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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Navigating Grief During the Holiday Season With Gina Moffa [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 448 of Live Happy Now. Managing grief is a challenge at any time of the year. But during the holidays, it becomes even more difficult. Today, we're talking about how to navigate your grief during the holiday season. I'm your host, Paula Felps. Today, I'm sitting down with Gina Moffa, a licensed psychotherapist and mental health educator who specializes in treating trauma and grief. Her new book, Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go, offers new tools and perspectives for managing grief and loss. She's here to talk with me about how we can manage our own grief and how to provide support to others who are grieving this holiday season. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:47] PF: Gina, happy holidays. [00:00:49] GM: Hi, Paula. Happy holidays to you. [00:00:52] PF: I am so excited to be able to talk to you today because it's a difficult time for a lot of people right now. Of course, I wanted to – there are so many things that are going on. So many people I know that are experiencing loss. You and I talked about that a little bit before we started recording. It just really led me to say once again I feel like this is a topic that we need to sit down and discuss because we don't talk about grief quite enough. I wanted to start by talking about your own experience because in your terrific new book, you talk about when you lost your mother. Even though you had been doing this work with others, it was different when it happened to you. So I love that perspective that you give. Can you talk about that story just a little bit? [00:01:40] GM: Sure. Thanks for asking. Yes. It’s kind of a funny tale of the grief therapist that got grief wrong because I thought with all of my training and with all of the tools and the years and the education that I would have kind of a step up in a way, right? There was this arrogance that I came with, thinking I've got all the tools. So when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and she was misdiagnosed for a good year, I don't talk about that in the book. But she went to the doctor, knew something was wrong, tried to advocate for herself, and really wasn't getting anywhere. By the time they did catch it as a cancer, it was stage four, and there wasn't a whole lot they could do. There was a little bit of trauma in that of like what – if only, if we only could have caught this. So I felt like at that particular time then when we did lose her that I needed to have some semblance of control. I really thought that having the intellectual understanding of grief would give me a leg up. I could sort of stand on top of the rocks and throw up my flag of victory, and that would be my path. I was sadly mistaken and really deeply humbled because what I didn't understand at the time was that grief is a full-body experience. If you're not allowing yourself to feel what you need to feel, and you're not mindful of how it could show up in your body and really taking very good care of yourself, it will come and knock very hard on your door and sometimes knock you down. That was one of the really, really big lessons for me, but it was also sort of contending with the idea that you could have all of the tools in the world. You could have all of the education, years and years of different trainings, and still be taken down by loss. It’s so much less science and so much more mystery. It was one of my biggest learnings. [00:03:42] PF: I thought that was such an important lesson to share because on the one hand, we might take away like, well, if a grief specialist can't handle it, how can we mere mortals do it. But instead, what you really show us is, yes, this is a human experience. We can apply all the psychology and the science and the how-tos and should-dos to it. But it's still an individual personal painful experience. [00:04:06] GM: Yes, absolutely. I think one of the other lessons was that we could also say I've gone through different losses, I've had a divorce, or I lost a pet, other really substantial life-changing losses. But every single loss is different, and how it comes to us is different, and how we metabolize it is different. So I think that was another lesson in of this is really understanding not only is it personal. But within our personal losses, each one comes with a different flavor and a different way of processing it. [00:04:38] PF: I think that's such an important point to make because as I was reflecting on that, I was thinking of, yes, I've lost both my parents. I've lost a beloved aunt. I've lost pets. Each one does land differently. Even with, say, having lost multiple dogs, the loss of each dog is different. [00:04:56] GM: Yes, absolutely. [00:04:57] PF: We don't necessarily give ourselves that grace of just because I handled this well means I'm going to handle this loss exactly like that. [00:05:07] GM: Right. I mean, look, and I hate to say it, but I blame society. We were never taught about grief. We were never taught how to show up for our feelings or how to understand and support ourselves in loss. It's always just been a hurry up and get over it or cry and feel sadness. But that's really it, and I think it's such a complicated, incredibly unpredictable experience. I think if we were taught to do better, we would be able to give ourselves that grace and that patience and the space to show up in whatever ways that loss asks of us. [00:05:41] PF: Yes, because I think, especially with like the stages of loss and things like that, we have this idea that there's a checklist that we're going to go through and then move on. That’s not at all what happens. [00:05:56] GM: Right. I'm really surprised that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief still exists in so much literature because it really was intended when she wrote it to be for the terminally ill themselves, where there would be an end time, right? So the acceptance would be something they would have to come to. But I think one of the things that's tricky is on the one hand, it's great that we have kind of a structure of some kind that these are some things we can expect, sure. But that there's so much more involved in that, and there's no end time, and that it will with us forever. I think that can be a real shock to people when they come into my office, for example, and I'm saying to them grief will be with you always. People, they’re like, “Wait, what? When do I get to acceptance? I thought this is just I get through these stages, and then I'm better. Now, you're talking to me about anniversaries and holidays and death days and meaningful days, where it's going to come up and bite me, and I'm terrified of that. That sounds terrible, but like how do I get out of here?” That’s the realistic view of grief is that our people will always be with us. With that love comes great, great anguish and despair as well. It's balancing the two for the rest of our days. [00:07:15] PF: Yes. I'm so glad that you bring that up because I think also as observers, sometimes we think someone should be more healed than they are. It's like, no, if they lost their person, and it's like I can't imagine going the rest of my life without my person. Why would I expect that somebody else after a certain period of mourning or certain period of years would be able to just resume their life as if that's just history? [00:07:44] GM: Right. I mean, imagine somebody going through open heart surgery. You just say, “Okay, great. Get back to working out. Get back the next day.” It’s just we look at loss or we look at even mental health challenges as something that we can just hurry up and get better with because we can't see it. The truth is it's as specialized as spinal surgery or open heart surgery when we go through loss. The recovery time is indefinitely in a lot of ways. Obviously, as a therapist, my hope is that we aren't isolating or ruminating for too long or really getting trapped in the what ifs and the should haves and all of that because that can lead to much more despair and mental health challenges, deeper ones. I mean, yes, I think that we rush people through because we're scared, and we don't know better. It's hard for us to put ourselves in the shoes of somebody's individual experience because we're just not good at it. [00:08:41] PF: I would say that's very, very true. One thing that you introduce in your book is the idea called grief fall. Will you explain what that is? You're going to say this so much better than I do. [00:08:56] GM: I don’t know. Well, I was thinking of the time that I got the call that my mother had died from my father. I had just called to check in to let them know I would be on the next train. I just had to come back to the city for just an hour to do something and was headed right back. Within that time frame, my mother died, and I got the call. As soon as I hung up with my father, he called me right back and said, “In the time I came to talk to you, your mother died.” It was this moment where I just – it was a portal for me. It was the moment that I knew nothing would ever be the same. It was that call where my entire body felt flushed. I could feel pins and needles in my face. I could feel the blood rush around in my body, trying to find its center. It was an experience that I can recall even telling you right now. But it was, for me, a free fall. I needed it to have a name because I know that we all have this sensation when we get a diagnosis, or we get that phone call also, or we're holding our pet’s paw. This moment that we know will never be the same, and it's a free fall. We don't know exactly where we will land or if we will land or where that will be or what that will look like. It feels like a foreign landscape and another planet. To me, you're not grieving until you find your landing. It’s that portal into grief, that moment that we know. Everyone can recall a time where they – that remember when moment when I got the news or I lost something or someone incredibly significant to me. It felt important to give it a name because it's a defining moment for so many of us. [00:10:46] PF: That's such an appropriate name for it because as you said, like you have one moment where things – it's the world as you know it. In a split second, everything is different. Everything feels different. You know that it's never going to go back to being the same. [00:11:02] GM: Yes, yes. It’s the day that I’m walking down a street in Manhattan, and I'm like, “I no longer have a mother. That's it. For the rest of my life, I no longer have this person who was my lighthouse, who was my due north, the person I needed for the smallest of things.” How long can I keep this chicken in my refrigerator, the things that you would need a mom for and thinking, “Wow, this is it now for the rest of my life.” I don't even – I haven't reached the tip of what this actually means or what this will feel like. But I know that I'm in the fall of it. So, yes, it could be incredibly traumatic. [00:11:43] PF: You had alluded to the fact about how grief affects your entire body. Can you talk about some of the ways that grief does manifest itself physically? [00:11:52] GM: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think it's one of the things we often forget is that grief is a stressor, a huge stressor. All the things that come along with a major stress; increased inflammation, immune response, if you find yourself bumping into things more, if you find yourself exhausted or you can't sleep, if your appetite has shifted in some way. Your libido is different. People are getting headaches, or they can't see well. People are having stomach aches. I mean, these are just some of the things. There is such a thing as the mind-body connection, and we know it in theory. But I think we don't often think about it when it comes to something as much as losses. It affects every one of our systems. We have 12 systems, and the brain is – the nervous system comes into play. It's scanning for danger. When we are going through a loss, it's got a lot of work to do, the nervous system itself. It creates anxiety. Our heart races. We get sweaty palms. Our nervous system itself is seeking danger because its actual only job is to keep us alive. When we have a loss significant in our lives, our nervous system will go off and say, “Okay, this is possible. What other danger will happen? What could be next, and how will I ever be okay?” There's a multitude of ways that grief comes to our bodies, and it could be small ways where you just are having appetite issues, or you can't sleep as much. But it could be as big as you actually develop. There's such a thing as brokenhearted syndrome, where you do actually have restricted blood flow to the heart, and you get hypertension, and your entire equilibrium can go off. That's why I really, really press people. I say it's not important to have self-care. It's survival care. You have to – you cannot ignore the body's doorbell. We have to really figure out how we can take care of ourselves, even when we don't have the energy, we don't have the desire, or we don't have the time, which is something that I said in my book. I don't have time. I have too many things to do. It was over and over. I just kept moving and pushing until I wound up in the ER with pancreatitis and later on a thyroid disorder. So it was really – when I said earlier it was a humbling experience to go through the grief process as a grief therapist, it certainly was head-to-toe humbling. [00:14:32] PF: Did that change how you approach it with clients at all? Or did it just kind of reinforce what you've known? [00:14:38] GM: It did change it because it was one of the things I hadn't learned in any of my education. Mind you, at the time, I was in graduate school. Actually, including now, there still is no main curriculum that teaches any clinician whatsoever about loss that isn't either just centered around end-of-life care or spiritual aspects of loss. So I didn't know. I really didn't understand how the body could play a part. Now, of