Because the forceful exhalation instead of the slow exhalation allows me to take another double breath sigh again faster. And that gets me back into regulation better.
Hi, everyone, welcome back, we are excited to be here again together. And today's episode is what about the social obligations we feel during the holiday season,
the holidays can be particularly difficult to navigate with, with all the social obligations. And we were talking right before recorded and how when you have joined with somebody in partnership, both of your families of origin want to spend time with you. And if you have a family of origin that you come from, that doesn't have healthy boundaries, then they may express a sense of entitlement that you should spend all of your holiday time with, with them. And when we were when we've been raised like that, the brain responds as if we're going to be annihilated if we don't follow the imperatives of our family. And so then what I've seen couples do is they get into really big arguments, and it it devolves into, you don't support me with my family, or you don't love me enough to spend time with my family. And I want to suggest that that does not get involved in these discussions. This discussion is about how much time to spend at each place. It can be a cousin's house, it can be Christmas parties, it can be work parties. And when we are talking about this topic, it's really easy to go down the rabbit hole and make it become about something totally different. So one way to be able to do that is to say, I know that you're really upset because I want to spend time with my family too. But I want to make sure that we stay focused on navigating this. And maybe we can spend an equal amount of time with your family as we do with my family. Now, I do have some clients and have had over the years, who actually don't want to spend any time with their family of origin. But they might have somebody that they are partnered with who feels extreme amounts of pressure from their partner's family of origin, to accommodate the family in every possible social obligation. And in this day and age, I just don't think that that's practical. There are so many different events and entertaining opportunities during the holidays. And so being able to have an idea of time limits and when you're what you'll be spending your time doing and how long at each place can be very helpful. That's that is
great suggestion. And I would say that's probably one of the top things that come up with social obligations and social pressures of the holidays. Right? You know, we, for our listeners, we did do an episode on boundaries just a few weeks ago. So it'd be episode 65. That was really helpful in terms of this exact situation. We I think we actually talked about something very similar. So we probably Yeah, if they want to go back and get more in depth into those boundaries, Episode 65 is great. One of the other things we talked about just in last week's episode, is financial obligations of the holiday season. And so we talked about, you know, expectations and gifting and so forth. But I I do think we should at least briefly mention it this week that that is a nother part of social obligations when you're invited to a party, bringing a gift for the host or hostess. When you know, at work. Usually there's some sort of gift exchange at the very least some sort of acknowledgement, holiday cards. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And so even if it's not a formal gift, or it's not really about the dynamics of your family and your partnership and your children, it's there's still a lot of social obligations around gifting. So we do go in depth about that last week, but is there anything else you want to mention about that in terms of the social pressure of gifting,
some of it's very difficult to navigate if you if you are in a work environment that expects certain Quality gifts to be exchanged, that can be really hard. And it might benefit you to come up with some creative ideas. One way that we avoided that when I started my nonprofit Counseling Center at Oak Grove, is we had a white elephant Christmas gift exchange. And it was hilarious. And some of it would be like brand new stuff that the person didn't return to Amazon and time or brand new things that didn't fit or that they didn't want anymore. But it was so much fun. And there wasn't any financial pressure on anybody.
That's awesome. And so you put rules around, you know, spending for the gift. Okay, that's fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah, it was $5. I can't remember one of the gifts was like a hygiene gift. So it was two rolls of toilet paper, it was a brand new. It was like a bar of so I mean, it's just hilarious. Yeah,
that's awesome. And as we've been talking about in all of these episodes, where we're focusing on the holidays, the point of these gatherings and these rituals and the gifting and the entertaining and the dinners, it's all about connecting with people we care about. And so if we, if we think about that, when we go into each of these situations, and we try and prioritize connection over obligation, or social pressure, I think it's going to serve us very, very well. So I love that example. Okay, so we have time spent, we have gifting. What about food, food and alcohol.
Food is so difficult, I can remember one time, a doctor who performed bariatric surgery in the Sacramento area asked me to come and speak to his patients that were preparing for surgery, I think it was at the very beginning of November a few years ago. And in that presentation, we talked a lot about how in many families partaking of all the food is somehow conceived as a an act of love. And that it becomes very personalized for some family members if you won't, or can't eat, what they've prepared. And coming up with some kind of pre thought responses can be helpful. And sometimes, sometimes that person who's pressuring you is just going to be unhappy, because they won't be flexible in their thinking, and they won't allow you the agency to choose what you put in your mouth. So I always say that a couple of ideas are, oh, I'm really watching my carb intake, or I'm really watching my alcohol intake, or I'm seeing how many days I can go without eating treats. During this holiday season, you can make it kind of fun and funny. But you can also say to the person, you know you're stuffing your turkey stuffing is one of the things I look forward to every year. And I am so bummed I can't eat any right now, or I'm not eating carbs right now. But I wonder if I could take home a little baggie and freeze it. That's a great people love that. Because it's not an outright No. And it's an acknowledgement of how important the stuffing is to the traditional gathering of your family or your friends.
