Sending You Season’s Feelings: Faring Better with Emotions During the Holidays

Everywhere you go - twinkling lights…eye-catching decorations…the intoxicating smell of fresh pine (from a real tree or an aerosol).

What else can you find everywhere you go?

Emotions. Everywhere. In everyone.

In this article, I’ll share some experiences, thoughts and offer real-world actions that may help you not only survive this often-trying season but to stay balanced, emotionally steady, and capable of really being with family, colleagues and others who may typically push every button.

Emotion is Not a Four-Letter Word

My doctoral research was, in part, driven by my personal need to answer this: “What is an emotion?”? Whenever I speak on this topic, I ask audiences to shout out their answers to this query. Most often I hear one-word responses - ‘angry’, ‘happy’, ‘sad’. Of course, emotion is more than a name, just like denial is more than a river.

The most fitting definition I’ve found to date is “Emotion is an organized mental response to an event or entity.” (Izard 1991). In other words, you are likely to have an emotion-based response to just about everything – from an email written IN ALL CAPS from your boss (been there), to hearing a song you danced to at your wedding, to simply having a meal.

I had just finished a month of guest teaching at a university in Europe. The night before flying home my family and I took in the beautiful views one more time and were excited to have one more amazing meal. I took one bite of the delectable seafood stew before me – its all-encompassing aroma and flavor suddenly transported me to a Cape Cod vacation with my parents when I was twelve. It triggered how one night my late mother made the best meal ever with the mussels we’d just harvested ourselves from the salt pond in back of the cabin. It was a magical meal almost lost until then. It flooded my mind, and the tears flooded my eyes. I still think it was the best meal ever.

You Can Run but You Cannot Hide

Now, I hope you’re sitting down for this:

Some research posits humans may experience anywhere from 12,000 to 65,000 emotions in a 24-hour span, even as we sleep.

Frankly, I think that’s a lowball number, especially during the holiday season.

Have you experienced a moment that like it was lifted right off a sparkle-laden, red-bowed greeting card? People laughing, smiling, downing eggnog - anybody up for roasting chestnuts on an open fire?

A nanosecond later, that serene scene devolves into a hotter-than-lava, wild-eyed exchange of nasty, spit-fired words or it collapses into colder-than-ice silence that won’t be melting any time soon. And, yes, the eggnog may have been a factor.

When such happens, our instinct may be to run away (physically and/or mentally) or we may turn, ready to fight to the finish. Usually neither option resolves nor addresses what triggered things in the first place.

Turning Down the Heat on Your Emotional Thermostat

As an advocate of using emotional intelligence (EI) every day and everywhere – especially at the holidays - I’d like to offer some FTAs – Frameworks, Thoughts, and Actions that may (note italics) lessen not only the frequency at which these scenes occur but manage how intensely you experience them. Truth be told - there’s no guarantee such situations won’t happen anyway but these FTAs may help you keep you more together so you can actually enjoy the piney smell of the season.

FTA #1: Tune into your body – what do you feel and where do you feel it most? Stomach? Throat? Jaw? (Those are mine.) Consciously breathe into those areas – let your chest expand, feel air in your nostrils, loosen the tightness in your jaw by letting it go slack. Your teeth will thank you.

FTA #2: Name it, Frame it, Tame It: In the moment, can you name the emotion you’re experiencing? Is it anger, fear, sadness? Emotions also have an ‘intensity range’, so to speak. Working with clients, if they say, ‘I’m angry’, I help them talk through whether they’re experiencing mild annoyance or outright rage where they could physically strike out or chomp a chair leg. Talking about it out loud may help us recalibrate and see if the intensity really fits the issue at hand.

FTA #3: Focus on what’s going right in this moment: This is where the idea of gratitude comes in - what is in your world right now that pleases you? Morning traffic was light... that cup of tea warmed me up… the sunlight felt so good on my face as I walked here. Wrapping yourself in gratitude feels like a fire’s glow on a frigid day. As the poet Rumi says, “Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your Life.”

FTA #4: Take back your power by changing your initial response to the trigger: I’ve learned this the hard way. If I hear something - a ‘tone’ in my husband’s words to me, rather than challenge with a kneejerk “And just what do you mean by that?”, first I get curious before I get angry. I may ask if he’s hydrating enough, how he slept, or if he’s still annoyed about the call he had this morning. I can’t assume it’s always about me.

FTA #5: Guess what? Mom was right - Count to 10: Yeah - you’re gonna straighten them out... how dare they say that! Revenge is mine!

Before throwing the gauntlet down, try counting to 10. Why? It engages the prefrontal cortex - the executive thinking center of your brain that helps control your thinking, problem-solving and connects with other parts of the brain and can help you manage you. So, before saying something you may regret, take a deep breath, count to 10 and make a note to thank mom.

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I’m praying for a peaceful holiday. I believe we have more control in how we respond to people, situations and our own thoughts than we may think. There’s a copy of the poem Desiderata (‘Things Desired’) by the door. When I leave home for the ‘real’ world, it reminds me ...

“...whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful, strive to be happy.”

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Abrazos/Hugs – Dr. Pat