course, it is one of the things I talk about the most, which is when we're in fresh grief, one of the things we have to remember is that grief takes endurance. One of the ways it will show up is it will exhaust you. It's not a sprint. We're not trying to get to the end of that fifth step. This is going to be with us over and over in different ways, in different intensities. When we're feeling overwhelmed or when we're just enduring a loss, it's most important to make sure that we're drinking enough water. We're getting enough nutrition. We're getting movement. We're getting fresh air. That we're getting enough rest. Even if we can't sleep, that we're resting our body. That we're really just mindful that the body is going to play as equal a part to our processing and experiencing loss as our emotional aspects, so absolutely. [00:15:59] PF: I love that you bring that up. I just love the way you approach it because I feel that's so often overlooked. I wanted to talk specifically about grief in the holidays. What I was thinking about as you're talking about it is this is also a time of the year where there is more stress. So even without the grief, let's look at it. Our schedules are packed. There's more stress. There's bugs like the one I have circulating around. [00:16:23] GM: I'm with you. [00:16:24] PF: It's great, yes. There's all this added stress and pressure. Now, we throw in the component of grief in the holiday season. So how important is it to be able to address the pain, the agony, the challenges of grief? [00:16:45] GM: I think it's going to be just incredibly important to become more aware, right? The first few years after a loss can be incredibly overwhelming. For so many people, whether your loss is recent or whether it's years ago, there is a heaviness that can start to grow for people when we hit the month of November, especially if you were in some ways someone who enjoyed the holidays or had special traditions or rituals with your loved ones who are no longer here. I think one of the things it brings up is the holiday spotlight, everything that we're missing. It puts in so much pressure to find cheer and look on the bright side and look at the silver lining. It can really feel like a forced sense of cheer when all you really want to do is hide away until January 2nd. But there are ways that you can survive it. Sometimes, I don't say have a good holiday. I'm like, “Have a holiday.” Have a day. Just get through the day. That's all it has to be. If it hurts, we don't have to give it the attention. We don't have to pretend that. We don't have to pretend that we're feeling festive in any way. [00:17:58] PF: I like that you say that because I do think people feel like, “I need to put on a brave face. I need to participate in the holidays. I need to be filled with cheer.” It's like if you're not feeling it, you don't have to do it. [00:18:12] GM: Exactly. I think people are often nervous to tell their loved ones that they don't want to participate. But I think there's ways to prepare for the holidays as a griever that can make it a lot easier for you. At the end of the day, it's what can I do for myself to take the pressure off. We need time for ourselves as grievers. We're going to need the time to have solitude and self-reflection and to feel our feelings. So we may not be able to do the things that we've done in the past. I think communicating that, if somebody doesn't get it, which we would hope our loved ones could understand. But in the case that they don't because they are uncomfortable or because they think that being around people could cheer you up, I think it's okay to say I'm not going to be able to do what I've done in the past. I'm not okay, and I'm going to do my best. But if I need to forego this holiday, please forgive me, and please be with me and support me in that. [00:19:09] PF: Yes. I think that's so important to be able to say, especially because, all right, the holidays have already been forever changed. So if you're changing one more component of it, that shouldn't bother somebody else. It's like I'm adapting to fit my needs, and that's just kind of how we have to do. It’s about healthy survival. It’s not just about survival. It's about being healthy throughout that. [00:19:31] GM: Absolutely. Thank you for saying that. Saying no is healthy, and it is self-care. Celebrating is counterintuitive to the way that you're feeling with loss. Christmas comes around every year. So if you have to skip it, it's okay. It's not a once-in-a-lifetime event. So I think it's okay to give ourselves permission to say no is a complete sentence, and it is the highest form of self-care. [00:19:59] PF: Yes, yes. I think that's so true. When I was about six years old, my favorite aunt and uncle – my uncle died on Christmas Eve. He always played Santa Claus for all the cousins, and he was also – that's where we did Christmas Eve together, everyone and all the whole family. So everyone was, “We were going to cancel it.” My aunt Lillian was like, “No, this is for the kids. We're going to do it.” I've always wondered about that because I remember that Christmas Eve so clearly because there was not even a sense of loss. There was a sense of joy. It was an awareness that it was different. But there was also such an appreciation because this was still going on in the wake of this loss. It was a very unique experience. I regret that I never asked my aunt about how she felt about that and what that did for her. [00:20:53] GM: That is – no. I mean, what I love about that is that it brings up another angle of the holidays, which is that some people will really, really feel so much comfort in continuing the traditions and continuing the rituals and having their loved ones around them in some way to celebrate the goodness of the person and the special way that they were in the world with people or in the family. That is a way of grieving, too. That grief itself doesn't have to just look like sadness and isolation. That it can actually look like coming together and celebrating a person who isn't there in the same ways that we would celebrate as if they were. So I think that's also really important to point out. [00:21:37] PF: Another thing, and you mentioned this earlier when you talked about this can go on for years, and we tend to think like, okay, someone's first year is tough. Then, okay, now we're back on schedule. I think it's so important to realize that each year is going to be different. I have a friend from high school who lost her husband last year, a great guy. Oh, my gosh. So last year was difficult because all the first holidays, all the firsts without him. As the holiday started coming around this year, I reached out. I said, “How are you doing?” She said, “For some reason, this year is more difficult.” I think people get puzzled by that because we're kind of taught that, oh, get through that first year, and it gets better. But that's not necessarily the case. [00:22:24] GM: It's absolutely a myth. The thing about the first year is that it's a year of firsts. That is exactly what it is. It is a year of getting used to it. It's a year of shock, but it's also a year that more people are supportive. There's more people around to say, “Hey, I'm thinking of you this Christmas,” or, “I'm thinking of you on so-and-so's birthday.” The real loss itself hasn't sunk in yet. It's when people decide that your morning period is over and life is back as we know it, year two through forever, that the real reality of our losses can sink in. We forget that life does go on, which means that we can have hard days that don't have anything to do with our loss. But that can make our loss feel harder when it comes about, and so the world at large. When the world is at war, for example, or we're looking at poverty around us or whatever it is, or we lost a job. It can make losing a parent or a spouse or a child so much harder. We often don't take that into account. We always sort of isolate our losses. But at the end of the day, it all plays into it and how we metabolize emotions and our experiences. As I'm talking to you, my mother's death anniversary is this week. I was thinking it's going to be seven years, and it feels like such a long time. Every year feels different, but this year also feels hard. It could be that we just sold our family home, but it could be that the world is just feeling very uncertain. I think some of that plays into it. So in the air of transparency, it does – every year can feel really different. I remember last year not feeling quite as intense as it does this year. So I think we have to really bring that word grace as a companion with us every single time we're looking at loss. [00:24:21] PF: Then what tools do you have for dealing with that? How do you make it through each year? If you can't say, “This is what I can expect,” how do you walk on that path with grief as your companion if it's going to be a different journey each year? [00:24:38] GM: Yes. It’s really interesting because some of the best advice I can give, even in the unpredictable, is to be prepared. I, for example, will plan getting together with friends and either toasting my mother or creating a meal that she loved and honoring her in some way. That's the way I like to prepare so that I'm not alone and that I'm with people who loved her or who knew her. We can tell stories. For other people, maybe being alone and watching a movie is what they want to do. So I think even in the unpredictable, we can prepare in a way that we can ask ourselves, okay, maybe I'll have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. I can decide that day, depending on how I feel, if it's more intense or less intense, which one I'm going to do. But I think what it can help with, and I say this a lot about the preparing for the holidays, is that the worst part is the anticipation and the anxiety leading up to it, the not knowing, right? Having a plan or several plans for that specific day, even if you decide to forego them, can really relieve some of that anxiety of the unpredictability. [00:25:50] PF: That's a great tip. Obviously, some years, we may be the ones doing the grieving. Other years, it's someone else sitting in that chair for the first time. First of all, if we're grieving, how do we let others know what we need? That means even if we don't know what we need, how do we let them know what we need from them? [00:26:10] GM: Well, I mean, I think this is the hard part. I think letting people know that and exactly this, right? Sometimes, it’s please read this book, right? I have a section in my book that speaks to people supporting grievers. But other times, it can be I really don't know that I can do this right now, and I don't want to commit to this. Or, hey, I could use some support this year or some help this year. I think we have to be able to reach out, or we have to be able to communicate if people around us are not getting it or at least being the ones to initiate whether or not we need asking, whether or not we need help. I mean, I think we have to sort of play it by ear and say, “Hey, I don't know how I'm going to feel this day. But I do know that I'm not going to be able to do as much as I have done before, and so perhaps we can figure that out.” “I'm not going to be able – someone else may have to do the shopping. Someone else may have to do the cooking. Someone else may have to decorate or wrap. I don't believe I can do that this year. And if I can, then I will certainly show up and do that. But right now, I have to play that by ear.” I think we have to be able to say that. [00:27:25] PF: That makes a lot of sense. Then what if this loss is extremely fresh? Some people have what I'll call the luxury of it, being a few months since they lost someone as we enter the holidays. For others, it is so fresh, so raw. What's the best way to approach the holidays and your self-care if everything is still very fresh for you? [00:27:49] GM: I think that really it kind of is the same in a lot of ways. I say often go gently. Be as gentle as you can as you approach the holidays and, like I said, even earlier. Whether it is the holidays or whether it is anything else in our lives, the best advice is to try to still be prepared, even if we aren't, even if we're overwhelmed, and even if we're inundated with things. We're probably still at the point where there's a lot of shock and that the information hasn't necessarily sunk in. Or perhaps we've had a sudden unexpected loss, and we're in the trauma of that. I think is we must expect that the holiday will not be what it was before. But if we don't have people around us to know that or to help us with what we need, it is really important that we just go as gently as we can plan for the things that we're able to. But also expect that more often than not, we probably won't be able to do the things we thought because we're simply in survival mode. If we want to stay home and eat cookies and sit on the couch and cry, that has to be okay. It's certainly okay in my book. I think this is the time where we say give grace and not advice, right? [00:29:03] PF: I love that. Yes. [00:29:05] GM: More than anything, what we need is to keep our advice and our opinions to ourselves on how people will spend that day. This is where we need presence and patience for the people that we love. [00:29:16] PF: Yes. Sometimes, bare minimum is quite enough. Getting out of bed, if that's what you can accomplish that day, good for you. You did it. We don't give ourselves enough credit for that. [00:29:30] GM: It’s so true. You know what? Some days, though, if it's Christmas Day and it was important and you need to stay in bed a little bit longer, that's okay, too. You just don't want to make a habit out of isolating. Yes. I think that's what it is. I think the grace comes however we can get through the day. Sometimes, it will be to stay in bed. Sometimes, it will be just to shower. Sometimes, it will be because we have a pet that needs to be walked, so they get us out of bed. Whatever that is, that can be a triumph. Let's celebrate those little things, just getting through the day. [00:30:05] PF: Is there a point at which you look at it and you say