S2E5 - Holiday Survival Guide
Show Notes
How do you handle yourself with family/friends/coworkers during the holidays when you have social anxiety or don’t know how to respond to the behaviors of others? When you’re caught off guard by someone’s comments or behaviors:
Peeling back the layers of what you and feel and why and then responding appropriately is a massive skill set.
Do you care about the response of others in reaction to you having a response to someone? If you speak your mind, will others have a problem with that despite whatever bad behavior you might be addressing in someone else?
AJ is able to just say things despite what her family might think. Personality traits lend themselves to different responses from others. Two people can say the same thing and be perceived differently based on their personality. AJ might be seen as being sarcastic or as having dark humor when she speaks her mind. Alex might be seen as controlling or “better than thou.”
When you’re around people who are making you or others uncomfortable. . . how do you handle that?
Give yourself empathy for the experience you are having acknowledging what feelings are coming up for you in reaction to their behavior. What needs are going unmet for you — I’m feeling threatened, unheard, enraged, need for belonging or acceptance isn’t being met. etc.
Sometimes that’s it. Check in with yourself. The other person’s behavior may no longer be relevant because you re healing and taking care of yourself.
Other path is - not going to event if person if going to be there.
Cost benefit analysis. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Different for everyone, decide for yourself. Has to do with energetic boundaries. Maybe you can handle the event so long as you prep yourself for it accordingly. If you know you will take the negative energy of the person or event home with you, it may not be worth it.
How much is fairness and justice playing a role in you being bothered by how others act and what they say? It can have to do with some inner child issues. We can’t control the actions of others.
External vs. internal response.
External disruptor - calling someone out, going external, you say something to someone and it is disruptive to the setting, environment, people, etc. You say it regardless of whether the outcome is successful. Goal is to enact change, but you really have no control over that.
Peacemaker - enact change for yourself by going inward and creating peace within yourself.
Its a power struggle within yourself for whether you want to be an external disruptor or an internal peacemaker. It will probably change from situation to situation from moment to moment based on what you feel comfortable with. It really comes down to what you need to do to take care of yourself.
There is also the possibility of finding an internal peace that brings you to creating an external disruption.
We mean the word disruption as a neutral term. It is not colored by negativity, it is just meaning that something happens that diverts attention in some way, neither good nor bad necessarily, it just happens. It is a change.
Find a peaceful response and finding the courage to put out that response. But you have to do it knowing that you do not know and cannot control the outcome or response from the other person.
Family dynamics are so hard! Finding courage to say something and present it in the way you feel is best, but you can never guarantee the outcome. It may increase the challenging behavior that you are witnessing in someone else.
Present in a way you think is best, but you can never guarantee the outcome. Care for yourself. Release attachment to the outcome or reaction from the other person.
Find a peaceful internal state, find whatever response you are wanting to have to the person, have the courage to state or enact that response, but not be attached to the outcome or whatever behavior might result from your response.
One way to navigate this is to rehearse or practice responses.
Embed breaks for yourself to get away from people and take a moment to recenter yourself. Take a few minutes in the bathroom or somewhere to collect yourself.
Skill rehearsal - Visualize yourself in the upcoming social situation and practice whatever excuse you are potentially going to use to get away from the challenging conversation or situation. Imagine saying that excuse to someone and walking away to somewhere that you can have a private moment.
If you are someone who does not want to have any response to the person out loud, but want to still honor the response you are having: imagine calming yourself with whatever tactic works best for you. You can envision whatever responses your reactive self wants to have to the person floating away from your body to where you no longer feel the need to say anything to the person. Stay in that calm meditative state until you feel you are ready to reintegrate back into the social event. Take as many breaks as you need to.
Ways to excuse yourself from a conversation:
Pretend you have a call coming in on your phone.
Fake something being in your throat that you have to clear. Like you’re about to have a coughing attack. If they’re germaphobic they might just avoid you the rest of the night because they think you’re sick and they don’t want to get sick! Lol!
Something stuck in your eye that you need to go to the bathroom to address.
Elect to take a pause. We are not trained to advocate for or observe in ourselves.
Travel during the holiday season:
Pack a little backpack, fanny pack, messenger bag, etc. with core items that help you feel happy and calm while traveling. Your favorite books or magazines to read for the flight or drive. Bring your favorite candies (or rescue remedy), a packet to flavor your water, gratitude journal, mind games to play. Experience mindfulness moments prior to feeling escalated. These are preventative strategies. They can be something fun or enjoyable that you look forward to.
These things can keep your mind off of whatever anxieties might arise for you while traveling or to do with what you are going to experience when you arrive wherever you are traveling to.
Managing your thoughts prior to a social event. Leading up to it you want to avoid spiraling into oblivion with anxious thoughts.
Alex used to do this by just avoiding the thoughts and distracting herself up until the moment she had arrived at the social event. But this isn’t truly helpful either. She’s not stressed out, but is also not prepared. It’s better to practice and rehearse skills to use at the event during the travel time to the event.
Using your intuition to make decisions about the upcoming event.
Intuition mixed with skill rehearsal. There is more consciousness in relation to the upcoming event and choices you are making in preparation for the event to ease your anxiety about it. Turn it into a yummy experience. What would feel so good to wear to the event? What will I be so excited to eat at the event? Fact based information to remove anxiety. Instead of ruminating over questions with unknown answers about the event, change it to factual statements you can make and know about the event. You remove an emotive reaction to a trigger.
Stop the external anxious chatter to pause, go inward, and practice the reaction you want to be able to have in the moment to whatever situation might arise. Link back to the intuitive, internal, sensory integration response where you can check in with yourself.
Peace comes with stopping the incessant anxious chatter. Shift away from the thing that is spinning you into oblivion by stating fact and focusing on factual things that you have control over.
You will put yourself in contact with what you want at some point even if it is not there at this event. You can do this for yourself later at some point, so don’t worry if it’s not the way you want it to be right now.
External stimulation and environmental factors can affect our ability to turn inward in the moment when we need to have a peaceful moment to ourselves while at a social event.
To go inward, Alex wants to close her eyes. She needs to turn off one of her senses in order to tap into her intuitive voice. In social situations it looks awkward to other people if you are closing your eyes and taking a moment in front of them.
AJ does this all the time in front of people. She will avert her gaze, close her eyes, and take a deep breath whenever she needs to. Then she has space to respond how she needs to in the moment. Options present themself. Your nervous system settles to where you can respond appropriately. It allows you to filter whatever toxicity might be coming at you.
It’s all about giving your body and brain options instead of orders.
Segment: Quotes That Give Me Anxiety
“People who are unable to motivate themselves, must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” - Andrew Carnegie
This quote might have made sense during this guy’s life and in the context of the time, but it is problematic for our society today. The amount of motivation you have does not determine your status as a human being. This quote is basically saying that you’re only worth something if you’re a workhorse grinding day after day to accomplish a ton of things. Talent is irrelevant, skill is irrelevant, personal progress doesn’t matter, but if you work a million hours a day to get a ton of work done, then you are worth something.
In today’s society we are needing to switch the paradigm that working long and hard hours is the only way to achieve success. We want people to be mindful while working and taking care of their needs in order to avoid burnout. This quote is perpetuating the old belief that you need to be a workhorse in order to be successful. This is just not true!
