A 3 Step Self-Care System for Hard Holidays
As Mother’s Day approaches, let’s talk about self-care around difficult holidays.
While not a mother myself (of humans anyway… I will die on the hill that my pups are my children, haha), I have a unique experience with caring for others throughout childhood and adulthood in various capacities. I also deal with grief around Mother’s Day from more than one type of loss. A lot of this life experience has contributed to caretaker burnout over the years and is further compounded by being neurodivergent.
Whether you are celebrating motherhood, mothers in your family, or grieving around this holiday, it’s important to recognize that holidays bring forth lots of expectations. We may place those expectations on ourselves or feel them from others, so here are 3 simple steps to help you create a self-care system for hard holidays:
1. Identify where you need support during that holiday.
If you are grieving, a practice to sit with and feel your feelings is going to be important. If you are going to be doing lots of activities with family and dealing with overstimulation, your system may include no meetings/plans the day before or after. Pay close attention to your unique needs, energy expenditure, and let this be a judgment-free process. Needs are not called wants for a reason.
2. Plan meeting your needs alongside the activities you agree to.
Now that you’ve identified your needs, it’s time to include support for those needs when planning around and on that day. One of the biggest mistakes I see clients make is agreeing to events, activities, and asks from others without considering their needs when they say yes.
For example, you have a big social event on Sunday that is likely to cause you to be overstimulated. You typically need a chunk of alone time for self-care before jumping into another exhausting activity, but you have a big client meeting on Monday morning to prep and show up for. You know that you really won’t have the time you need to recoup after and still get a good night's sleep. That means you need to decide how important the Sunday event is, whether you can dip out a little early, or whether the cost of the event on your personal energy is worth it. There is no right or wrong answer, but if you are constantly paying the cost with your energy and never settling the balance, burnout may be in your future.
3. Create a comforting ritual around holidays when you need the most support.
Holidays come around every year. Like with my relationship with Mother’s Day, some are easier than others, but they always bring up similar themes. Having a ritual related to specific holidays can help keep you present and supporting your needs as things come up. That can be as simple as a favorite meal and starting the day off at a coffee shop or taking your favorite hike and hitting up a spa appointment after. Creating a ritual on difficult days so you aren’t having to make countless decisions can be comforting and supportive not just for your needs but also for your nervous system.
Dealing with difficult holidays is no easy task and can be overwhelming in the best of times and downright debilitating in the worst of times. While I’m writing this because of my own experience with Mother’s Day, this can be applied to countless holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or other milestones where you deal with big feelings.
We can’t give others the best of ourselves if we don’t take care of ourselves first. It’s easy to get swept up in the way things everyone else does things but I want to challenge you to strengthen those self-care muscles.
The path of least resistance may feel good in the short term but, at least for me, the resistance just compounded and patiently waited until it couldn’t be ignored anymore. I know that you can do hard things and your future self will thank you for doing them.