okay? I don't want to say I should be doing this, but where you say, “Okay, I feel like I'm not making any progress in this grief walk, and I need some help.” What would you say would be the signs that after a certain period of time, you really need help walking down this path? [00:30:26] GM: Sure. I think that time is a tricky thing because we always say time heals all wounds, but it really doesn't. It’s what we do with the time that matters. It's how are we using tools or what are we using in the time to connect with other people. Connection in and of itself is one of the deepest healing tools there is; safe, genuine, loving connection. I would say this. If you're somebody who is ruminating over the loss, if you're somebody who just can't accept that the loss has happened, if you are somebody who's really struggling with the acceptance that this person is gone and/or feel some sense of responsibility, if you are also isolating yourself, like I said earlier, and you don't want to see people more and more and more, if your daily functioning seems to be lessening day by day, I think these are the times that reaching out for help will be the most vital for you because, otherwise, grief is this full-body experience that will change our lives and throw us off course and throw us off center. That's not always something that needs therapy, and it's not always something that needs a support group, although I always encourage it if you want to, of course. That would be – I can't be a therapist and not encourage therapy. [00:31:45] PF: Exactly. No, you're fine. Get back out there. [00:31:48] GM: Exactly. For some people, therapy is not it, right? For me, it's what does therapy provide. A sense of safe connection and validation. That's for people going through sort of what I'll call a normal grief experience, where they aren't ruminating or isolating or feeling responsible or stuck in the throes of trauma. If you are experiencing any of those things, it is really incredibly important to reach out to a therapist or a professional, someone you trust or someone who specializes in grief specifically. [00:32:23] PF: Yes. I do think that's an important distinction to make because I will never bash therapists. But I will say not all of them were equally skilled. [00:32:33] GM: Oh, for sure. [00:32:35] PF: I have sought help in dealing with certain losses, and the people were not skilled at dealing with loss. That was not their bag. So you really do. If you're seeking help for grief and loss, you do need to make sure that the person you consult has expertise in that area. [00:32:53] GM: Absolutely. I always bring it back to the doctor metaphor in that same way, which is you're not going to go to a podiatrist for a heart problem. Because of what I said earlier, people were not receiving specialized grief training and education in graduate school. You have to seek that out yourself. So it is important that if you don't already have a therapist that you feel safe with that you do, you make sure that you do whatever research you can or have someone else do it for you. Also, even the training itself is not always everything. You have to feel safe with this person or you're not going to share. You're not going to be as honest. Therapy is so helpful, but it has to be the right person with the right training. [00:33:37] PF: Yes. That is so true. The last question I was going to ask you is what's the one thing everyone should keep in mind this holiday season, whether they're experiencing grief or helping someone else through it? [00:33:50] GM: Earlier, I said something about patience and presence being the biggest gift that we can give somebody who's grieving this holiday season. It's also something that we need to give ourselves. If we can be present, allow our feelings, allow the time to feel our feelings, do what we can to take the pressure off of ourselves, plan for our grief. Don't be afraid to create new rituals or expand on the ones we've already had. As a griever and as somebody supporting grief, as I said before, walk beside somebody. Don't try to lead them. Don't try to carry them. Don't try to push them towards healing. Be with them. Be present. Be patient because this is a time like no other in their life. Despite it all, we do remember these moments. As much as we have brain fog, we remember who walks with us on this path. I think the biggest pieces of advice I would say, both as a griever and as someone supporting them, is to be present and patient on this path because it does take endurance, and it can be incredibly lonely. [00:34:58] PF: That's so well said. Gina, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. You have so much to teach us on this subject. Your book is amazing. [00:35:06] GM: Oh, thank you. [00:35:06] PF: I know that you're offering a free chapter when they visit our website. We're going to tell them how they can get that and just a fantastic well-written, much-needed book. Thank you for writing that, and thank you for coming on and talking about grief today. [00:35:21] GM: Paula, thank you so much. Thank you, again, for all you do and bringing the light and the spotlight to something that is incredibly hard to talk about. For all the aching hearts out there, my heart is with your heart. So thank you, Paula, for all of this. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:35:41] PF: That was Gina Moffa, talking about handling grief during the holiday season. If you'd like to learn more about Gina, explore her new book, Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go: A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss, or download a free chapter, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. From all of us at Live Happy, this is Paula Felps, wishing you and your loved ones a truly happy holiday season. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What Animals Can Tell Us with Joan Ranquet [INTRO] [0:00:08] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. Many of us wish we could talk to our animals, but today's guest says we can. And even better, she's going to tell us how. Joan Ranquet is an accomplished animal communicator, TEDx speaker, educator, and animal guardian. Today, she explains how we all have the ability to talk to animals if we'll just take the time to tune in to what they're saying. She and Brittany also talked about using the Emotional Freedom Technique or tapping to help pets release anxiety and find a more harmonious place in the world. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:47] BD: Hi, Joan.   [0:00:48] JR: Hi, how are you?   [0:00:50] BD: I'm great. How are you?   [0:00:52] JR: I'm great. [0:00:54] BD: So you're one of those people I want to sit down with and just say, "Tell me everything about you." If I could choose like any superpower in the world, it would be your gifts. Your main title is animal communicator, yes? [0:01:10] JR: Yes. [0:01:10] BD: Yes. What other hats do you wear? [0:01:13] JR: Well, I'm a school. I'm the founder of Communication with All Life University. We have programs for people to learn animal communication, energy healing, and to get certified in each or both of those subjects. Then, I take people on wildlife trips and I'm an author. [0:01:34] BD: When do you feel like you stepped into your gifts as an animal communicator? Do you feel like it was always present? [0:01:39] JR: No. I want to back up because I think everybody's an animal communicator. I feel like my gift is that I chose to stick with it, and that I'm tenacious, but I think it's a skill. It was there all along, but I didn't necessarily know it. Like you hear some people that say, "Oh, I was always talking to animals." And then I turned it off in high school, because it wasn't cool. I'm the opposite, there was always a connection, but I wouldn't have termed it or – you know what I mean? There wasn't the awareness around it that I'm talking to animals. It's just, I was very connected. I was that kid that the neighbors trusted to give the horse a shot, or I was always out riding my horse in the woods by myself, things like that. [0:02:26] BD: Yes. So you tuned in, you dialed in.   [0:02:28] JR: Yes.   [0:02:29] BD: Yes. I feel like there's an element of fear there, right? Do you think that's what kind of keeps people from really tapping into that, and tuning in, and the way that you're describing. [0:02:37] JR: A fear of being weird or a fear of – yeah. I think, thankfully, I've just let my freak flag fly. But sure, I think so. When I really tuned into it, and studied it, and really took it seriously in the early nineties. I was learning a lot of stuff in the late eighties and the early nineties. I went just all in, because it just thrilled me like nothing else did. I personally didn't back away from it. I backed away from energy healing at different times, because I struggled with the idea of having – feeling like somebody's life was in my hands. I had to really kind of deal with that. I watched my students struggle with leaving their corporate job, and not quite embracing this. But I'm really lucky that I had kind of followed this path all along. I mean, once it was laid out for me, I didn't necessarily step into it right away. But I almost had no choice. I feel like it was in the way was paved and chosen for me. Then I just finally stepped into it.   [0:03:46] BD: Yes, predetermined.   [0:03:48] JR: Yes.   [0:03:49] BD: You say that animals are first responders to our energy, and that really stuck with me. Can you expand on that? [0:03:57] JR: Yes, I would love to. I think that a lot of people will say that animals are mirroring us or reflecting us. While some of that goes on, I'll never forget this friend of mine was like, "My cat is pooping in the garage, and I can't find the mirror." I said, "Yes. So far, I've never heard you say that you're going to go poop in the garage." So, I love to say that they're not always mirroring us. They're not always reflecting us while they make. What they are is aware of our energy, and so they respond to our energy. If we're super calm, they're going to be calm. If we are hyped up – no, if you've created a resonance of calmness, and you're hyped up in that moment, you can be in that state without it shifting the whole household. But if you're staying in that state, if stress is like a full-time job for somebody, then the response might be some naughty behavior, some anxiety, some kind of ways of getting away from it. [0:05:06] BD: I'm curious. Do different animals communicate in different ways? This is the biggest question I wanted to ask you. Does a horse communicate differently than a chicken or my bulldog would? [0:05:19] JR: No. But, their reality may be different. A horse and a bulldog may be more aware of a schedule or have human activities than a chicken that you only interact with every day. But more and more people have amazing relationships with chickens and the chickens are in their house. They know that it's Thursday, and you're going to take an energy class or whatever it is. They can adapt to that. But if I were to communicate with a dolphin out in the water – but I always say that, if I go into a barn, and I talk to a horse that's going – maybe it's a show horse, and I say, just get a sense of what's going on for this horse. The horse may tell me, I have four horse shows this summer, and we're leaving on Thursday. It knows everything because the person is very clear. The trainer's clear. They've got this clear path before them. The horse can share that information. I'm sure your dog would have a lot of information to share in that way. But if I slipped into the sea and started swimming with dolphins, and asked them what they were going to do on Thursday, they'd probably say, "What's Thursday?" It's a different reality. [0:06:40] BD: Right. Is it more of a sensory experience when they communicate to you? It's not like you're hearing a voice? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Is it images? Is it, like in your mind's eye? Can you explain that to the – [0:06:54] JR: It's all of the above, yes. Animal communication is telepathy, which is the trend of pictures, words, and feelings. Sometimes, it might come in the form of a concept, or a feeling, or a little movie. When I start to communicate with animals, let's say, someone calls me and says, "My dog is leash aggressive." What I like to do is, get a sense from the dog that moment before it goes on the end of the leash, and is in that – mode. What are all the feelings that happen there? I'll get a little movie from the animal, and then be able to relay that to the person, and then they're able to say, "Wow, I didn't set this dog up well for safety. So now, I'm going to make different choices when I see this thing that sort of starts way before it starts." You know what I mean? I can use it this in a way to get information to help relationships, behavior, but it does all come down to pictures, words, and feelings. Sometimes it does almost sound like a voice. I mean, I'll never forget this orphan colt. This is before I was really – I was on the fence about this, I still loved my life in Hollywood. I was an actress, and a writer, and I loved my life. It had been my life forever. I flipped onto my horse's back, bareback, and I'd never ridden him before. He was like three and a half. I heard as clear as you and I are communicating with each other this minute. I heard, "I've been waiting for this." And yes, it just took my breath away. Every now and then, it does feel like it is another voice. But for the most part, it's like words, or feelings, or pictures. [0:09:01] BD: It sounds so comforting, like the idea, and the notion that if we are open to it, and we could lean in, and tap in, and dial in, that we could have these moments of like profound intimacy and connection with animals that surround us. [0:09:17] JR: Absolutely. It also helps with things like, I have a 36-year-old Arabian, and that's old as heck in animal years, in horse years. About two years ago, I walked down to feed breakfast, and I hadn't had coffee. I'm like just in my blurry state. I heard, "Help me." I looked at her and she looked perfectly fine. But I went ahead and acknowledge that I'd heard