.
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Wishing you a better understanding of the constellation of emotions that swirls within you,
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Anthony

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This is Part Two of a three-part series. You can read Part One here.​

How to go about giving to others, then? Research by psychologist Lara Aknin at Simon Fraser University in Canada has found that gifts that are personalized and attune to the unique needs of the other person lead to the most happiness and relationship growth.

The Power of Giving to Reduce Loneliness

“Yes, but what do I do when I don’t know what they want?” you may be thinking. For starters, ask them. If that still doesn’t help, give them a gift that lets them know more about who you are.

Both strategies, Aknin has found, will likely increase your connection with the other person. Most importantly, when you give from the heart you will likely reduce the loneliness of others which, again, will have the boomerang effect of reducing yours.

When you are considering how to give to someone you care about, never underestimate the power of writing them a card. Sharing your feelings for them will likely increase both their and your estimation of the relationship and decrease loneliness all around.

Very few people take the time to write cards anymore, preferring to write textual messages that are read and moved on from within a minute on a good day. People often put the few cards they receive on their desk or a shelf and are likely to see them again. The effect? Outsized—they are more likely to remember and appreciate their relationship with you.
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Holiday Emotion #3: Nostalgia
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You may be feeling nostalgic from thinking about memories of family holidays and other moments from your past when you felt more connected with other people or a stronger sense of belonging than you do now. These memories may glisten yet also haunt you as you consider how you will spend the holidays this year. Further, you might (but not necessarily) inflate these memories to levels at which they never really existed, a kind of defense mechanism many of us use when we experience social discomfort or disillusionment in the present.

Nostalgia can also become conflated with grief. When someone you loved deeply is no longer around to celebrate the holidays with you, you are likely to feel both emotions. “Time off during the holidays means time to address the melancholy feelings within me that I’ve been burying with my work ever since my brother passed away a few years ago,” Edward told me at a recent conference.

“My father suddenly died three weeks ago and, as he was quite well, it’s been a real shock for me,” Jamie, another one of my conference participants, shared with me recently. “I lost my mother over three decades ago when I was thirteen so I’m facing both the trauma of the loss of my dad and the awareness of being orphaned, which is challenging even if you are an adult. This year, the upcoming Christmas period is going to be really difficult.”

Nostalgia can be positive when you use it to reaffirm your identity and reconnect to the values you developed growing up. Over-focusing on those memories, however, may prevent you from truly engaging with the people now close to you.

“I’m just not feeling the magic this year compared to before,” shared Jessica. You can make the decision to instead learn from the past and use this learning to show the people you now have in your life how much you value and care about them.
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Holiday Emotion #4: Anxiety
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Initially Sigmund Freud, and later the existential psychologist Rollo May, referred to anxiety as an emotion without an object. More recently, it has been described by the Berkeley psychologist Richard Lazarus and his wife Bernice as an “existential emotion.”

Why? Anxiety is produced by threats to your existence you have trouble identifying. It is due to the vague yet disturbing nature of these perceived threats that anxiety elicits so much emotion activation and hyper-vigilance. “I am a new father,” Robert told me recently. “I feel anxious when I observe my parents for the first time as grandparents. It reminds me of how time is passing so quickly and what we are all becoming.”

You may be feeling anxious about spending an extended period of time with your family over the holidays and you might not have voiced to yourself how disconcerted you feel about how you will manage this time.

“I know I’m going to have to spend time with a few difficult relatives who I see once per year at the holidays,” shared one of my conference participants. “I will see distant family members who seem to have nothing more to ask me than ‘When are you going to get married?’” lamented another.

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Which challenging emotions are you experiencing as the holidays approach? What is going on in your life that is producing this emotion(s)? Please send me your response through this survey (which only includes the two questions) so I can use it in next year’s article: bit.ly/holidayfeelings

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Like the child who stays in the candy store too long, at some point we will become sick.

Judging from the recent increases in loneliness, depression, narcissism and distrust, we are already experiencing the symptoms of an intractable illness.

Like any illness, ours will serve as a wake-up call to change the way we live.

It is one of my deepest hopes that this sickness will not be too dire and our lessons not too far ahead in the distance that we are unable to change now while there is still time.
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Our collective well-being hangs in the balance and compels us to take
action now.

How can you develop strategies to more frequently step away from your phone and back into the real world?

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