Your Permission Slip to Skip the Mental Load of Still Coviding the Holidays
Your Permission Slip to Skip the Mental Load of Still Coviding the Holidays
(Year 5 Edition)
I remember saving all our color-coordinated masks from the family holiday picture in 2020, thinking about how we would show our baby pictures of the event that profoundly shaped his first year of life.
Instead, this will be his fifth year experiencing a life shaped by masks and distance, and his parents engaging with the social awkwardness and sense of disconnection the holidays often bring to those still coviding.
Sure, we’ve surprised ourselves with our ability to create new traditions and make meaning over the last four holiday seasons despite having fewer resources than we did pre-pandemic (necessity is still the mother of invention, after all).
But I haven’t yet learned to lessen the mental load of emotional, physical, and cognitive labor the holiday season requires with the same level of flourishing.
It’s one thing to have new rituals, but communicating our boundaries with non-coviding family and friends (aka most of the world) and making decisions about their willingness to adhere to our safety standards often feels like a punishment rather than an exchange of holiday goodwill.
So, this year, I’m aiming to decrease the mental load by thinking out loud about it in my writing and inviting you to join me in a live Zoom chat (details at the bottom of this email) before the Spirit of Halloween stores even close their doors.
Even in 2018, A study conducted by OnePoll found that 88% of Americans feel stressed while celebrating the holidays. But somehow, people are still surprised that we don’t want to pile our healthy fear of a novel virus that’s still ravaging a planet stuck in denial on top of the pre-existing holiday stress.
Some Still Coviders may be mourning the loss of a holiday season that wasn’t characterized by stress and conflict. In full transparency, I have not lived that experience. I can’t imagine how hard this must be going into the fifth round of losing nourishing holiday experiences. Still, I hope something on this list can ease some of your grief, even if it does not reflect your story. And I’d love to hear from you, too.
10 Reasons to Give Yourself Permission to Skip the Mental Load of Still Coviding During the Holidays
Holidays can create memories, but they do not create or even define our relationships. The day-to-day, consistent behaviors (VERBS) we use with each other do the heavy lifting of creating healthy, lasting relationships. Consistency in relating is the real flex, not making episodic appearances in each other’s lives.
You are not responsible for following anyone else’s “holiday rules” (yes, that includes the implied, assumed, and unquestioned ones that have sometimes stretched across multiple generations). Make your own. I recognize how piercingly and tragically individualistic that sounds. Still, we don't have much choice in a world that has opted for a “you do you” approach through an ongoing pandemic.
Holidays are not empty containers held by people in your life for you to fill with your presence. Their “glass” is not empty without you. It is their job to fill the glass with THEIR beverage of choice. If you choose to join, think of yourself as the garnish on the glass or the extra sprinkle of cinnamon on the cider. You shouldn’t be seen as defining the experience, but if your decisions align with their choices, you will undoubtedly add some festivity and flavor to the experience. Turn the volume on the guilt waaaaay down. Or entirely off if you can. (Repeat the disclaimer about the individualistic approach here. Also, please note that this does not apply to your children or those who need your physical care. I am referring to other adults capable of making their own decisions and engaging in independent caretaking in their lives).
Holidays are tough on our nervous and sensory systems, even in the best of times. Entering non-ideal holiday arrangements with an existing depletion of “spoons” (mental/physical/emotional resources) from rowing upstream 365 days a year as a still covider is not good for your health and overall sense of well-being.
Holidays are sometimes co-opted as a way to “check off the boxes” and feel like we have maintained our connection with other people even when we haven’t. When that happens, it feels like people are “scratching a sentimental itch” despite not “relating” or showing verbs of connection, care, and healthy communication throughout the other 11 months of the year.
While there is profound meaning to be found in so many holidays in the last quarter of every year that span timelines, traditions, religions, and cultures, there is also a heavy commercialization and consumerization of some holidays that tend to create a force field of expectations for everyone. Associations of well-being, wholeness, and “normalcy” are strategically linked to the calendar and the cash register. It clouds our communication with people and can distort our ability to see other’s points of view and the needs they are trying to express in their communication/requests/expectations.
Your connections to humanity and the traditions that were meaningful to you before are not broken because you don’t feel like you did pre-pandemic. Given what the last four holiday seasons may have felt like, it makes sense that you might not want to invest lots of labor to make something happen with certain people on these days of the year anymore. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love them. Love doesn’t go away because you didn’t attend a family holiday. Love is a VERB. Those who love us unconditionally don’t need our beliefs or decisions to align with theirs. We know this is possible in our family because we have experienced the contrast with two or three people in our lives who are not still coviding, but whose expressions of care for us have enabled us to stay connected to them without violating our boundaries or implying that we’ve put up walls in the relationship or forced extra labor upon them.