that. I walked around and felt her body and I wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't said this. I wouldn't have seen it for days. But she must have like been scratching her butt. If this is her butt, there was like a little flap, and it was pretty deep, where she had sliced it. I was able to get stitches, and get the vet out right away. It could have gotten infected if I hadn't seen it, because the flap of the skin laid perfectly back down. If she hadn't said help me, I wouldn't have looked for that. [0:10:24] BD: Wow. What is one of the biggest revelations that you found in doing this work? [0:10:29] JR: For me, the biggest revelation is that they are individuals, and they deserve agency, have their own soul, their own soul contracts, our own soul wounding, soul healing, purpose, mission, vision. They're their own beings. That's why, to me, it's very egocentric to say, "Oh, they're a reflection or mirror of us." It's important to value who they are, and be able to support them living their best lives. It isn't always exactly what we want. But it is, you know, it's not up to us. We're here to support them getting to be their best selves. [0:11:16] BD: You bring up this term, soul contract. This is actually something that I wanted to talk to you about, because your TED talk really has informed the way in which I show up for my clients for pet loss. It's such a beautiful conversation. You mentioned soul contracts in this talk. Can you explain to the listeners what that means? [0:11:43] JR: We know in human terms, a soul contract would be like this whole thing of, I personally really want to stay in the Hollywood world. But my soul was meant to do this work, and it took some convincing to get direction. Then, it was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm all in. Of course, I'm all in. I don't know why I was so asleep before." So for an animal, it's the same sort of thing where, for example, I just looked up at pictures of animals I've seen out in the wild for my wildlife trips. Last year, my eye caught this rhino, who lives at a place called Ol Pejeta, where the last two northern black rhinos live. But there's also this blind rhino that is – it's like, if you look at why would he be blind and kept there. But then, if you think about his contract is so that – I mean, we all – I got to do a bladder sweep on him, which is a move in acupressure. I mean, I got to feed him, I got to be with him. A rhino would be very scary in the wild, but here's the soulful guy that people get to meet, and touch, and get to know a rhino. So, in many ways, his contract, this lifetime is all about service. He gets a lot from it too, he's so adored. He's not just giving, he's receiving, he is loved in a huge way. [0:13:18] BD: Do you think that animals are our real gurus in life? [0:13:24] JR: I think they are, but I'm hesitant to put anybody on a pedestal. Because when you put it on the pedestal, they fall off. I think that in many ways, most of the animals in my house are the gurus, but there are also entertainers here. They're full spectrum, if you will. They've got lots of other duties or ways. The teaching doesn't have to come in some home setting, right? It can come in like, "Oh my God, I just learned something so profound about behavior. Because how you're responding to me. So, yes, I think that – I mean, of course, all of them are, but they're also 50 million other things. [0:14:08] BD: Right. I just believe the animals, when, again, when we're open to it, have this deep source of wisdom that we can learn from, that bring such a beautiful element into our lives. [0:14:22] JR: Well, I would say yes to that, and I would invite the idea that you prefaced it with when you are open to it. When you are open to it, you're also in tune with your own wisdom. It puts us in a position to have more engagement from our own source, our own – so it's – when we're open to it, anything is possible. It's the animals, it could be the trees, it could be the hills, it can be your own heart that's locked away a ton of stuff. [0:14:57] BD: Right. Going back to your TED talk for a second. In the lessons that we learn from animals, you say that animals offer us an opportunity to understand family in a way we wish we could understand our own families. That also has always stuck with me. Can you go into detail about that? [0:15:18] JR: Yes. I mean, when I wake up, I have a few cats on me, and a few dogs. I have to make my way down to feed horses, but it's always so delicious there with the animals. It's almost like, maybe one of my cats, Queen Latifah doesn't always get along with Buster Keaton. But when we're there in bed, in the morning, we're all blissed out, and we were all in such peace. So that if later on in the day, Buster Keaton took Queen Latifah's place, she might be crabby, but it's going to get dropped when we all go to bed. They don't hang on to things in the same way that my sister does. And they don't need to have a giant – you know how one person can remember something one way, and another person can remember something completely different way. Almost as if you've been raised in two different households, yet it was the same parents. Our animals don't hang on to that. Yes, my one dog has a totally different experience, because she's way more confident about getting in the car, so she gets to go hiking. And the other dog doesn't, but they're not resenting that. All of those, I guess, all the nuanced emotions that don't have us aren't there, like regret, or jealousy. You know what I mean? Like a lot of the things. They have the opportunity to really show us how to be in harmony. [0:16:56] BD: Yes. Like Queen Latifah is not going to bring it up passive aggressively at coffee the next morning. [0:17:02] JR: No, not at all. "You took my spot." Right? No. [0:17:05] BD: Yes. It's this gift of uncomplicated love. [0:17:11] JR: It is the gift of uncomplicated love. That's almost such a better way of saying it than – thank you – than unconditional because they are conditional. I mean, they are unconditional on the one hand, but I watch animals in the wild, and leopards don't hang on to their children. It's very conditional later on it. One is in the other territory. I think that I love the uncomplicated, that's a better way of, I think, just yes, a great way of saying it. [0:17:46] BD: It's like, when you think about it, that is one of the biggest tools to help, and support people while they're grieving the loss of their pet, is to understand the nuance in that, and why it is so painful. It's so much deeper than the way society often portrays that we should handle pet loss. [0:18:06] JR: Yes. I mean, I'm speaking to the choir right now, so don't get me started on that. It's just a dog, or it's just a bird. You can get another gecko. But it's like, well no, this was this one, and this is the one I'm going to miss. I feel like I teach a class on animals in transition, death, dying, and beyond. For me, what happens with people, I mean, even – I loved my mom so much, and it's still just one of the most giant losses. But we had periods where we weren't speaking, or it didn't go well, or I was a terrible teenager. She not only didn't like me, but the whole neighborhood didn't like me. You know what I mean? It was not easy some years. Then, we became great friends. I mean, we were, and then we weren't, and then we were again. But you don't have that with a dog. I mean, you can say, "Wow, that one was really hard to potty train." But that doesn't – you're not calling your friends, and freaking out, and getting a therapist, and even going to jail over potty training. But you could over something with a parent or a kid. It just isn't. There's the stages and you wish some of them would stay forever. Then, there's the loss that brings up all the other very, very innocent, uncomplicated losses. [0:19:36] BD: What does it mean to you being in service in this way to animals and their humans? [0:19:43] JR: First of all, if you put it that way, I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive, because I get to do this work. Then, it gets to teach others so that it's just going to get replicated exponentially out there. The work of really hearing them gets carried through. I mean, I always joked that at some point we're going to look back and say, "Wow, can you believe people didn't think they could talk to animals, pot was illegal, and there wasn't gay marriage." We're going to look back at a time when – we're going to look back and say, "This is crazy. We didn't think we could talk to animals. This is crazy. We didn't listen to animals." We're not there yet, but we're going to get there. [0:20:29] BD: I think so too. That's what we're hoping in having these conversations on the podcast, is inviting people to have a broader understanding of our relationships with animals. And not just what they can do for us, but what we can do for them, and the magic that is involved in our relationships with animals. [0:20:54] JR: It's totally magical. I mean, it is magical. On the wildlife trips, again, I take people on – there's a place called the Sheldrick Trust, where they have these orphaned elephants. And that is the thing, we adopted, as a group I had 14 people with me, we each adopted a different elephant. Some of them were there at the orphanage. And then there was a place we went to down south in Kenya, called Ithumba Camp in East Tsavo. That's where the teenage orphans are. They get to hopefully migrate and become part of the wild herds. I hadn't looked at my email, I hadn't paid any attention to it. But – because there was a group leader, right? But then, the company that organized all this sent me an email too saying, "You have adopted Ambo." I was like, "Oh, I'm going to meet Ambo." So I sat, and I sent Ambo messages. I was like, "Ambo, Ambo, Ambo, I'm coming to meet you. I'm coming to meet you" in the jeep when we're on our way there, right? Well, he was the first one in, and was the last one to leave. We were there for three days, so we had morning, lunch, and evening interactions with him. I mean, everybody got to stand with him for pictures, and he's big. He would let me scratch his butt. I mean, he was like, he – every day I just announced from the Jeep ambo we're coming, we're coming, and he was so available to us. The keeper said he's not usually like that. I mean, that's magic. I have my own elephant friend now. You feel like a kid again, and that's where – it's magical. Is there anything better than that? No. [0:22:42] BD: Not just magic, like majestic magic. [0:22:46] JR: Yes. Yes. Big Magic, yes. [0:22:50] BD: So you have a technique that you use, and I sometimes use it with my human clients. That is called Emotional Freedom Technique. This is something that you use with animals. Can you explain to the listeners what EFT is? Explain to the listeners about how you created a whole book and guide on how humans can do this with their animals. [0:23:15] JR: Okay. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, tapping is lightly tapping with two fingers on acupressure points. And each of those acupressure points are specifically chosen because they are calming. Acupressure or acupuncture can tonify, cleanse, intensify, calm. These specific points are common points. Each of the points are connected to meridians, which are connected to organ systems. It is believed that each organ in Chinese medicine is connected to an emotion. These emotions, these points are all calming points connected to things like the stomach. Think about how much the stomach is involved with anxiety, the heart. Each of them are really like chilling thing. What happens is, if we have a story in us, or that has a trapped emotion with it. So let's say, it can trigger us. Let's say, I'm still really sad about my cat dying. So anytime I hear about somebody else with a cat, with allergies, it brings up a fear in me that they're going to end up with a tumor, right? If I tap on myself, and this is really good for people that get a diagnosis with an animal if they had an animal and a similar situation. This is good for a million things, but just in human terms. Let's say, it will start to help – it will relieve. I won't forget that my cat died with this tumor that started with allergies. But I'm not going to be triggered by it, I'm not going to think everybody's got to look out if they've got allergies. I'm not going to be all – I'm bringing the emotional aspects down, and I'm able to calmly tell you that my cat died last March from a tumor that seemed to start with allergies. With animals, it's a very similar situation. Let's say, a dog that is afraid to go through the hallway because something had crashed in on him at some point. So you could tap on my fear, would become a dog, so to speak. