Intro:
Thanks for clicking on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling, I’m Curtis Smith, and I invite you to subscribe to our podcast and to like and share it as well. I hope you enjoy today’s episode.
Podcast Episode #26:
Curtis: Hi, everyone and welcome to Conversations With Crosswinds Counseling. I’m Curtis Smith, joined today by Phil Erichsen one of the great counselors here at Crosswinds Counseling and this is dropping on Halloween. So, Happy Halloween Phil.
Phil: Happy Halloween everybody. Thanks, Curtis, for having me today.
Curtis: Absolutely. So here we are Phil, at the end of October. Tomorrow is November 1st, and I think most people would agree we’re kind of into the holiday season now, or we’re certainly on the cusp of it. No matter where you are, I mean some people are probably already listening to Christmas music. Some people think the holidays are still months away, but they’re here.
Phil: Pretty much, according to Walmart and Target. They already have this stuff out in September.
Curtis: Yeah, I was going to say, I think, uh July 4th now turns into Christmas like the next week. It’s crazy – so yes, according to retail stores we’ve been in the holiday season four months already. The holidays are an interesting time you know so many people love them.
Phil: Yep.
Curtis: So many people, I think, dread them or don’t like aspects of them. I think for all of us, no matter where you land on that scale you probably feel more stressed during the holiday season than others. Is that true? Do you find that with the folks that you work with?
Phil: Absolutely. I tell clients all the time that the busiest time of the year for therapists, and specifically for me is during the holiday season. The busyness, the stress of all the things that they have to do, they have to get done, the checklist, all that stuff and and sometimes having to interact with uh one family member twice a year can be – I’ve had clients that have come in for that. Where they struggle and worry about that.
Curtis: Wow.
Phil: Yep.
Curtis: It’s funny because I feel like the speed of life has just been increasing, and I almost don’t notice a real difference uh you know between an April, and a July, and a December, but I do think a lot of people experience this extra busyness. So, what should we be aware of as we get into the holiday season here? How are we able to cope with these things better? What are some tips that you would give folks who are watching today? Or listening, thinking, ‘Man, here come the holidays, and I know my stress level is going up.’
Phil: Yeah, usually around – it’s perfect that we’re doing this around like Halloween and everything because I think a lot of people tend to put a lot of these things off. They know there’s a lot of things coming up that they need to get done and taken care of, and they wait a long time to get those things done. And then they try to cram them all in, you know mid-December, and that can be very very difficult. You know kids are out of school usually around that time, and so there’s lots of things that you don’t anticipate, a lot of certain variables. And so, I try to in therapy try to help clients strategically plan some things out. Usually, we’re trying to help them to try to do one thing per day, max, ideally, and trying to get ahead of as many things as possible. A lot of things during the Christmas – especially Christmas time, you know ahead of time mostly what’s going to be happening. So, you can start planning around after, oh you know, Halloween, and everything like that.
Curtis: Yeah. So good to be talking about it earlier. You mentioned something a moment ago that intrigues me. I don’t really have this in my life, I’m thankful, but so many people have that one family member, or that one side of the family, or that one gathering that we have to go to every year, and I just know I’m going to see him or her, or they’re going to get to me. That level of stress, relational stress with friends or family in particular that you don’t see all that often. How can people navigate that better?
Phil: Well, that’s a complicated one. Family is a different ball game. Sometimes, you know sometimes, the reality is that you do have to unfortunately interact with that one family member, and try to accept and make the best of it. But even within that, there’s things that you can do to try to mitigate some of the frustrations and tension or awkwardness, whatever it may be. And with clients, usually, we’re trying to navigate ways, you know, having an “out” so to say. Having a way to, you know, a scheduled thing where you’re not there for 6 hours. You’re only there for 3 hours and you have this “socially acceptable” out where most family members won’t fight with you about it. I know there can be Grandma sometimes might be like, ‘Please, don’t leave you know I really want you here for this moment,’ or something like that, but being able to you know talk through that socially acceptable out. Being able to say, “no,” and having some boundaries discussed and ironed out beforehand, instead of just trying to wing it, that’s usually the best approach to that.
Curtis: Yeah, so in a sense the answer is kind of like the same, just for holiday stress in general. I loved how you were saying kind of, get ahead of it, think of one task a day, be prepared for the crush of this season. Same thing for dealing with family members, or those gatherings that you know are going to cause you a little more anxiety than normal.
Phil: Yep.
Curtis: Having a plan. Thinking about it ahead of time seems like it’s going to be key.
Phil: That tends to be the best approach, I find people are most stressed when they’re just improvising, and just trying to wing it during the holiday season, ’cause then everything’s just thrown on you and you know there’s only 24 hours in a day. You only got, you know, you’re not an octopus. You ain’t got eight arms or anything that you can take care of all these things. So, it’s hard. It’s hard.
