winter mental health
I listened to a webinar on Winter Mental Health recently. The psychologist presenting began the webinar discussing how to reduce stress over the holidays, and I wrote down the following notes:
- re-assess tradition
- set boundaries
- strategic B-
- managing cognitive load
He also said: "emotions are data, acknowledge them."
Let's be honest, all that is great advice for probably most times, not merely winter and the holidays. I'm going to use these four bullet points as a lens to evaluate where I am currently.
re-assess tradition: I have made great effort this year, beginning in October after an incredibly stressful September featuring me flying halfway across the country and a major family health scare, to take the last few months of the year off from big obligations like travel or family visits and it's worked and it's been absolutely fucking great.
To be blunt, my immediate biological family is a dysfunctional dumpster fire, composed of three other people who hate each other to pretty significant degrees, with dramatically different worldviews, perceptions of the past and current physical reality, and ideas of how things, and I, should be. It feels like at no point where I am significantly interacting with one family member, like visiting, do the other two not feel low key betrayed. That may to some degree be my co-dependent streak talking, which is I why write this on an anonymous blog and not in a text I'm sending to any one of them. Things have improved over the years in that I've gotten myself to therapy and continue to go, have learned to set some boundaries, and married my wonderful and supportive husband. My sibling has done their own growing and therapy and our collective efforts have put the two of us in a better position to interact overall, with some gut-wrenching exceptions.
All that to say, successfully orchestrating a quiet end of the year featuring just my husband and me after an extremely rough move at the beginning of the year - but things have felt nearly non-stop since we got married two years ago - has been really, really nice. +1 for re-assessing tradition
set boundaries: My aforementioned end of year off has absolutely required setting some boundaries. The presenter in the Winter Mental Health webinar said "boundaries aren't walls you build to keep people out, they're filters you use to determine what you allow in." chefs kiss
I also, and this could go into re-assessing tradition as well, set the boundary with everyone but my stepdaughters that we would be skipping exchanging holiday gifts, and gave myself permission not to feel bad if someone did send a gift. This was for financial reasons, and also to manage the pressure of trying to come up with something for everyone. We sent out some homemade cards at the beginning of the month. I'm hoping they give family a bit of a smile, and letting the rest go.
strategic B-: Aforementioned lack of holiday gifting and homemade cards? Employing the "strategic B minus" is a great tool for evaluating what to let go of. I enjoy Christmas decor, a lot, but as I write this the only decor I've set up is an Advent not-wreath I made with pieces from Dollar Tree. It's got four candles in rickety candle holders and three tiny trees with faux presents underneath, and I sewed a little mat to tie it all together. I've been adding thematic items from each phase of the lights of Advent poem (a Waldorf-inspired tradition I grew up with that no one else I know did) and I absolutely love my little display. I hope to set up the tree this weekend, but we'll see.
managing cognitive load: I'm trying, and all of the actions above certainly help, but this is a year-around challenge for me (they all are, but especially this one) that I really struggle with. Another thing that stuck with me from the presentation was learning that it takes people on average 15-20 minutes to really get into something and focused, and each distraction pulls us out, which means we have to spend another 15-20 minutes focusing again. side-eyes my phone, hard
I am resuming my commitment to phone-free mornings, with middling success tbh but I am trying, and working on allowing less distractions during work because I end my days feeling just mentally fried if I allow myself all the distractions I crave. As I get to the end of the year and think about challenges and intentions I want to set myself for the next (my therapist said not to set goals, so I'm renaming/reframing them) managing my cognitive load will be my biggest focus.
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