Welcome to another episode of our wellness podcast. I'm Mark DeFee and with me, is KC Schroder. We're both licensed therapists who focus on workplace mental health.

We're also pretty good friends so we're gonna have a little bit of fun. Maybe tell some stories but most importantly, we're gonna give you some great information to help you develop both personally and professionally. Does that sound good? All right! Let's dive in!

KC, KC, KC, today we are talking about holiday stress and I know we did an episode about this in 2020 and I was certain that in 2021 things would be different and we would be talking about different issues. But I'm not going to lie… it feels like a big helping of leftovers [laughs] from last year of the uncertainty…

Not the good leftovers…[laughs]

[laughs] Not the good leftovers but the uncertainty of what the holidays are gonna bring since fall is coming up. And people are gonna be back indoors and we don't know what the pandemic's gonna do. And I feel like it's even a little bit more nerve-wracking this year at least for me. Because I thought: things would be back to normal. And people have differing views this year compared to last year. I feel like at least in my family last year everyone knew we needed to just hunker down and not see each other for a year. But now because of where we are, there are so many different opinions within my family that I'm trying to just navigate all of it. But how about you?

Yeah. No, I'm totally picking up what you're putting down because I think it‘s seven more complicated than last year. And in so many ways, we're more exhausted about thinking about the pandemic and how it's affecting our health and who we should see and when we should see them and how it should look. But also you have these complications of vaccines, no vaccines… Large get-togethers, small get-togethers, what is the CDC saying this week because I'm pretty sure it was different than what they said last month.

Yeah.

So it's just it's even more complex and we're even more tired than we were last year at this time.

Yeah, yeah. I thought again that we'd be back to normal but if we weren't it would be easier to navigate. Because we've already done kind of…

Sure.

…an unusual holiday season but it just feels even more difficult coming up this year. And trying to balance all of it. I want to see my family. My parents don't live near me. And so seeing my kids is important and I don't want to lose those opportunities yet at the same time. We have high-risk individuals in my family, two small kids, all that. And so I feel like the stress is more than it was this time last year. And so I'm glad we're doing this topic I just was not expecting to be hitting on a lot of the same things that we did last time.

Right. And I think what we're trying to hit on right is that big question mark. The holidays are yet again. Another question mark. 2020 I think there was one big red question mark and now feel like there's four little red ones or something like that. What I mean like: "okay, how are we gonna handle it this year? What are some ways to survive it if I survive the holiday season while enjoying ourselves and not giving ourselves any more stress? Because Lord knows, we've all had enough of it the past couple

Yeah, exactly, so what do you recommend? What are you thinking you're gonna do?

So first of all, I think it's so individualized, like what I'm gonna say for me would be very different than anybody else because everybody celebrates holidays differently. Everybody has a different way of how they're handling the pandemic. But I do think there's commonalities of what we can all do to kind of get through the holiday season in the least stressful way possible. First and foremost, I think it's really important to figure out what makes sense for you. What do you feel most comfortable with? You mentioned like your family is not in the same state as you. My family isn't the same as the same state as me. So, do we fly to see my family for the holidays? Do we drive to see my family? Do we zoom? What do I feel is going to make me and my family safest and make me the most comfortable?

Yeah.

After I figure that out I got to talk to my spouse about it, right? Like because I don't live in a vacuum and as much as I would love to be the boss I'm really not the boss. It's a democracy in our house so I got to talk to him about it. I got to talk to my kids about it. And we really then, have to weigh our options, right? And then, I have to get my larger family on board which is definitely the most stressful part.

Yeah. But I think you're right getting clear on what you want first and what's going to make the most sense for you and the people, your girls, who you're responsible for… And then, figuring out how to communicate that to everyone else involved. At least that's going to be my plan of attacking and starting it early so we can have those conversations because they probably are going to be uncomfortable at times. Because everyone is in a different spot in terms of their beliefs, of what we can do this holiday season. And so for me, it is carving out time to think through, what do I want than having that first conversation with my wife? Of what do we want for the four of us and our two kids? And then, from there messaging it out to my in-laws as well as my parents. And just talking through, what makes the most sense and what's going to make us the happiest. Because if we just agree to something, knowing it's going to appease them but we're miserable… I mean, what's the point of doing that?

Right.

But I do I do want to be very careful of how I approach the conversations not so much with my wife but with our extended families. Because I want to put myself in their shoes of what it would be like to tell my mom who hasn't seen my kids very much. "Hey we might not stay as long or we're probably gonna drive instead of fly which means two days are taken for traveling instead of being there with them. And so I want to think through what it's going to be like for her to hear that. Because a lot of times I think it is the messaging is just as important as the message, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think with that messaging, you know… Unfortunately, as much as I like to please people I like everybody happy, like everyone calm…But at the end of the day, in today's climate, in order to take care of yourself, in order to take care of the people whoever your family is made out of, your immediate family is made out of, not everybody's going to be happy all the time.

Right.

Not everybody's going to agree with your decisions. Not everybody's going to be on the same kind of team as you're on. And that's okay. I think now more than ever if we have to have coveted in our lives, if we have to have this pandemic, why can't we use it as an excuse to finally be okay with letting some people down in order to protect ourselves the best way we know?

Yeah, yeah. And I think that goes into my last point too around just cutting yourself and cutting everyone else some slack. We're retrying to figure this out. We don't have malicious intentions with any of this. It's just all of this is uncertain and I know it's been going on for quite some time. And it'd be great if we had better data and it was easy to say this is the correct path. But we don't know what the correct path is and so we're doing the best we can. I'm trying to remember that about myself because I don't want to look back and go "man, I really made the wrong decision" or the decisions weren't grounded in the values I hold dear. But at the same time cutting the other people in my life some slack if they have different views on things. I know I'm not perfect, I know there are things I probably miss in my thinking. And when I put my decisions together so I want to be open to that. And if someone gets upset with me realize that again they love me it's not coming from a place of maliciousness. They just they're frustrated, too.

Right, right. Exactly, exactly. and I think this holiday season if I were to give you a present and anybody else a present it would be…

[laughs]Which I do expect one

[laughs] Of course you do. Yeah, keep on expecting it. but I think it's the oxygen mass theory, right? Like I want to buy everyone an oxygen mask. So keep it in mind this holiday season more than ever you have to take care of yourself. You have to really engage in those self-care techniques that you and I have been spouting about all year long

Yeah.

In order to really be able to get through this holiday season.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, everybody enjoy the holidays with your families or however you can. Until we speak again take care and be well.