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid to go in the hallway. I'm afraid to go in the hallway. I'm afraid to go in the hallway. But, eventually, you get to like, but you know, my person is leading me through. I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. We keep it again, uncomplicated story, right, and stick strictly to the emotions. Suddenly, the animal is like, hoof, okay. I can walk through the hallway. It's very profound with animals, because they don't doubt whether it works or not. It might take a few times if it's an extreme situation that's been pretty embedded through years of behaving that way. But it also can sometimes go away overnight. A lot of times, the person might have feelings about the situation as well. So the person who has a dog that won't walk down the hallway, might be frustrated, might be like, "Oh my God, get over it." Or might be like, "I'm so sad. I can't get the dog to the hallway. I'm supposed to be this great dog person." We have all our feelings too. I've been teaching this for 10 years, maybe a little longer. Anyway, I've been teaching for long. It's part of the school that I have for animal communicators and energy healers. What I did with the book is I helped people look at like breaking down the behavior or breaking down the feelings. And then, getting kind of a way to simply tell the story, and not hang on to the story through a series of kind of investigative questions that then become your script, or the words that you use to tap with on yourself and on the animal. [0:27:28] BD: Yes. Joan's book is titled, Emotional Freedom Techniques for Animals and Their Humans: Creating A Harmonious Relationship Through Tapping. I've seen it work with humans, and I love the idea of doing this with my own animals. This book gave me permission and literally taught me how to do it. I encourage all the listeners to get a copy of this, and try it out with their animals. I also think it's something beautiful that you can do together, you and your pet. Tap on yourself and your animal. [0:28:00] JR: Yes. I have all the charts of the specific points. There's charts in there for you, and charts in there of the animals where the points are. That's just it. I've tapped so much on my animals, and they're used to it, because I'm that person that wrote a book about it, and teach it all the time, and going to speak about it, what have you. But it is so calming for both you and the animal because some things feel so out of control for both you and the animal. Here's just one thing we can do that we just quiet down, we power down. We're getting quiet together, and we're helping each other. [0:28:45] BD: Your work is such a gift. [0:28:48] JR: Thank you. I would say yours is too. [0:28:52] BD: I'm so glad that you came on the podcast. Before we say goodbye, I always ask our guests to share a story. I like to share stories of animals doing magic, and healing those around them, and often, unassuming ways. Is there a special animal in your life over the years that comes to mind? [0:29:13] JR: Well, just because I brought it up, the cat that I lost in March. She was so mysterious, and she gave birth to kittens on my farm, my old farm. She was in the background, and then suddenly, she stepped into the foreground. She's very missed around here right now. But one of the things that she did, and I believe she still does in her afterlife, when she's not busy doing something else is she – people would bring foster animals that were so traumatized for me to tap on them, and they might have come from a long ways away, and so they slept in the guest room. One in particular was a dog that had been lost, had gotten hit by a car. Her leg had to be amputated, she was so shut down. That rescue sent the dog to me from San Diego. She spent the night, the woman spent the night with the dog in the guest room. Every night, my cat would sleep just plastered against the little box if the dog was in, and purred into the crate for the dog. I mean, she just did stuff like that to everyone, to everyone. That's really missed around here on the one hand, but gives everybody else an opportunity to be who they are also, because that became so big and so center. But I don't doubt for a minute that that healing energy is still here from her.   [0:30:52] BD: Absolutely. What's her name?   [0:30:54] JR: Francesca. [0:30:54] BD: Francesca. Thank you for sharing that story. Thank you, Joan, for bringing your beautiful grounding energy onto the show. It's been so wonderful getting to know you. [0:31:06] JR: Thank you. Thank you for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:31:09] PF: That was Brittany talking with author, teacher, animal communicator, Joan Ranquet. Brittany, what an incredible conversation you had. I know that's one that you were really looking forward to. I think y'all hit on some really meaningful points during that. [0:31:27] BD: I feel so honored to have shared space with Joan, and been able to ask her questions. I have so many more that I want to ask her. She's just such a wealth of knowledge, and she's so confident, and just so easygoing, and so tuned in to animals. I think it's just important for people to hear that, and understand that on the really heart-centered level that she spoke on.   [0:31:53] PF: Yes. I think that animal communication is becoming less woo woo, and people are starting to understand that, yes, our pets. Like she said, they may not understand what Thursday is, but they know. They know words, they know emotions, they know certain cues that we give them. That changes how they walk in the world. One of our dogs, Rocco is, as you know, he's very active, he loves staying active. Even though we have an acre that's fenced in, that he can run around in, that's not enough. We'll take him, we've got a very large garden that's also fenced in. If I say, "Do you want to go to the garden?" He goes berserk, and he runs, he goes and sits by the back door, because he knows he has to put his leash on before we can go to the garden. It brings me joy just to watch him respond that way. I think that's just on a very small scale, an indication of how tuned in they are to what we're saying to them.   [0:32:49] BD: Right. The word weird came up pretty early on. And, you know, I'm all about the weird, wild, and woo. I think that is something that is shifting, it's shifting in such a profound way. I think, in the way that we understand, and have more of an openness, to having a connection with things outside of our subconscious minds. Right?   [0:33:16] PF: Right. Right. What I was really interested in, I'm so glad you brought this up with her is the idea of tapping. Because just like a month or so ago, we did a show on tapping for people. Honestly, I had not really thought about it. I know that you had used it, but I had – I really hadn't gotten there for pets. I thought that was super interesting, especially since many of our pets do have – rescue animals come with baggage, and anxieties, and traumas that we can't fix in other ways. I thought that was so interesting, that this is a tool that we can also use on our pets.   [0:33:52] BD: Yes. Just the scientific stuff behind it too, that I find really interesting is that, it is different from EMDR. EMDR has to be in a clinical setting. This is something that anyone can do in their own home now with their pets, and it is kind of an empowerment tool, because it's like sealing in these affirmations, and mantras. I love how she was talking about the you are safe. Picking that affirmation mantra for your pet and really working on you are safe.   [0:34:27] PF: That's so important, because especially, rescue animals don't feel safe oftentimes. I think that's great. That's great. What was the biggest thing you took away? I know there were – man, there's like a bunch of takeaways on this one. What was the biggest thing you walked away with?   [0:34:40] BD: I think the biggest thing that I walked away with is our conversation on unconditional love, and talking about how that is kind of different from uncomplicated love. [0:34:55] PG: Well, great job. That was a really insightful, enjoyable interview. Thanks for sitting down with her and having that talk.   [0:35:03] BD: Yes, absolutely.   [0:35:06] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher talking with Joan Ranquet. If you'd like to learn more about Joan, check out some of the work she's done, check out her book, follow her on social media. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast app. While you're there, be sure to check out some of the work Brittany's done. There's also some links for the work she's doing, and we're happy to have you follow her on social media. That is all we have time for this time around, and we will meet you back here next month for a brand-new episode of Happiness Unleashed. Until then, for everyone at Live Happy and Happiness Unleashed, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Managing Family Dysfunction During the Holiday Season With Trakida Maldonado [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:03] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 447 of Live Happy Now. What would the holiday season be without a little family dysfunction? Well, actually, nobody knows. But this week's guest wants to help us find out. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And today I'm sitting down with Trakida Maldonado. A licensed professional counselor with Sondermind who has more than a decade of clinical experience. She's joining me to talk about why our mental health takes such a hit during the holidays and the role that families play in increasing our holiday anxiety and conflict. Then she'll tell us what we can do about it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:42] PF: Trakida, thank you for sitting down with me today. [0:00:46] TM: Thank you, Paula, for having me. [0:00:47] PF: This is a fun time to talk because it's the holiday season and it is a really challenging time for a lot of people. I guess to kick things off, can you talk about why our mental health takes such a hit during the holiday season? [0:01:01] TM: Well, Paula, as you and I all know that during the holidays we are expected to just have so many – so many people have expectations of us. Our family, our children, nieces, nephews. During that time is already a very stressful time mind. And when we bring in traditions around that, it can create a lot of negative emotions and stress. That is why, during the holiday season, it's very, very stressful for so many individuals because there is so much that. It's put on us all at one time. [0:01:36] PF: Yeah. And we've also got that end of the year coming up. If you're in business, a lot of times, it becomes a very busy time there too because people are trying to get things wrapped up for the end of the year. [0:01:48] TM: Absolutely. Business closing out the year. Work is extremely busy. As we all know, everyone is shorthanded as far as manpower. It's a lot of different things that is put upon us during the holidays. And to include that we're talking about family. A lot of family time. And that adds on another stressor. [0:02:13] PF: Yeah. And as we talk about that, how does the perception that we need to create this perfect holiday just add to that stress and kind of make it worse? Because a lot of people do. They try to create the ideal holiday. They want Christmas to look like a Christmas card. They want everything about the holiday season to just be perfect. And what does that pressure do to us? [0:02:37] TM: Well, for many of us, unfortunately, those traditions that everyone expects of us, it causes a lot of stress. Rather we're having issues in our relationship. Or it can be things that's going on in work or with our children. And so, at that time, we're trying to actually create this love and happiness during this holiday season. And we have so many other things that's going on. And it can really affect our mental health. And so, because of that, we face so many challenges during the holidays and the seasons of just everyone being happy and wanting you to be happy. Taking these pictures with family members and seeing family we haven't seen in a while. We have to protect our mental health during that time. It's very, very important for us to do that. I'm a licensed therapist and I see a lot of different people during the holidays because of the stress that holidays bring. And we go through different coping skills and things that can be done to kind of minimize the stress of the holidays. [0:03:41] PF: That's great. I want to dive into a few different scenarios that are kind of common that people might be going through and talk about those. Because, first of all, can we talk about – you kind of alluded to it. Sometimes relationships are not going well and you still have to see their family. You still have to take him to see your family. It's not comfortable. And you're trying to present something that's great for the sake of the kids. You don't want to ruin their holidays. How do we do that? If we are in a relationship, it's not going well, maybe we're not even going to continue that relationship after the New Year. What do we do kind of get through that and make it more comfortable for everybody? Including ourselves. [0:04:23] TM: Well – and I'm glad you brought that point up, Paula. Because one of the things that we have to automatically do is acknowledge our feelings. We're typically so busy putting on a face for everyone else and making everyone else happy that we tend to not acknowledge our own feelings. And so, we want to make the holidays great during that time. And it's, again, like you say, for the family and the family members that are all looking and not even possibly knowing the stress that you're dealing with. And acknowledging your feelings and knowing, "Hey, this is the holiday time. And during this time, I know that we are not in a good place, but I am putting on the best face that I can for our families." However, we can't minimize how we're feeling within. We can still smile but we need to acknowledge we're not in a good place. I know I need to acknowledge that instead of acting like everything is okay. It makes it a lot easier to get through those times. And remember that your feelings are valid. Whatever you may be going through. And I can speak from personal experience. I was married for 25 years. And towards the end, I knew during the holidays we were going to visit family. And that was going to be very difficult. However, what I decided to do was acknowledge my feelings. I set certain expectations during that time. And I was very, very clear and strategic about what would be talked about and what we would discuss why we were with family. And it made a difference. It made me feel a lot better. And again, that comes from validating your feelings. It's so important that we do that during this time. [0:06:02] PF: That's great advice. I love that. And then, also, we're dealing with extended family. And when we have children, that can be even more challenging. Because I see a lot of people being pulled to meet the expectations of grandparents and extended families. Every grandparent wants to have the kids there for Christmas morning or whatever their tradition is. And frankly, the children they're doing it for are exhausted by the end of the holidays. As a parent, how do you set boundaries without causing a World War because? This is the way the family's always done it. How do you kind of carve out your place to protect your family time and to make sure the children actually have a good holiday