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The fall and winter holidays are full of contradictions. They are cheerful and bright in a time of year that is often cold and dark. They are a celebration of togetherness and family, and can feel alienating and isolating for many. They are a time when we welcome people, and where people often feel left out. They offer gifts, joy, and abundance, as well as demands, pressure, and fear of falling short. They are secular and religious. They are a time that some people adore, and a time some people truly hate.
Many of us feel the truth of both sides of these contradictions, and they make it hard to find balance in the holiday season. You may find yourself trying to hold on to nostalgia or joy, extending the experience for as long as you can and feeling let down when it passes. Other times, you may find yourself in emotional turmoil, struggling with high-pressure gatherings, bitter memories, or disappointed expectations.
Dialectical thinking holds the key to finding balance during the holidays
Dialectical thinking, a foundational component of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), can help all of us who struggle with the contradictions and stress of the holiday season. Trauma, depression, anxiety, or eating disorders can lead to negative emotions and thoughts that feel absolute, like they’re the only truth. Your mind can rapidly latch on to those negatives, automatically focusing your attention on difficulty, which can quickly become emotionally overwhelming.
Dialectical thinking, as an integral component of mindfulness, encourages you to pull yourself out of all-or-nothing thinking by proposing that two opposite things can be true at the same time, and that when you examine the present moment, it’s likely more complex than your initial understanding leads you to believe. Things change, different opinions can both have good points, people are complex, there’s often more to the story than just your point of view, and very little, if anything, in life is absolutely true or false.
How can dialectical thinking help you make it through stressful family gatherings?
Let’s look at a relatable example. At a Thanksgiving party, your parents bring up all the holiday events they expect you to attend. You feel pressured and know you don’t want to commit to that many gatherings, and you need to set a boundary that respects your need for routine and downtime. Historically, your parents haven’t been respectful of your boundaries, and these kinds of conversations end in two ways: you become so overwhelmed that you blow up, or you give in and your needs go unmet.
While all DBT skills incorporate some dialectical thinking, some focus on it more than others. How can DBT skills that emphasize dialectical thinking help you make it through this emotionally tough situation?
DBT skills that focus on dialectical thinking can help you in the holiday season
Walking the Middle Path
Walking the middle path is a mindfulness-based DBT skill where you try to pull together and combine opposites you’re experiencing or dealing with, to find a middle ground that provides balance between extremes. Dialectical thinking through walking the middle path helps you see that most situations are much more nuanced than our strong feelings may lead us to believe.
When you start to feel an emotional response to your parents pressuring you, try using the word “and” as you think through what’s happening, instead of disregarding things with “but”:
- “I am feeling too stressed to go to all these family gatherings, and I need my parents to recognize that.” AND
- “I feel anxious about this interaction; I am worried my parents will ignore my needs like they have before.” AND
- “My parents care about me and like to see me during the holidays; it’s important to them.” AND
- “It’s important to me to respect my needs, even if my parents don’t understand that.” AND
- “I am an adult and it’s reasonable for me to choose how I spend my holidays.”
Adding “AND” validates how you feel, while recognizing that your emotions aren’t the whole story. It also makes it clear that all of these contradictions are true at the same time, AND they remain true, even if your parents aren’t able to use dialectical thought the way you can.
Wise Mind
The Wise Mind DBT skill encourages you to make use of both your rational mind, focused on doing, understanding, and analyzing, and your emotional mind, focused on feeling and experiencing.
When you’re being pressured to take on more holiday commitments than you know is good for you, use your Wise Mind. Instead of leaning entirely on your rational mind, focusing on dates and times, or your emotional mind, focusing on hurt from having your needs be ignored and stress from pressure, combine the two. Allow yourself to understand and validate that the pressure and ignoring your needs isn’t fair, and hurts you, while your rational mind can also plan out a compromise of one gathering, using your emotional mind to help you choose the gathering you’ll enjoy the most.
Check the Facts
Disruptive emotions that come up during the holiday season pull your attention and awareness out of balance, toward only one facet of what’s happening around and within you. These emotions are often rooted in old traumas and difficult memories, or automatic negative thoughts as a symptom of depression or anxiety, and so they don’t take into account all of the facts in the moment.
Here’s how to check the facts:
- What emotion are you feeling that you want to change?
- What event caused this emotion?
- What are you assuming or interpreting here?
- What is the threat, and what are you assuming about it?
- What is the catastrophe?
- Does your emotion fit the facts here?
Dialectical thinking makes room for complexity and variation, guiding you away from absolute thinking toward a more balanced approach.
FAST
FAST helps you make it through a tense or difficult conversation with your self-respect and your boundaries intact. Instead of bowing to parental pressure and agreeing to having your boundaries blurred by saying yes to every gathering you’re asked to, or letting emotions push you into a harsh reaction where all-or-nothing thinking takes over (e.g. “you never listen to me!” or “you don’t even care about me, all you want is the appearance of a happy family”).
When your parents bring up holiday gatherings and expectations you are there, state your boundary, e.g. “I can come to one party, not all three plus the holiday concert.” Stick to fair and factual speech, and don’t apologize or back down. Try these steps:
- Be fair to yourself and your parents. No accusations, but also no over-giving.
- Don’t apologize. You aren’t in the wrong for having needs and asserting yourself, even if others disagree.
- Stick to your values. You value family time, but you know what your needs are, so stick to them.
- Be truthful. Don’t exaggerate or deflect to avoid the difficult feelings here. Self-respect and truthfulness go hand in hand.
The holidays are easier to handle when you have extra support from THIRA Health
Facing the contradictions and emotional intensity of the holiday season alone can feel overwhelming. Depression treatment with THIRA Health can help. Dialectical thinking, alongside mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness, offers healthy, effective ways to cope with difficult seasons in life. Our wide variety of programs provides holistic support that fits your individual needs, including residential, partial hospitalization (PHP) and intensive outpatient therapy (IOP). Connect with us today to see how our comprehensive, DBT-focused treatment for mental health can help teens and adults in Bellevue, Washington.