I think that is brilliant Lina. And what I realized is when you know I don't cook a lot, I used to bake quite a bit I don't bake as much anymore. But whenever I do put a lot of time and effort into cooking or baking. It is because I am so excited for the people that will be eating it. Because I know it's their favorite, or they love it. And that gives me so much joy to think of surprising them with their favorite, whatever. So when you have that suggestion, it's such a great acknowledgement also to the host or hostess, that I appreciate what you've done, and I and I appreciate your efforts. And this isn't about that, right without ever saying that. I love that. That's awesome. One of the things I noticed with being in recovery is that particularly like work, social gatherings or friend gatherings can be really difficult if you don't have a drink. And you know, I've been in a lot of really supportive environments, but I've also been in a lot of environments where people were like, Why aren't you drinking what you know, obviously people who didn't know I was in recovery, but one of the things that you know, I know we've suggested this before on our podcast and I know that that's something I've done is just carry around a club soda with lime. Or you know, I love fish sticks the healthy like caffeinated, fizzy drinks, something like that is going to be, it's going to help in a way without having that confrontational. I'm in recovery data, you don't want to tell your boss that you don't want to tell your colleagues that. But you Oh, I've got a drink. Thanks. What are you drinking? Oh, I just, it's just, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah. I love club soda with right, we don't have to explain. And that's, you know, of course, that's a trauma response over explaining. And that's something I think our listeners have probably heard us say before, but a lot of times when we've had when we have unresolved trauma, we have some sort of erosion of our sense of self and our sense of choice. And so we overexplaining over explain, we don't have to do that. We can simply say, Oh, um, I've got a club soda tonight, keeping it real, or, you know, I'm the driver, or it doesn't matter. But yeah, have to over explain. I'm in recovery. And I've been sober. And I had a relapse. And, you know, I feel a lot of pressure right now, we don't have to
know and that that's too much private information to tell people who aren't in that close friend, or your inner circle, and it could make you vulnerable at Wonder percent. And so and so being able to just say, Oh, no, thanks. I have a drink or i, this is funny. I always drink surely temples. And sometimes when I go to a restaurant with my two girlfriends that, that we traveled together, I'll say, I'll have a Shirley Temple, because I'm driving tonight. And they both know that I don't drink. And so they think it's hilarious that I tell people I'm getting a Shirley Temple because I'm not. I'm driving on a cam. Yes.
And, you know, ultimately, we're 12 on the inside. So like, we're in a restaurant with mom and dad. Oh, we can have a Shirley Temple. With extra. Exactly. That's awesome. Yeah. The other thing that I realized from a lot of our clients in the program that we do the whole health lab, they talk about having that pressure of partaking in alcohol with their families. Yeah. And so it could be someone who already knows and loves you deeply and already knows you're trying to be sober. But because they're not sober. They don't quite understand or they don't. They don't want to understand subconsciously they want to have a drinking, buddy. How do we handle social obligations, where it's our loved ones who are pressuring us?
I think there are a lot of different ways to do that. One suggestion I would have would be to limit the entertainment you go to in the evening, suggest to your family that you have a brunch or a lunch. So that that's one very practical way that makes it a little easier to decline alcohol. Another way would be to limit the amount of time you're spending at a event that has a lot of alcohol. The The other thing that you can do is you can say I mean, people take it seriously, if you have kids and your kids have asked you to not drink as much. If you say to people in your family, I promised the kids I would go easy on on drinking this holiday season. Like most people, not all people, most people will have some ability to honor Yeah,
you're right. It does bring it very much into focus quickly. That I'm trying to prioritize a relationship with children. There's very few people who are going to push back against that. That is great. I love that. So we've talked about gifting. We've talked about food and alcohol and spending time with families. What about just social obligations? In general, I'm aware that every December I start to feel worried that my schedule is already filling up so full of different, you know, work parties or family gatherings or actually the family gatherings never worry me. I'm always worried I'm not going to have enough time for my actual family gatherings that I want to with my favorite people because there's so many other obligations. So how can we kind of going, you know, into this episode's gonna air in December. We've got a few weeks left, till to kind of ease up on our holiday schedule, what could we do? How could we say no, or limit how many things we say yes to so that we're not so depleted, we cannot connect with our family.