Curtis: Yeah. Do you find when people, you said, you get more of a rush of people coming in, is it typically more about dealing with family members that they don’t see, or overall stress, or shopping, or is there a way to, can you say, ‘Yeah, this is the number one reason during the holidays that people come in more to see me.’
Phil: I think if I were to summarize in one word, I think the biggest problem tends to be expectations. Whether it’s – it can be, you know, expectations of yourself, or expectations of how other people will act or respond, and most of the time, it’s what people place on themselves, and what they think they need to do.
Curtis: Yeah.
Phil: You know, holiday traditions and things can run deep, you can think that because you did this for a bunch of years when you were a kid and growing up, that you have to do all these things. You kind of place this guilt and shame on you because you think if you don’t do it, you failed Christmas. And instead of just enjoying the holiday season, the season of giving, and Christ, and all these wonderful things that you know, depending on where you’re at, and you’re upbringing, everything, your beliefs, and everything, what you can go with, and get out of Christmas, but most of the time people will look back after Christmas and just take be like, oh, just exhausted. And I don’t think that’s what Christmas was supposed to be.
Curtis: It definitely was not what it was supposed to be, but it is what it’s turned into in America over the last, I don’t know, 100, 150 years, probably. Certainly 100 years. I’m dealing with something myself this season. For the first time, my oldest child is married, and so I have a daughter-in-law, they’ve been married four years. For the first few years of their marriage they have not done a whole lot of the, uh, holiday sharing – going to one house for this, for Thanksgiving, the other for Christmas. We’ve had them just about every holiday, and they told us recently that they’re not going to be with us on Christmas day, and I’m not gonna lie Phil, I didn’t love that. You know it kind of hit me harder than I thought it was going to, and I know that it’s the – it’s just what you were talking about, my expectations are. I’m trying to change them and set them to say okay it’s fine if we get to together on December 22nd, and that’s when we celebrate Christmas. It’s great. It’s fine. And then I, so I don’t know, I’m trying to do what you’re saying, but it’s a challenge when it’s your own life, and it’s your own kids. It’s your own set of circumstances that you have expectations for.
Phil: Absolutely. Fun fact, when I do premarital counseling for people, I have an entire session devoted to holidays and traditions.
Curtis: Really?
Phil: Because, you know, okay, ‘do you open a Christmas present on Christmas Eve?’ That’s the question, and the thing is that you know for some people, that could be a thing that you do. In my family growing up we did that because we went to my grandma’s house all day on Christmas Day, and so we really left super early. So we really didn’t have time in the morning to open presents. So my parents would say, ‘Oh, here’s the best gift.’ You know they kind of nudge me towards the one and so we’d get the one before it – kind of keep us, you know, keep us a little happy until Christmas night where we can open things, but for some people you know, if you were to say open a Christmas present on Christmas Eve they’re like, you can’t do that. You’ll ruin Christmas. That’s not allowed.
Curtis: Right. And I’m one of those families. I don’t know if I take it to that extreme, but we never open presents on Christmas Eve.
Phil: The reason for it is you have years of nostalgia and memories and treasured things that are in there. So, it’s very understandable why when those things change you know, that’s why the expectations come in, and it’s okay to love those and appreciate those, but it can be hard, and that’s where it gets complicated. Just saying, ‘no,’ to a family member or a change of plans can have this snowball – pun intended – you know, effect on everybody.
Curtis: Man. I love that you bring that into premarital counseling when you do that our couples like, ‘Oh my gosh, what a great idea. I’m glad you brought this up because we’re getting married here, in a couple months, in June, and I wasn’t thinking about the holidays and traditions.’ That seems like a really good idea.
Phil: Yeah, well that’s where a lot of times, that’s where the arguments tend to um, kinda tend to start you know. You’re married for a little bit, and then, so you got married in June, then six months later, yeah, in December, and okay do you go to your parents’ house or her parents’ house; or whatever, and who goes first? And how long? And then also the same thing with Thanksgiving.
Curtis: And right. If we’re going to do Thanksgiving there, do we have to do Christmas over there? And all that.
Phil: And that’s if you just have the two families. I mean I’ve known clients that they’ve got the four. You know, if parents separate at some point, or anything like that. Like then, oh man, I don’t know how they do that – props to them, but that is hard, and it’s something it’s good to discuss it in premarital because they’re not, you know, they love each other. They really love each other. They’re excited. So, it’s easy to talk about those things.
Curtis: And they don’t have their new tradition set. That’s why I love it. It’s great – getting ahead, I think, that’s the theme of this entire podcast, is plan ahead. Think ahead. So here we are, on the cusp of November, and you should get a plan for the holidays.
Phil: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Curtis: Phil, thanks so much. Really good stuff to chew on as we enter probably the busiest season of the year. We hope and pray here at Crosswinds that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, and I hope the holidays this year are great for you. Phil, thanks for being with us.
Phil: Thank you very much.
Curtis: Thank you for being with us on Conversations With Crosswinds Counseling. We’ll see you next time.
Phil: Have a great day.
Outro:
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