The holiday season is everyone’s favorite time of year—or is it?
The cultural image of the holidays, fueled by glittering media images, is a delightful time of family harmony, delicious feasts, brightly lit houses, kisses under the mistletoe, and wide-eyed children gathered around the tree.
The good news is that those kinds of heartwarming moments do happen for most of us. Sometimes. Some years. But they certainly don’t happen every year. And even during years when we find ourselves having a relatively merry Christmas, it’s likely that the merriness is coexisting with other, less cheerful emotions as well.
In other words, life isn’t a Hallmark movie, is it?
Sometimes, the cheery holiday images and grand expectations only emphasize the painful gap between the Hallmark holiday dream and real life.
Who hasn’t had “real life” intrude at Christmastime? If you’ve lived any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly had holidays when you experienced heartache, loneliness, grief, or disappointment. Perhaps you were grieving the recent death of a loved one, longing for someone away at war, lamenting a broken relationship, scraping by amid financial hardship, or battling illness in your own life or the life of someone you loved.
During the trying times in our lives, the holidays can feel like a season to endure rather than enjoy. It’s little wonder that many people report feeling more depressed at Christmastime than at any other time throughout the year.
Perhaps the most devastating part of a less-than-joyful season is feeling like you’re alone—as if everyone else in the world is celebrating their best Christmas ever while you’re the only one who’s suffering. The idea that Christmas is supposed to be a huge banquet of bliss is one of the more destructive deceptions we can buy into.
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study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness found that 64 percent of people with existing emotional struggles (such as depression and anxiety) report that the holidays make their conditions worse. If your holiday season is unfolding amid emotions of loss, depression, loneliness, or even panic, understand that your feelings aren’t unusual. You’re certainly not alone.
Bring Joy Into Your World
While it’s a reality that many people struggle greatly during the holidays, it’s also true that anyone can find joy even amid difficulties. Like most good things, joy must be nurtured before it will grow and bear fruit. Here are ways to get started:
Give yourself permission to not feel merry. If you’re not feeling cheerful this season, there’s no need to pretend that you are. When you’re going through a tough time, chiding yourself for not feeling celebratory is one of the least helpful things you can do. Your experience is your own, and you don’t need to live up to any preconceived ideas.
Give yourself permission to feel joy. Sometimes when we’re going through hard times, we hesitate to admit to ourselves when we feel stirrings of happiness or joy, as if admitting their presence diminishes the significance of our pain. But joy and sadness aren’t mutually exclusive—they can exist together in the season. Giving yourself permission to acknowledge joy when you feel it is an important step out of the dark place and into a brighter place.
Maintain activities that replenish you. If you’re not careful, experiencing hardship can preoccupy you to the extent that you forget the activities that used to bring you peace and joy. A big part of healthy self-care is continuing the endeavors that invigorate you and make you smile. Take a moment to identify at least five activities that bring you happiness, such as meeting a friend for lunch, going for a bike ride, or playing a round of golf. Then begin scheduling these activities and following through.
Avoid unhealthy escapes. When we’re struggling emotionally, it’s tempting to turn to excessive eating, spending, or substance abuse. That’s because we want to do something to change our mood. Of course, the list of unhelpful and unhealthy escapes could go on and on. Negative escapes only spread the negativity throughout your entire life.
Escape in healthy ways. Thankfully, not all escapes are negative or destructive. In fact, taking a mental and emotional break from the source of pain is a powerful way to improve how you cope, transform your perspective, and help you identify long-term solutions. An escape could be as simple as spending an hour with an enjoyable book by your fireplace or as elaborate as planning your next vacation.
Take good care of your body. One of the best things you can do to handle the hardships of life is to fortify your health and body. Eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly relieve feelings of anxiety, improve your mood, and energize your body, brain, and emotions.
Stay connected to the people closest to you. When you’re dealing with depression, anxiety, or other struggles, the tendency is to isolate yourself from other people. But isolation only compounds any painful emotions that you’re already experiencing. Reach out to people in your life who bring you happiness and offer you support. Studies have shown that social support can provide a key source of emotional energy and ongoing resilience. In the journey of life, your friends offer support during hard times, share laughter during good times, and believe the best about you at all times.
Envision your best possible self and life. Each day for the next two weeks, spend 15 minutes thinking about and writing about the best possible circumstances in your future. Ponder your goals and dreams—and envision that everything works for the very best. Then spend another five minutes visualizing this best future life as vividly as you can, with a lot of details.
This exercise is more than just a feel-good pep talk for yourself; you'll be retraining your mind by redirecting your thoughts. A
study published in Psychiatry Research demonstrated that this exercise significantly boosted the participants’ levels of optimism.
Choose to laugh. At first glance, this advice may seem absurd. That’s because most people mistakenly believe laughter is like water from a faucet and that only a happy feeling can turn it on. Feel happy first, then come the smiling and laughing.
The truth is, researchers have discovered that laughter and genuine joyfulness are two sides of an equation that works in both directions. Sure, spontaneous laughter is fun. But in less happy moments, there’s power in choosing to smile or laugh—because emotion has a way of following along, with measurable mental and physical health benefits. Invariably, what begins as a choice to pursue joyfulness turns into the real thing and is highly contagious.
Cultivate generosity. Like the bumper sticker says, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness.” But the key word there isn’t “random”—it’s “practice.” That’s because, like laughter, generosity isn’t always our first impulse when feeling down. We all have problems of our own that can feel overwhelming and push thoughts of “doing unto others” right out of our minds. It takes practice and determination to make generosity a part of who you are.
Slow down. Most people have busy lives during the first 10 months of the year, and the holiday season cranks up the busyness even more. Creating joy for yourself is difficult, if not impossible, when you consistently feel hurried and harried. Identify what parts of your life are essential, then begin trimming the rest. Knowing what brings you joy is much easier when you make time to be still and quiet.
This holiday season, don’t wait for joy to find you. Make your life an open invitation every day.