season? [0:06:45] TM: That goes back to adjusting your expectations. Strategizing what you're going to do. Talking about it with your partner or just making sure that you have a plan. How long do you plan on spending when you're visiting maybe your in-laws or grandparent? Discuss exactly how much time you going to spend with that person in a conversation. And it's very, very important that you and your partner or your significant other, if you all are talking about this, have some sort of hand gestures, or some sort of wink, or something that you all can stay on track. Adjusting your expectations and strategizing prior makes a huge difference. Remember, what we have to do is set boundaries. The kids are being pulled in different directions is exhausting for the children and everyone. You strategize and say, "Hey, we're only going to spend two hours with our in-laws." And you make sure that you go by that and have that boundary. And you said it from the beginning, we are going to be here for this amount of time. Remember, we can't make everyone happy. And the holidays are so stressful in itself. We all come from totally different walks of life. I mean, my family, I'm going to see them for Christmas. And they may be listening to this podcast today. And I'm not really looking forward to five whole days with my entire family. [0:08:06] PF: Well, you know what? If you say enough about them, you might not get five whole days with them. [0:08:10] TM: Well, you know, Paula, you would think. But I doubt it. They would torture me just on purpose at that point. But it's very, very important that we understand it. We just set some expectations and have boundaries. And I think that is keeping things healthy for yourself and for your family. And those boundaries are just important during the holidays. And they're important anyway. But if you set those boundaries early on before the holidays arrive, making the decision early. Where are we going to be attending? Or how long we're going to attend someone's home? People will understand, especially when you've made this decision, and they know prior to the event. Or you're telling them that once you arrive, "Hey, we're only going to be here for this amount of time." Again, managing boundaries, healthy boundaries, to continuously get you through the holidays with less stress and also for your family to not be as stressed out as well. [0:09:06] PF: I love that. Because we tend to think of this as just kind of an organic thing. We're going to show up and we'll leave when we leave. Or when they're done with us or what have you. But it really does require a solid strategy to get through with your mental health and your energy intact. [0:09:22] TM: Absolutely. It's setting those healthy boundaries. Because like you say, you end up somewhere. You're there for hours. And now, these conversations that you're not – someone is pushing your buttons and giving advice that they're not experts in it. And so, it's very, very important to set those boundaries. And again, you're not going to make everyone happy, but it keeps your mental health intact. And also, it helps with the family overall because your family in itself is happy. That was enough time with grandma, or grandpa, or in-laws, mother, father, whoever. But I think it's very important to have those boundaries already set prior. And it really makes you feel a lot better going into the holiday. [0:10:07] PF: Yeah. It does. And that's a great plan to have. But what happens if you have your plan, and you're there and then things go off the rails? Your spouse says, "No. Honey. Let's just go ahead and stay for a couple more hours. Because mom really wants us here." Something like that. What do you do? How do you correct things if someone's trying to change it in the moment? And it could be too, say, one of the grandmas is like, "Well, oh, no. Can't you just stay a little longer? I'm so disappointed." They kind of start using some of the guilt things. How do you handle it in the moment if you've already set the boundaries? You have a strategy and someone is now contesting it. [0:10:45] TM: That's the anticipation of conflict. And that's the worst part of it. [0:10:51] PF: You know there are cases where it's coming. And someone is out there listening saying, "Yeah, we can try that. Wink-wink." [0:10:58] TM: Absolutely. Absolutely. [0:10:58] PF: And it's not going to happen. [0:10:59] TM: Again, that is one of the reasons why setting these boundaries in place prior. Allowing these individuals to know this is what we – once you set that boundary, you must stick to it. And that's not always comfortable. There needs to be a conversation prior. And that partner needs to understand that this is the boundary that we set. And we cannot allow someone else to talk us into doing something different. Again, that is not always easy. But we have to set those boundaries and we have to really stand by them. Because other than that, we are putting ourselves in a position where we're stressed out. And I get it, stress is normal. But it should not rule or ruin your health. And it should not be a time that you're dreading the holidays. It's supposed to be a time to enjoy. Again, I stress the fact that boundaries are so important. And sometimes we're like, "Well, this person's not going to abide by my boundary." Well, that is something that we have to work on. [0:11:57] PF: One thing that's pretty common for people is they have relatives that they've had prior conflict with. And for some reason, it's going to bubble up either at the dinner table, or during drinks afterwards, or something like that. Two points that we want to make here is, first of all, how do you go into that situation? And then secondly, if you are there and it starts to occur again, what do you do? [0:12:24] TM: That's a good one, Paula. And I've heard that very, very often in my practice. And that is the time that we have to press pause. We have to press pause and we have to decide, "Hey, I need a timeout." And I think it's very important to express those feelings. And I'm really big on communication. Sometimes overly communicating. But you have those family members, and we all have them, that continuously just want to have these discussions that their opinions defer from politics and religion issues and views. And it can ruin the entire day that you're spending with your family. And one of the things to do a lot of times is to get up and ask for a moment. I just need a moment so I can get my thoughts together. Sometimes walking away. Disengaging in those conversations. A lot of times what we do is, because we get annoyed with the individual, we will say, "Well, we don't engage in these conversations. Because they're pointless. And we're upset because these opinions are so different." And it can derail very easily. But it's important for us to just decide that I'm going to step away from this for a moment. And when these conversations start, we disengage from them. There are certain conversations that we know that can go bad with particular family members. We disengage immediately before we even get ourselves in that. We don't want to get angry and definitely open up a bag of worms and cause chaos at the family's gathering. [0:13:56] PF: Can you say I am going into a situation that didn't go well last year? Or didn't go well last time we were together. How do you go in and set boundaries? Maybe whoever's hosting it. Or people who are attending and saying, "Look, I know we've had this conflict." Because everyone knows, it's the elephant in the room, right? Can you say, "Look, this has been a problem area for us before. Let's agree not to discuss this." Or how do you handle that if you know that's – [0:14:26] TM: Absolutely. I like what you said. I'm sorry. I love what you said about maybe having that conversation with who's hosting the family gathering. Before you encounter these situations, it would be very helpful to encourage the family members or the family to put that out. That these are conversations that we won't have. These particular subjects – or what happened last year, the year before last, they are off the table. We're not having them. Instead of getting angry, consider just opening a sentence of like, "We're not having this – we're not discussing religion this year." Or we're not discussing health care. Whatever it may be. Just put that out there very early on just to avoid that conflict. Now that can be uncomfortable initially because it's like everyone's like, "Well, no one was talking about that." I get it. But before we even go there, from what happened in previous years, this topic is totally off the table. We won't discuss it. And if someone is hosting it and they're open to saying, "Hey, this is what happened two years ago. Is it possible that you can put that out? You're hosting the family event this year. Can you say, "Hey, these are the things that we're not going to discuss. Because we want everyone to have a great time." That is definitely something that can be done. I think that sometimes it's very, very important, again, setting those boundaries and allowing everyone to know from the beginning this is not what we're going to talk about. It would be very, very helpful. Especially if you have support from your family say, "I agree with you. We should not be talking about these particular topics." And I think it's very, very important that that is possibly discussed prior. [0:16:05] PF: And then who's in charge of – I don't want to say monitoring it. But sometimes people will do it anyway. They're still going to bring something up. Who's in charge of saying, "Hey, remember? We're not talking about that." [0:16:17] TM: Well, you know it goes back to, Paula, like we were talking about earlier. That is those families. We all have those particular family members. [0:16:24] PF: Oh, yeah. [0:16:26] TM: Will not stop. I can't tell you the anxiety I feel about just having everyone in one location. Those are the moments where you have to make a decision. And what I mean by that is once you tell the person, "Hey, we've already discussed we're not having this conversation." If you walk away or disengage and they're continuously, which we know this happen very often, that someone just will not avoid conflict, it may be time that you say, "You know what? For the sake of my mental health and my family, we're not going to subject ourselves to this. Because I already see where this is going." And it may be one of those situations where you end up leaving early. Of course, you're not trying to ruin a day. But what you're not trying to do is be around family. Have a bad day. This thing – a lot of times when we have these issues during the holidays, I cannot tell you how many individuals I see early on in the beginning of the year that are so stressed out about what's going to happen in the family. I recently had someone for Thanksgiving. And basically, one of the kids found out dad did something really big for the other daughter and it became this huge fight. And it's Thanksgiving. We have to disengage from those things. It may be one of those things where you say, "Well, I can tell that you want to continue with this conversation that's going to create so much havoc. So, I'm going to leave. Or I'm going to disengage from this." And again, those are uncomfortable situations. But a lot of times, if we press pause, we walk away, we disengage. We come back and things can possibly be in a better place. But again, there is no blueprint to when we're dealing with family. [0:18:04] PF: Yeah. [0:18:06] TM: We go in and we have these expectations. And we can sit here and say all day, "We're going to have expectations and boundaries. And we're only going to stay at the in-laws for 30 minutes or however we may go about it." Truth be told, we only can do so much. Family is family. Family comes with a lot of dysfunction and a lot of times a lot of stress just dealing with them. However, it's very important just to really try to stick to those boundaries that you create. But there is a strong possibility that someone is going to push over them. Someone is going to push the limit. But that's when you have to definitely stand on what you believe. Stand on what you said and follow through. Because again, stress is normal. But it should not ruin or rule over your health and mess up the holidays. Because we have family members that are just not willing to participate in a healthy way. [0:19:00] PF: Right. Right. We've managed to make the holidays sound like a horrible experience on this episode. [0:19:08] TM: It actually can be. It actually can be very stressful. [0:19:10] PF: Yeah, 100% can be. What's one thing that you want people to remember? As they go into the holidays, how do we make sure that it is merry and bright as the saying says? And what can we do? What do you want them to keep front of mind? [0:19:24] TM: Well, this is a season of gratitude. Throughout the holidays, always be gentle to yourselves, to others. We have these expectations around the holidays. And of course, we want it to be perfect and beautiful. And sometimes it doesn’t work that way. But this is a season of nothing but gratitude. And we have to remember that we are grateful for the families that we have, and the good, the bad, the ugly. And just focus more on just relaxing and enjoying the moment. We are all here on – we don't know the time and hour when our time here on Earth will be gone. And we have to just love on the individuals that love on us. And family, although we're all different, it's a great time to catch up with nieces, and nephews, and in-laws and our children. And just try to remember that this is really the season of happiness and it should be a happy time. Not always as happy. But if we can make the best out of it. Because we don't get to really spend that much time with our families, extended families especially, throughout the year. We're so busy. Focus on the good and try to relax and set those boundaries and stick to them as much as you can. [0:20:37] PF: I love it. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. You gave us a lot to work with. I think we've given people a lot of information today. And I appreciate you sitting down and taking the time to do that. [0:20:47] TM: Thank you so much, Paula. Thank you for having me. And you have a great day. [OUTRO] [0:20:56] PF: That was Trakida Maldonado talking about handling family dysfunction during the holidays. If you'd like to learn more about Trakida or read some columns on how to protect your mental health during the holiday season, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Phelps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Practicing Forgiveness for the Holiday Season With Barbara J. Hunt [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 445 of Live Happy Now. Studies show that our world is becoming less optimistic, but this week's guest believes we can change that. I'm your host Paula Felps. Today, I'm talking with Dr. Emily Bashah, a psychologist whose private practice specializes in mental illness, collective trauma, grief, and relationship dynamics. She's also co-host of the Optimistic American Podcast, where she and co-host, Paul Johnson, strive to create space for a positive and hopeful view of America and help us feel more optimistic about the future. Emily's here with me today to talk about why we're feeling less optimistic these days, what we can do about it, and importantly, how we can make it through the holiday season with our optimism intact. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:53] PF: Emily, thank you for joining me here today. [00:00:55] EB: Thank you so much, Paula. I'm really excited about your mission, and learning more about you, and what you're contributing to positivity and optimism through your podcast. So thank you. [00:01:07] PF: Well, I'm excited about everything that you have going on, and we're going to talk about the Optimistic American movement and also how this relates to the holidays. But I wanted to know, in your private practice with everything that's going on in the world today, how do you see that affecting, say, your client's optimism? [00:01:26] EB: I see people going in one of two directions. Either they're totally closing themself off from the world and shutting people out and really focusing on living a day-to-day existence with what am I trying to accomplish today and really in a survival mode. Then to the other extreme, absorbing everything, impacted by everything, very distressed, highly anxious, more and more paranoid and concerned about what is happening in the world today, feeling more despair, a sense of hopelessness. Helplessness is quite big and grief-stricken, honestly. [00:02:10] PF: So is it more than you had seen in the past? [00:02:14] EB: I think it's kind of this continuation that we've seen from COVID and rising impacts of extremism that is happening nationally, ever-changing polarization in politics that's happening in our nation. That's creating more of a rise of tension and hate and a divide and trying to classify people into these groups of are you my friend or my foe because you can't – you have to be an either one of those two categories. There isn't any – [00:02:49] PF: There's no in-between anymore. [00:02:51] EB: There's no in-between anymore, and it's wild to me just to see that people are even allowing themselves to force people into those categories, where really they know nothing about different issues, aren't educated about the different issues, don't really care to be more educated about the different issues, and yet are willing to go that extra mile in forcing people into these real black and white categorizations and allowing themselves to be skewed and misinformed by propaganda. That really is concerning for me, especially for young people today. I think that a lot of it adds to this rise of despair and a sense of victimhood or fear and wanting to make sense of things that just seem so senseless. [00:03:50] PF: What you have described is such a true depiction of what our society looks like today, and that's it's bleak. When you lay it out like that, that just feels really, really bleak. I know your Optimistic American movement is meant to counter that. So before we kind of dig into how it's doing that, tell us what it is, and please tell me how it started. [00:04:13] EB: Yes. So my partner, Paul Johnson, was the former Mayor of Phoenix. Him and I co-authored the book called Addictive Ideologies: Finding Meaning and Agency When Politics Fail You. We were really inspired by this book and wanted to really help people focus on how can they preserve their own agency and power and a sense of control in their life in taking responsibility and accountability for what is within their own power. There's so much more there than I think people in general are willing to see and practice. So we used a lot of psychological theory and things that I've learned throughout my private practice in clinical and forensic work that I've done, how people facing death penalties or facing life sentences have found ways to completely transform their lives, knowing that there's no hope in getting out of prison. But yet we compelled by finding meaning, purpose, and value in the life that they had, despite facing a life of incarceration. We looked at my parents’ story surviving persecution out of Iraq as Jews. We studied genocides across the world and really searching for answers and trying to understand what are the main tenets behind extremism and terrorism. So the latter half of our book, we really highlight these seven ideals and finding meaning, not necessarily happiness. Looking for the we, not necessarily the me. We co-host these podcasts where we've branched out some of these different teachings and looked at different social issues and dissected them and talking about how people can remain optimistic, hopeful, and practicing agency in their lives today. [00:06:19] PF: So why is optimism important. Like from a mental health perspective, what does it do, and why do we need to really focus on regaining that optimism? Because I know a lot of people who are really not optimistic right now. [00:06:33] EB: The doom and the gloom and the terror and the grief can be so overcoming. I think you don't have to look too far on social media or the news to feel really overcome by despair. So we have to really work even harder at protecting optimism. Of course, there's so much research there on stress and how that affects one's mental health, especially if it's chronic and prolonged. If people are feeling helpless and there's no way out. Or they have a sense of a victimhood. That has detrimental effects on cardiovascular disease, on the way that your brain operates, and how neurons are firing, and also chronic fatigue, and how you're sleeping and whether or not you're self-medicating with substances or other cognitive distortions that are impacting you from really being able to think clearly and reason, think sensibly. There's something called the amygdala hijack. I think it's really important to know if you're allowing yourself to be viewing or seeing a lot of imagery, and you're – that's making you go into this fight, flight, freeze response. It's activating your limbic system in the brain. It's a very primitive part of our brain. It's necessary for survival. But if you're operating on that or allowing yourself to be manipulated by social media and things that you're watching, that you can't really utilize your frontal lobe to the best capacity at that point because your reasoning is being overrided essentially. You can't think clearly about consequences of your decisions. You can't make good, rational, sound judgment. You're going to be more impulsive. That can be okay in the short term, especially when you have this heightened sense of threat that you need to protect yourself. But when that is chronic and it's prolonged and it's chronically activated, that's going to lead to all kinds of physiological, mental, and emotional dysfunction and have some really serious long-term consequences. [00:08:51] PF: The holidays are coming. So we know that adds more stress, a little bit more anxiety. A lot of that anxiety that I'm hearing about now is because people are going to be dealing with family members who are also divided. So as we enter this holiday time, first of all, how do we just remain optimistic for ourselves? Before we even get to the dinners that we have to sit down and survive, how do we do that? How do we have an optimism practice, if you will? [00:09:22] EB: Yes. I would say be courageous and have faith and belief in yourself that you're going to be able to get through it. Rather than looking for the doom and gloom, look for things that inspire you. Look for the opportunity to learn something new from someone else that you disagree with, while still remaining open to them. That can be challenging, but you're also going to be building your struggle muscles and being able to tolerate the discomfort as you're hearing a different opinion or something that you disagree with, and that's okay. What it's doing and saying is you're strong enough to have some difficult conversations and in a respectful way and still preserving the peace and joy and prosperity and gratitude, which is what the holidays are about. I would say think really intentionally about what you are, one, really grateful for. Really practice and embody that in your life, and commit to doing something that is uncomfortable, whether it's opening yourself up to learning more about a family member that you just have a difficult time accepting or you have a different point of view. I mean, if it's really bad and you think, “Okay, this – we shouldn't be having these conversations at the dinner table because this is just going to get into a full-blown extremist ideological rant,” and that can happen. I would say equip yourself with some knowledge or maybe go-tos. If a person is really radical in their beliefs, know what is off-topic or try to put those topics off the dinner table. You could say, “Hey, I really respect and appreciate your opinion on this. Can we get together maybe for coffee and talk about it more?” Or just shift the subject to something that you know is going to bring you and that person more together like their children or their new job or their pet or a hobby or interest that you share. Something else that you know is going to get them off that topic. So you might have to be really strategic here. Know who you're speaking to and going into those events, knowing what you're wanting to get out of. If it's peace, love, harmony, connection, gratitude, open to learning something new, open to doing something difficult, open to leaning in and assisting and helping when possible. You're probably going to be the better person and get something so much more wonderful out of the holidays that you didn't really anticipate. I know a lot of people struggle with control, or they see themselves as like, “Oh, if I give in and I don't argue my point, then I'm not standing up for myself, and that makes me a weaker person.’ I say you might want to re-evaluate what you're telling yourself about that. How is that even helping you? [00:12:37] PF: Yes. I was – I did. I wanted to ask you about that because one of the worst things in my opinion that you can do is engage someone who has a very different belief because you're not going to change their mind. All you're going to do is upset yourself and the people around you. So getting involved in a debate, discussion, whatever you'd like to call it, it's not beneficial for anyone, truly. [00:13:00] EB: Yes. If you're getting in it, and you see it as like a win-lose, and you just want to have the last say and prove your point and where you see that person has that kind of rhetoric or radicalization, then, yes, absolutely. You're not going to change an extremist at a dinner conversation. You're not going to change their ideology. In fact, they're quite immune at that point to any kind of facts. Challenging on them directly on the ideology is just going to further push them away. Now, if you are talking to somebody who has agency which is ideal, that is aspirational, that is what we all should want to strive for, I hope, then that's going to be more of a fun conversation. You don’t – you're not going to feel like you have to self-monitor as much. You've already got the trust and respect and the rapport established with that person. You can try and really push that intellectual edge without feeling like this is a moral superiority challenge, where somebody's going to end up being inferior, and somebody's going to be superior, and I don't want the inferiority one to be me. So how do I just dominate this person because, yes, that's just not going to be helpful. I would just say it's a trap. I would just say avoid it. Now, someone in-between, we call them tribalists. So these are people who maybe identify with a particular group. They're not totally bought into to the extremist, and you can still have conversations with them. They still might move and be open and quite flexible and adaptive to having a different flow and be challenged. I'd say just be conscientious because cognitive dissonance tend to be at play for people who are more tribalist. Meaning, they're going to be more prone to defend their group if they feel like their group is being threatened or challenged. Then they'll go to the point of absolving their group of any wrongdoing because they want to defend their group at all costs. So that's when you start – they start to get pushed in that us versus them or the victim versus the oppressor mentality. Then it gets hard to really have some of those more open conversations and dialogues. So just be aware of those three different kinds of ideologies; the person with agency, the tribalist, or the extremist. Then gauge your conversation based on that. [00:15:35] PF: How important is it to as you go into the holiday, like beforehand? Say you're hosting. Or say a parent is hosting, and you say, “Hey, Mom. Let's make sure that everyone knows we're not going to – these topics are off the table. We're not going to discuss these things, and here's what we want to focus on.” What about that? How does that work in terms of keeping it peaceful and making it more enjoyable for everyone? [00:16:01] EB: Yes. I think it's great to have allies that are also