As we enter the final few weeks of the year, a mix of both excitement and stress begins to set in. For many people, this winter season brings the anticipation of several celebrations – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day – each filled with valued traditions, excitement, and meaningful connections with others. Whether you celebrate these holidays or not, their presence is felt everywhere you go – from tree lights and extremely crowded shopping malls, to last minute runs to the grocery stores to host festive gatherings with loved ones.
Hectic Holidays
With the festive ambiance filling the air all around us, there is often an unspoken conversation around the end of year stress. Whether it’s meeting work deadlines, navigating financial stress, hosting gatherings or simply trying to wrap things up that have accumulated, fatigue, burnout and feeling all over the place during this time of year are all too common.
As a student, December has often felt like three months packed into one. The weeks leading up to the holidays was filled with joy and anticipation while simultaneously also juggling assignments, deadlines and fatigue. This rollercoaster of a month somehow always comes as a surprise every year despite trying to prepare in advance.
If you’ve ever found yourself feeling that way, you’re not alone. Over the past few weeks, I’ve done some research and taken some time to reflect on what has helped me manage this bustling and hectic season. My hope is that by sharing these tips, you can take what resonates with you to help make it through this final stretch. I also recognize that this time of year can be difficult for some as it can bring up personal memories linked to more challenging times in their lives
These tips are universal and can be used whether or not you celebrate any holidays in December or throughout the year. They can serve as a guide to wrap up the year with more intention and hope:
Creating Intentional Moments to Pause
One of the most impactful practices I have incorporated in my life is to try and intentionally make space to pause. In the book, “Mindful Relationships: Seven Skills for Success”, the author notes the basic need to rest and repair is grounded in our physiology – however, many of us replace the need to rest with caffeine, sugar, exercise or living on the edge which overtime, leads to physical and emotional burnout (Bullock, 2016).
Living in a world where we are constantly being pulled in different directions by school, work or personal obligations and being reminded of the ever-present “hustle culture”, the idea of even attempting to take a break can feel impossible. Bullock (2016) highlights the common mindset in our society of “work hard, play hard” which gives into the idea that we “should” constantly occupy ourselves with not one minute to spare. Intentional pauses in our lives can take many forms. I’ve personally found that simply taking five minutes before bed to process my whole day or going for a walk around the community are meaningful ways to pause. This can also look like journaling, meditating, grounding exercises and so many other little techniques! One of my personal favorites when I’m sitting in bed is to just think of one word or phrase to sum up my day or where I’m at right now.
You Know Yourself Best: Be Mindful of When You May be Reaching Your Full Capacity
John Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction defined mindfulness as “paying attention in the present moment in a non-judgemental way” and he breaks it down with six key ideas (Bullock, 2016). In a nutshell, I have summarized these six key ideas1 below:
- Recognize your recurrent or repeated response tendencies
- Notice how your perceptions, way of communicating and stories impact others
- Listening over the urge to immediately respond
- Fully listen to what someone has to say rather than responding right away with a personal reflection, a solution, criticism or judgement
- Reframing communication through the lens of an observer not an evaluator
- Notice and acknowledge what signs our body is sending us and taking a step back before reacting
Let’s break down two of those key ideas in more detail:
Setting an intention to pause and notice your automatic, habitual patterns of response. During periods of high stress, we have a tendency to deny and block out the ability to feel negative emotions and over time, we may or may not notice a pattern of engaging in the same, general tendencies. This is a subtle internal process but recognizing this pattern can be so powerful to acknowledge in times of stress.
Recognizing signs when you are stressed or overwhelmed and intentionally taking a step back to regulate before responding in a way that could be harmful or not intended. Our body constantly sends us different signs and messages, telling us to fight or flight from our sympathetic nervous system or rest-digest from our parasympathetic nervous system as well as emotional, physical and behavioural signs. Listen to these signs! They are there for a reason…You know yourself and your body best.
Practice Presence in the Here and Now
Do you sometimes find yourself multitasking between what seems like ten things at the same time and you find it challenging to be fully present? You are definitely not alone! Let me introduce you to the concept of “One-Mindfully” (Linehan, 2015). The idea of One-Mindfully is one of the core components to DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and is key to the psychological and spiritual traditions of mindfulness (Linehan, 2015). One-mindfully encourages that just for right now, try to be present in what you are doing, taking it one thing at a time (Linehan, 2015).
A book called “The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less” describes the consequence in “hurrying” as we become so focused on the destination that we see and hear only what we want to (Hershey, 2011). However, when we pause, we can explore things beyond this tunnel vision, we see or hear things as they are, not as we expect them to be (Hershey, 2011). This practice invites the opportunity to notice any desires to multitask while encouraging you to go back to the one thing you were focused on (Linehan, 2015). The book describes this practice with different examples such as, when you are eating, actually eat, or when you are remembering, actually remember (Linehan, 2015).
Recognize the Expectations While Transforming Your End of Year Checklist to a Flexible Guide
The end of the year can feel like a marathon as we try to fill so much into each day, racing to the finish line. While reading a little passage from “The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less”, I was reminded that most traditions recognize that we as humans, have the ability to hold a “doing” space and a “being” space (Hershey, 2011). Moreover, in the “doing” space, we work, produce and accomplish and in the “being” space, we carve out time to rest, pray, sleep and wonder (Hershey, 2011). Often, these marathons can feel like a mandatory checklist that we need to complete but being able to create space for both the “doing” part and the “being” part is necessary (Hershey, 2011).
I hope these tips are something that we can all take into the last few weeks of the year. Whether December is a joyful time of the year for you or one that is more challenging, I hope these tips can serve as a gentle reminder to try and take a pause, give yourself grace and remember that you have the strength to overcome these last few hurdles before starting a new year.
You don’t have to face this challenge alone. Contact us if you would like to speak with one of our counsellors.
References:
1 Bullock, G. B. (2016). Taking a Purposeful Pause. Mindful Relationships: Seven Skills for Success (pp. 107-113). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
2 Hershey, T. (2011). The Power of Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less. Loyola Press.
3 Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.