Thanksgiving Full and Holiday Chaos
It’s Thanksgiving week! It’s a time when those of us who are honored with the privilege, share in a meal made by love, with people we love.
It can also be a time of awkward family dynamics, split time, feelings of stress and pressure, fear-surrounding food. The holidays are a wonderful time, but we all know to well, it’s a time when self-care gets thrown to the side and busyness takes over. Logistically speaking, when we aren’t in our usual daily routines, when there is a lot of shifting and moving pieces, this tends to be the best time to make sure our self-care is at the forefront of our days.
It would make sense that during the holidays when everything around us feels a little like mayhem, we are taking the time to slow down, decompress, and give ourselves some space.
Instead, we are all guilty of putting priority towards getting caught up in the chaos. It’s not only socially acceptable and expected, but it can also be fun and part of the season. However, there is a line during this season of giving, when the fun quickly turns to feelings of anxiousness and feeling overwhelmed. It can be in those moments where we turn towards habits to numb, old habits that feel safe and comfortable. Those moments of numbing don’t have to be termed “negative”. Sometimes, when we are surrounded by chaos they are necessary, but beginning to do them from a place of acceptance and understanding is important. The “numbing” often begins much before the actual coping mechanism itself, as the body begins to respond knowing what’s coming. Alcohol and food are 2 very socially acceptable ways we often “numb out”, which makes it difficult when food is often what we gather around during the holidays.
Knowing that we will be surrounded by delicious foods constantly during this season, media and culture use this time to try to bring even more fear and chaos into the situation.
Instead of realizing this is a time when we are SUPPOSED to find joy in food, people, and giving, we are instead given rules to eat by.
We surround food with fear as we make ourselves believe year after year, we can’t control ourselves when it comes to holiday treats, cookies, and pie. Think about it, it’s the perfect storm.
We are feeling rushed and chaotic, we aren’t making self-care a priority, you reach for ways to slow down/numb out, society puts fear and negativity into our minds surrounding those coping mechanisms, the joy is sucked out of us, we feel bad about our bodies and lack of will power, must punish starting January 1st.
Sound familiar? Sound every year familiar? We are in the midst of chaos during the holidays and instead of #1 prioritizing a little self-care during the day or #2 accepting the fact that it’s a busy season and we are all doing the best we can we #3 bring in even more mental chaos by getting down on ourselves and spending our energy trying to restrict instead of filling ourselves up with EVERYTHING the holidays has to offer without judgment.
Fill up on what brings you joy, what nourishes your soul.
This is going to look different for everyone, but have you ever let yourself stop and think what would make this holiday season the most joyful yet? Are you given the privilege to even ask that question? Give yourself that gift.
Thanksgiving is full of wonderful foods.
If you have been in the constant cycle of restrict, then binge during the holidays, I would like to first remind you that it’s totally ok to be overly full on Thanksgiving. It WILL NOT make or break you.
Fill up on hugs, conversation, laughs, and yes, delicious food. Give yourself permission to enjoy what the day has to offer. Remember that when our bodies fear they are in a state of restriction, the next response will always be to fill up as much as it can to counteract any times of famine it thinks is coming next. Let yourself find joy, without judgment, find time to assess how you are feeling from a space of real internal love, not societal fear.
The moment you begin to berate yourself for your lack of “self-control”, is the moment you begin to rip away the joy you may have felt in the moment.
Remember, if you feel like being with your family is a toxic environment, you are allowed to remove yourself from the situation, no questions asked. It is NOT ok for others to make comments on anything that is on your plate or that you are consuming. If that situation happens, it’s a wonderful time to put a boundary up, and remember that their comments have more to do with them and very little to do with you. Family is very delicate. They have this innate ability to hit our soft spots so very well, but that does not mean that you have to respond how you’ve always responded.
In those moments when you feel uncomfortable and like a boundary is being pushed, you always have the option of respectfully speaking up, changing your posture, or walking away.
You don’t have to start a seen, but you can begin to stand your ground in a way that you feel more comfortable with.
There can be a lot of tricky dynamic changes during this season that can easily set off a lot of uncomfortable emotional bells. Be gentle with yourself. Go back to what your values are as an individual first.
Remember that someone else’s negative response to unsaid expectations has little to do with you, and boundaries can be a wonderful tool.
Learn to be gentle with yourself, and start to toy with the idea of giving yourself permission to enjoy everything the holidays have to offer. What would it look like if instead of telling yourself no this holiday, you let yourself explore freedom from restriction? Remember “binging” is a physiological response that often occurs after restriction or as an emotional coping mechanism. The “binge” isn’t the problem, the restriction started the cycle, something that is making you uncomfortable or not feel safe started the cycle,
“Thanksgiving Full” is NOT a binge.
Let yourself find pockets of joy this holiday season, take some time this week to recall joyful moments during past holidays, how can you recreate those? In what moments did you feel at ease and were able to enjoy the company or a tradition? Are their certain loved ones you could spend a couple extra minutes with? Are their moments of tension you could step away from? Could you unclench our grasp just a little bit from unnecessary control and let yourself find peace?
Maybe you just start by finding a moment of gratitude and work out from there.
Your body knows more than you think, listen to it, give yourself space for self-care, and begin to let go of the societal pressures to do anything but find joy.
- A Life Nourished