One thing is to before you enter December is to sit down and list the people that you most want to connect with, or that you are most connected or close to people that you want to prioritize spending time with, and then use that list to help you make your decisions about social priorities. I have social anxiety. And so people know that if they invite me to a cookie, cookie exchange, sometimes I might come. But sometimes I might say, I'd love to come for 10 minutes, I can remember one Bunco when I subbed for you it was years ago, years ago or something. And it was all of our old friends from the early 2000s. And so I said, I probably won't stay the whole time. And they kind of gave me a little pressure, but it was really lovingly done. But I was able to engage a little bit and have fun while still honoring my need for some alone time or downtime for sure. And there's some gracious ways we can do that. I love that you guys invited me you know how my social anxiety gets? Can I drop these cookies off and grab a couple to go? I love that.
I love that. That's wonderful. Those are good key phrases. So again, we want to prioritize connection, even in the way we make our excuse, which isn't an excuse. It's a legitimate authentic reflection of what we need to really operate in our prefrontal cortex. Right.
I love that. Yeah. And generalize the idea of the cookie exchange, like don't be when you hear this, try not to be so rigid that you think Yeah, but I have a, I don't know, I have a friend group that does. Friends giving. And I don't know if I have the ability, the capacity to engage for four hours at this. So then use that general idea and say to yourself, I think I could do an hour and a half, I then would call the host or hostess and say, I think that I could probably do an hour and a half. And would you prefer me to come at the beginning or at the end? Or do you care
to great idea. And if we're not, I'm aware that a lot of people aren't quite comfortable enough to tell people that they have social anxiety, although that is significantly changing. Thank goodness. Oh, right. But if you're not quite transparent about your own social anxiety, what's another, you know, instead of I'm trying to think instead of saying I can do? What I would probably say if I didn't know the person very well is I am able to come.
Yes. Beautiful.
I you know, I know it's a busy season. I'm so honored that you asked me and I can make it for, you know, an hour, is there a better time I could stop by? Oh, that's beautiful. Just I love that you know, different phrases that we can give our listeners. And one of the reasons we wanted to bring this topic up is because anxiety in general is the number one symptom of people with unresolved trauma. Now, that doesn't mean if you have anxiety, you automatically have unresolved trauma. What it does mean is if you have unresolved trauma, it is highly likely you also have anxiety. So by kind of deconstructing how we can lower our anxiety during the season with food and alcohol and gifting and those social obligations and family, we really want to give you some tools in order to have more calm and peace during the season. As usual, when we are out of our window of tolerance, which remember is the ability to think and feel at the same time. We have some quick, you know, the double breath, sigh The two sides in through your nose and the one slow sigh out of your mouth. It's called the physiological sigh That works wonders when I'm around certain people that I despite my boundaries, I'm starting to feel agitated.
Yeah. You know how I do the double breasted line or the physiological sigh I do. The two inhales and then I exhale forcefully Yes, because the forceful exhalation instead of the slow exhalation allows me to take another double burn psi again faster. And that gets me back into regulation. And so I, I tend to do my exhale like this. Yeah. And then I can do my job.
That's awesome. And I think for me, when I'm not around a lot of people, that's definitely my preference. When I'm around a group of people, that is really agitating me. Super trying keep my, my tools, very subtle. And I noticed that I do a lot of deep breathing and, and slow exhalation and inhalation. That's great, because I'm, I'm really trying to regulate myself without and this is especially true as a parent for me. I'm trying to regulate myself without, I don't want my children or my loved ones to think that they are the problem, because they're not. I'm the problem. That's really nice to point I need that I need to regulate myself. And so it's my responsibility. And so sometimes when you're in a, you know, a situation where you're around a lot of people, you can kind of modify some of these tools so that they work for you when you're in a crowd. So but I love that, yeah, the force, the forceful is great. Yeah. Okay, so those are social obligations, and some of the pressures we feel and how to kind of mitigate that. And then as always, we absolutely deal with this in our program. If you like anything that we discuss on the podcast, we go much deeper in our program, the whole health lab, and we would be so honored if we were able to guide any of you through it. So we absolutely just are so passionate about this work. Because mostly we know how much it's changed our lives. And it's been it's been miraculous. So these little things, these little episodes, these little skills, they add up, just keep going. And you'll look back and you will just be floored at your progress when you keep at it. Well, thank you so much for listening, and we will check in next week.
Take care everybody. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to the universe's your therapist this week. If you have any questions or looking for more information, you can find us at mending trauma on Instagram, as well as mending trauma.com Our website and if you're enjoying our content, we'd love it if you could rate review and subscribe to the show. We'll see you all next week.