Holidays can increase the likelihood of a range of unwanted feelings and emotions like guilt, disconnection, or even despondence, or they can become opportunities to practice self-compassion and radical acceptance.
9. The holidays create a “collision of minds.” Dialectical Behavior Therapy teaches about three minds in a way that adds immense value to this situation. Reasonable Mind, Emotional Mind, and the #goals: Wise Mind. I think the holidays tend to push most people into our “emotional mind,” where we allow our emotions to drive the bus. As a Still Covider, however, I believe we spend a lot of time in “reasonable mind”: an extreme state of thinking in which we are hyper-focused on logic, facts, and reason. How we feel and what we value are not prioritized when operating fully in Reasonable Mind. This state of mind is focused on to-dos and rational courses of action. Reasonable Mind can be beneficial for completing work, creating schedules, or managing emergencies.”
It makes sense, doesn’t it, given that our steady state has often felt like managing a never-ending series of micro-emergencies since 2020?
“Each mind is valid, normal, and useful in some situations, and we all shift between the different states as we flow through our day-to-day lives.” When we interact with non-coviders who are likely inhabiting more emotional mind “(being zoomed in, all the way, by our moods, feelings, and urges” that the holiday season intensifies, we are set up for another communication and connection collision.
I’m sure some memes reflect this: the Covid cautious trope spouting the latest research details they found on Covid Twitter to someone who relies on mainstream media for news and still thinks Covid is a cold. The gaping chasm between us is massive. But engaging in the mindfulness that opens the space to inhabit Wise Mind can help us allow everyone’s emotions about the situation to surface while not losing our logic and the capacity of our “reasonable mind” as we navigate the holidays. It can make us feel more connected to ourselves and each other. This is worthwhile labor because even if it doesn’t lead to our desired outcomes, it helps create a strong foundation for us to draw from the next time we approach challenging dynamics.
A Wise Mind is a balanced state of mind where we can connect with our intuition and intentionally move forward in a balanced, values-guided, and mindful way. A Wise Mind helps us choose the next steps that are effective and meaningful for us, rather than choosing steps based on intense emotions or reason alone. Wise Mind is not always easy to access! Like all Mindfulness, it requires practice and willingness to tune into ourselves. - Mallory Tamillo
10. Harvard professors Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan have coined an unusual phrase:
“Behind every complaint lies a commitment.“
Entering our most challenging conversations with this statement converted into question in the back of our minds (What is the commitment that may be hiding in this complaint they are voicing?) can help us listen beyond the possible triggers in the words being said. It can also help us determine our commitments when we feel the long list of complaints about the holiday mounting inside us and increasing our heavy mental load. Try asking: “What is it that I care enough about in this situation that is getting me to complain in the first place?”
Questions like these can help us transform our focus from what’s wrong to what matters. They can help us interrupt old patterns and sometimes find valuable surprises about our needs and desires.
Bonus Reason #11:
Much of what society labels as abnormal are inconveniences to a system that needs us to look and act a certain way. We are told to adjust ourselves in order to fit in, to belong, to make sure the machine keeps working…. Be Fully Human. Be inconvenient to the machine. - Rainier Wylde
So let’s be inconvenient and not waste our energy on guilt or worry, especially since we are not doing so for trifling inconsequential reasons—it’s a matter of health, generational wealth (the kind that goes far beyond money), and life and death itself.
An Invitation to Exchange Our Stories and Challenges for Validation and Support!
Join us for a Holiday Glow Up: Still Coviding Edition Zoom on Monday 10/21 @ 9 p.m. Eastern
I believe we deserve and need the safety of being seen and understood to navigate this season with those who don’t understand, much less support our decisions. Even if I can’t end the frustration, guilt, and feeling overwhelmed I have experienced in varying degrees over the last four years, I can work to counterbalance it with good stuff like validation and appreciation.
So, to that end, I have an invitation to a pathogen and guilt-free experience for all my fellow still coviding friends. You are cordially invited to join me on a live “Holiday Glow-Up: Still Coviding Edition” Zoom next week on Monday, October 21, AKA my BIRTHDAY @ 9 p.m. Eastern. I can’t promise a recording because participants will be invited to share, and I want to be sensitive to the need for privacy. But don’t worry if you can’t make it, as it won’t be our last call!
My husband and I will create a validating, safe, and hopefully fun container to share our experiences and discuss the most common problems and fears we have faced for the last four years. If the group is large, we will use break-out rooms to ensure everyone can be heard and validated. We will share some strategies from boundary setting, appreciative inquiry, core-desired feelings, and assertive communication that can support our goal of creating a Still Coviding Holiday Season in year five that validates us, celebrates our community, and moves us closer to living an extraordinary life even during this increasingly challenging timeline.
