15 Reminders to Help You Through the Stressful Holiday Season.
If the holiday season has your sensitive, intense, empathetic soul stressed out, overwhelmed, and longing for a lobotomy, these reminders are for you.
1. You’re not too sensitive if you’re easily overwhelmed by the holiday muzak, the fluorescent lights, the crowds, the frenetic meaningless pace, the likely psychopathic Santa, and the smell of stale popcorn at the shopping mall.
2. You’re not a failure as a human being if your siblings went to Stanford and are all doctors and have two-and-a-half kids and you’re still wondering what to do when you grow up because you took a detour into drug treatment and psychotherapy because your soft heart and gentle spirit needed to heal.
3. You’re not lacking in empathy if you’re frustrated and irritated, enraged by society’s focus on the status of having more and more stuff, the-bigger-the-better, while they’re oblivious to the impact of said stuff.
4. You’re not socially inept or paranoid if you have to abruptly leave a gathering of people who seem happy and charming and delightful but who make your stomach ache because unbeknownst to your conscious mind, they’re really miserable.
5. You’re not an arrogant know-it-all if you choose to wrap the kids’ gifts in newspaper, or if you give your precocious nieces homemade light switchplates instead of Barbie dolls, or if you choose funding a homeless family over yet another plastic giraffe for your adorable nephew.
6. You’re not a bad daughter/son if you have mixed feelings about attending the family event and if you make a plan to leave early when your alcoholic relative starts to berate you about your political or religious beliefs or about why you didn’t go to Harvard when you had so much potential.
7. You are not being inauthentic if you consciously avoid certain topics with family members who you know will react with anger or misunderstanding to your attempt to explain, say, your logical reasons for changing your college major for the fifth time.
8. You’re not too persnickety if you start your own holiday rituals and don’t allow your toddler to watch reality TV, use your iPad, or learn how to operate a cell phone.
9. You’re not a failure as a parent if your holiday meal is a flop, if your kids throw their biggest tantrums ever just when the grandparents arrive, if you still haven’t gotten your hair cut or trained your dog not to beg for food.
10. You’re not an oddball if you question the traditions, religion or the obsession with television that organizes your extended family members. Well, maybe you are an oddball in that regard, but there are times when oddballs are needed. This might be one of those times.
11. You’re not rude and obsessive if you are still avoiding eating the jello marshmallow carrot salad that your Aunt Gracie always makes.
12. You’re not too dramatic if you cry when your relatives tease or bully you because you’re following yet another career path, you’ve stopped straightening your hair, and you’re still single.
13. You’re not too intense if you can’t totally enjoy the holidays because people around the globe are suffering, the ice caps are melting, and you’re distracted by your need to find and manifest your purpose on the planet.
14. You’re not too idealistic if you believe that it’s still possible for a transformation to occur where people of the world embrace compassion over fear.
15. You’re not alone if you dread the stresses of the holiday season and look forward to the end of said season. And, you’re not wrong if you understand the following to be true: you are successfully sensitive, effervescently empathetic, indescribably intense, awesomely authentic, prudently persnickety, illustriously idealistic, and resplendently rainforest-minded.
And, hey, when you get a chance, could you send me the recipe for Aunt Gracie’s jello marshmallow carrot salad?
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Paula Prober is a psychotherapist, blogger, author, consultant and tango dancer living in Eugene, Oregon. She blogs at Your Rainforest Mind, a blog in support of the excessively curious, creative, smart and sensitive. She writes aboutmental, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual health for know-it-alls, geeks, dropouts, perfectionists, wonderers and empaths in her book Your Rainforest Mind: A Guide to the Well-Being of Gifted Adults and Youth.
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