Wishing You a Radically Accepted Holiday

Holidays often overflow with expectations. The movies show us happy, smiling families. People are 'supposed' to be 'nice.' Yet everyone's relationship to the holidays is different. Expectations of a joyful holiday can be overwhelming, especially when our gatherings and events are not or can not be what we would wish for. Many of us are grieving, missing family members, struggling with our health, away from home, fearful, or otherwise hurting. A belief that how we are feeling is somehow wrong only serves to increase our pain.

Feel How You Feel

It is known that trying to force ourselves not to feel something often brings those emotions back three-fold. In Acceptance Commitment Therapy, there is a common metaphor of a beach ball. Trying to push away an emotion is like trying to drown a beachball by holding it underwater, not only does it not go away, but it pops up with fierce force (Stoddard and Afari, 204).

Many try to keep their stress, pain, and grief away over the holidays. We don't want to bring others down. We want to be 'nice.' Yet, in casting those emotions out, we run the risk of cultivating the very emotions we are trying to avoid.

Allowing ourselves to feel what we feel, to hold these lightly, is a kinder alternative. If we don't feel the 'holiday spirit,' that's okay. We feel what we feel. Beating ourselves up for what we feel, or denying it, only creates more suffering for us. Sometimes, we may choose to share what we are feeling only to find a connection with others who are feeling the same way.

Radical Acceptance

In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, an off-shoot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, there is a concept of radical acceptance (Linehan, 2015) Radical acceptance means allowing ourselves to accept the moment as it is. It doesn't mean we resign ourselves to any certain future, but that we do accept the present. In fact, we have to acknowledge something to change it.

Over the holidays, many difficult-to-accept things can be in our faces. We may remember that we do not have the relationship we would like to with our children, or that someone we love is no longer here to enjoy a gathering with us. We might have to accept smaller things as well, like a meal not becoming the masterpiece we were hoping for. We don't have to like something to accept it.

In letting go of our expectations and seeking to appreciate all there is in the moment, we open ourselves up to all the good things that come our way. These might always not be the specific 'good things' we would want. Mindfulness of little good things might still spark some joy. This might look like mindfully watching a light show, going for a walk, or taking the day hour by hour.

In Closing

If you are not feeling 100% cheerful this holiday, that's okay. We don't often choose how we feel. Give yourself space to feel what you feel. Be kind to yourself. Open yourself up to all the joy around you. Have a radically accepted holiday.