How To Navigate the Holidays with Confidence and Ease- Dr. Casey's Insight
Holidays
Navigate the Holidays with Confidence and Ease
The holiday season can be a dialectical experience. Filled with exciting traditions, holiday activities, and numerous events with colleagues, family, and friends, it can also bring stress, anxious anticipation, time limitations, and high expectations. While some events bring joy and ease, others may present with past or current relationship complications that inject anxiety, pressure, and memories of past traumas into the already hectic mix. The solution to navigating this season with confidence and ease is preparing with COPE AHEAD, an Emotion Regulation skill from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and DEARMAN, an Interpersonal Effectiveness skill. These skills help you anticipate, plan, practice, and successfully navigate any situation you identify as stressful or challenging for your personal goals or values.
Let’s first walk through the steps for COPE AHEAD and then we will apply a situation.
1. Describe the situation that is likely to present a challenge and decide what wise-mind goal you want to achieve.
2. Decide what skills you want to use in the situation. DBT skills aim to help us get to and/or maintain a wise mind, where we can access both fact and emotion to identify the most effective actions.
3. Imagine the situation in your mind.
4. Rehearse using your skills to cope with the situation.
5. Practice relaxation exercises. Don’t skip this step; a calm body supports a wise mind.
Ok, let’s jump into an example. Just remember, COPE AHEAD can be used to manage both COPE AHEAD can be used to manage both intrapersonal and interpersonal situations that threaten to derail your goal-directed behavior.
Situation: Turning down Grandma’s Pie
1. Every year grandma makes the pie you loved as a child and comments that it makes her so happy to watch you eat and enjoy it. Truthfully, you love the pie AND know that you want to maintain balance in your food choices over the holidays. Your goal is to have a small piece but reject grandma’s efforts to get you to eat the entire piece or have two pieces. You will likely feel guilty that she will be disappointed (and likely visibly show it) and frustrated and annoyed that she cannot respect your personal limits. In the past, you’ve smiled, accepted the second piece of pie, and eaten it in front of her. This year you do not want to give in!
2. Discussing your strategy with your therapist, coach, trusted friend, or family member will help establish a comprehensive and fool-proof strategy to achieve your goal. Your strategy likely include how to manage your emotions and communicate with your grandma.
a. Personal skills
i. Make sure you do self-care activities before the event. Think of taking a walk
or working out, making sure you have a balanced meal so you are not
starving at the start of the event, and you are well-rested.
ii. Identify skills that help you regulate emotion and tolerate distress. Deep
breathing, positive self-talk, distraction techniques, and self-soothe skills can
be key to helping you regulate emotion. Plan to identify skills for before,
during, and after the conversation with grandma.
b. Interpersonal skills
i. Establish a solid script to follow to turn down the pie. This is where DEAR
MAN, an Interpersonal Effectiveness skill from DBT, comes into play. DEAR
MAN is used when we want to ask for something or say no to a request.
(D)escribe the problem:
o I plan to eat a small piece.
(E)xpress emotion:
o I love your pie and cannot wait to enjoy it.
(A)ssert your desire:
o I plan on only eating the pie I have on my plate. I am working
on eating more balanced and mindfully and it is important to
me to continue to do so, even during the holidays.
(R)einforce why it’s important for Grandma to agree:
o I appreciate you respecting my health goals as I have worked
hard, and your support is important to me.
Stay (M)indful:
o Anticipate and identify all the comments grandma may make to decrease surprise, practice validating AND repeat your position.
(A)ppear Confident
o Appear is the key word! You may feel annoyed, frustrated, anxious, and guilty AND it is important to appear confident by speaking calmly and confidently, making eye contact, and
keeping your head high.
(N)egotiate
o This last part is only if you’ve decided there is room to negotiate. Not all situations will be negotiable, but if there is room to negotiate, decide beforehand your bottom line.
3. Imagine the situation in your mind. Put yourself there, at the table with grandma and envision what you will see, hear, and feel in that moment.
4. Try out your coping skills and DEARMAN in your mind and tweak or add whatever is necessary to increase your feelings of confidence and chances of success.
5. Lastly, practice relaxation exercises to use after the encounter to decrease overwhelm, manage negative emotions, and enjoy the rest of the day.
Although the holidays can create new demands, with the proper planning and practice, you can set yourself up to maintain your goals and manage any circumstance that threatens to derail you. Good luck and Happy Holidays!
Written By: Dr. Case Perisin
About the Author:
Dr. Casey Perisin is a Dialectical Behavioral Therapist providing individual and group therapy services to young adults and parent coaching in Central Illinois. Her therapy practice can be found at New Path PLLC.
Dr. Perisin also provides coaching services nationwide to working mothers looking to banish overwhelm and learn to prioritize themselves to create a life of intentionality, valued action, peace, and success. For coaching, she can be reached at drcasey@achievealignedsuccess.com and is also on Instagram and Facebook. Her new coaching website is coming soon!
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of www.ASolutionB.com. The author and www.ASolutionB.com have no affiliations with any products or services mentioned in this article or linked to herein.
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