proponents in preserving the peace and the harmony during the holidays and maybe some other family members that might say, “Hey, come for a walk with me. Let's walk the dogs. Or let's take a stroll after the meal,” because that can be helpful to have some people that are just observant and mindful and conscientious of where things are going to maintain the peace and calm and not spiking the anxiety and that tension. I think that can be really helpful. Again, the best way to go in is really thinking about how do I want to feel about myself leaving. You can't control everyone. You can't control outcomes. But I think if you're flexible and, in general, people want to experience some peace and joy and happiness and celebration and but also adaptive if things don't entirely go their way that that's also okay. They don't have to control everything or everyone at all times. Really, the most important thing is being in control of yourself. [00:17:15] PF: Yes. So what are some ways like not just for the holiday season but going on? We know we're born with a negativity bias, so optimism can be difficult, and it's – we have different levels of that, depending on our personal makeup. So how do we fight our negativity bias or overcome it and become more optimistic? [00:17:34] EB: Yes. I think one of the things that I personally practice, and this even extends to some of the forensic or clinical work that I do, is I don't take things personally. Somebody can say something directly to me, and it could be a direct threat. I think it says more about them than it does about me. I don't need to defend myself to them. I mean, I'm not talking about anything physical, like if it's a physical threat, obviously. But if it's not physical and there isn't a risk of violence, I just see that as me practicing self-protectiveness and resilience. If I'm not amplifying the threat in my mind, I don't need to be reactive to that person, which is probably what they're wanting you to do anyway. Sometimes, the best response is no response or just say, “Huh, okay. I'll think about that.” [00:18:35] PF: But that's a gift. That's a mindset that takes a while to cultivate because people's words hurt, and we do take things personally. It's hard to learn not to. [00:18:45] EB: Yes. Especially if it's somebody whose opinion of you matters. That's when probably it can hurt more. Like this is a person who should love you, who should be there for you, who should defend you, who should protect you, who should die for you. Sometimes, we find out that it's not necessarily the case. It’s okay that people think differently than you, and it doesn't mean that they necessarily reject you as a person. That could be your own interpretation of it, even though it feels so personal. But there could be more opportunity there to really build some resilience and courage and leaning in. [00:19:28] PF: As we go into the holiday season, what's the number one thing that you want everybody to keep in mind about optimism? [00:19:35] EB: I think there's a lot of like frantic energy that's out there. Everybody feels rushed to like do everything and get everything done. It can feel like a lot, and I think it's okay that some things fall off your plate. I would say know what balls are made of glass and which balls are made of rubber, so you know which ones to allow to drop. Obviously, the relationships are the ones that are most fragile and most important. Really thinking about that we, not me. What do what do I have that I can contribute that can be helpful to my community, helpful to my family, make me a better partner, make me a better parent? What are those things that I want to commit and set my intention on that take me out of myself into a sense of belonging and a commitment to something bigger than myself in this shared humanity and this experience that we have all together in the small world that we live in? [00:20:47] PF: That's great. That is a great way to approach it. I thank you for spending time with me today. I’m going to tell our listeners how they can find you, how they can find your book, how they can learn more about the Optimistic American movement. I hope you'll sit down with me again, and we'll talk some more. [00:21:01] EB: Absolutely. Thank you, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:08] PF: That was Dr. Emily Bashah, talking about optimism. If you'd like to learn more about Emily, check out her book, Addictive Ideologies: Finding Meaning and Agency When Politics Fail You, follow her on social media, listen to her podcast, or download free worksheets for self-improvement, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Managing Holiday Anxiety With Dr. David Rosmarin [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 444 of Live Happy Now. It's beginning to look a lot like the holiday season, and for many people, that means a whole lot of anxiety. This week, we're going to tell you why that might not be such a bad thing. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm sitting down with Dr. David Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, Program Director at McLean Hospital, and Founder of the Center for Anxiety. He's also author of the new book, Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You. David is here to talk about why the holidays cause so much stress and anxiety, how we can use that to our advantage, and give us tips on getting through the season with our physical and mental well-being intact. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:52] PF: David, thank you for joining me today. [0:00:54] DR: My great pleasure. Thanks for having me on your show. [0:00:56] PF: Well, we are kicking off our holiday season coverage, and we're going to really be diving into some mental health struggles and some of the challenges that we face during this time. You are a great way to kick it off, because your message is about anxiety. Before we talk about what the holidays do to us, I want to talk, you have a new book out and it's called Thriving with Anxiety. For a lot of people, that's a title that just sounds impossible. Can you tell us what you've found about how we can actually thrive with anxiety? [0:01:27] DR: Yeah, absolutely. The holidays are definitely a time for high anxiety and also, a time that many people do not thrive. I can understand the question, why is this book called Thriving with Anxiety? The truth is that anxiety, the more you fight it, the more you try not to feel anxious, the more anxious you're going to feel, because you're just feeding it. You're actually feeding adrenaline into your system, the more you fight against it. The reality is we are going to feel anxious this holiday season. When we're dealing with those family members we don't want to deal with, when we're dealing with those situations and running up a credit card bill when it comes to the presents and all the familiar stuff and eating too much of the holiday meals and feeling overweight and trying to compensate and all sorts of other standard stuff at the end of the year as the weather changes also. There are so many ways that that normal human experience can keep us humble, can keep us connected to others and help us to reach out to friends who we really want to connect with and that we can become more emotionally resilient through facing these difficult feelings, as opposed to trying to, I would say, snuff them out and get rid of them. [0:02:39] PF: What's really natural for us too, as soon as we feel anxiety creeping up, we do try to stop it. Because we don't want to go there, so how do you embrace that? Or is that the right thing to do? [0:02:50] DR: Yeah. Well, I just want to clarify, we do that in our culture. In many other cultures, that's not true. That's actually not true, that anxiety is simply part and parcel of the human experience and understood to be, “Okay, I'm having a bad day.” In the United States, in my income Western countries, we have adopted this culture of, “I can never feel bad. If I do, something's wrong with me. It's a medical diagnosis. I shouldn't be feeling this way. I shouldn't have to feel panicky, or uncomfortable.” I think it's that attitude towards anxiety that has actually created the anxiety epidemic in these countries right here, right here at home. [0:03:29] PF: That's so interesting, because I had never thought of it in that way. Now you founded the Center for Anxiety, and I was curious to know what made anxiety your choice of practice? What made you decide to really look at anxiety? [0:03:45] DR: Personally? Oh, well, that's a personal question. I'm happy to go there, because definitely, I have a good deal of anxiety myself, and there's been a life journey that I've gone through to try to figure out the best ways to accept it and to understand it and to actually use it as a strength, which is something that I'm very proud to be able to do today. I still get anxious from time to time, but I think when that happens, I speak about it with people I trust, with people I love, and it creates more connection. I think it humbles me on a good day, and I accept that there's only so much that I can understand, and only so much I can control, which is hard to do, but it's an important aspect of being human. I think it also helps me relate to others to understand that emotional pain and emotional difficulties are part of life, and certainly part of my patient's lives. I think speaking about it, as one of my patients actually wrote me an email saying, “It makes me more human.” I'll take that compliment .There's not much more I can ask for. [0:04:44] PF: I like that. As the holidays start approaching and are already talking about this, so we know that anxiety comes with the holidays. Is that making it worse, or people do have that anticipatory, “Oh, here it comes”? [0:04:59] DR: Actually, I think it makes it better, which is why I wanted to speak about it at the beginning, and make it clear. What happens with the holiday anxiety, and one of the reasons I think we have so much holiday anxiety, is because a lot of people go in, even though we know we're going to feel anxious. At the end of the day, we know what's coming, right? There's this faint hope that this holiday season, it's going to be different, right? That the conversations with family are going to be great, and I'm not going to overdo it on the Thanksgiving turkey, and I'm not going to – that expectation – we also have this expectation of ourselves, like it should be a joyous season, we should be happy all the time. There becomes a chasm between our expectation for this season, and what actually happens. It's that chasm which actually sets us into anxiety, I believe. [0:05:50] PF: How so? How does that trigger us? [0:05:52] DR: Well, when you expect to feel happy and content, and you don't expect to feel anxious, and then all of a sudden, you're anxious, well, now you're going to be pissed off about the fact that you're anxious, right? You feel this way. That will physiologically trigger more adrenaline into your system, and actually make you more upset and more anxious. [0:06:11] PF: Oh, man. Yeah, so I do want to get here in a couple minutes, talk about how we deal with those feelings and that adrenaline, but we have more stress during the holidays, and that leads to anxiety. Can you talk about the difference between stress and anxiety? Because sometimes I hear it used interchangeably, and they really are two different things. [0:06:32] DR: They are two different things, but they feel the same. The reason is because the physiological processes that are involved are similar. They have the same symptoms, if you will, like having a bit of a racing heart, muscle tension, increased breathing, stomach upset and distress. Some people feel a little bit dizzy and off-kilter, having a little bit less energy. These are common to both stress and anxiety, but there is a difference. Stress is very simple to define. Stress is when you have too much to do and not enough resources to be able to do it. If you're 10 minutes away from an appointment, and you have to be there in four minutes, or two minutes, you're going to be stressed for the residual. In six minutes, or eight minutes, or whatever it is, because you're not there. You have to do something and you only have so much time. The same is true for money. The same is true for emotional resources, and other resources that we might have. Whenever there's this shortfall, or this gap between our demands and our resources, you are going to feel stressed. The way to handle it is by rebalancing and recalibrating. I have to increase my resources and I have to decrease my demands. That's really the only way to manage it. Anxiety is a bit of a different animal. If you understand anxiety, you have to understand fear. I'm going to throw a third juggling ball into the mix. We have stress, then we have fear, and then we have anxiety. What's fear? Fear is a healthy response. It is a healthy thing that your body is programmed to do when there's a real threat which comes upon. If that threat occurs, if somebody's being chased, if someone's being, is a car coming towards you, if there's some a situation where you have to respond immediately in order to protect yourself, you have this built-in mechanism called the fight or flight system and it's triggered by adrenaline. Adrenaline goes instantly into your bloodstream and increases your heart rate, the rate of oxygenated blood flowing through your veins, increases your muscle tone, increases the field of vision, so you're able to see better across the board, and all sorts of amazing physiological changes to keep you safe and healthy. Now, anxiety is the same thing, but there's one small difference. The only difference is that anxiety is a fear response without a real threat. If there's no real threat, if it's in your mind, that would be anxiety. If it's a potential threat. Not something that's clear, present danger in front of you. That would be fear. Without the clear and present danger, that would be anxiety. [0:09:04] PF: Oftentimes though, we feel that it is a real threat. [0:09:08] DR: Yeah. [0:09:09] PF: It seems very, very real when that's happening. [0:09:13] DR: There's nothing wrong with that. Sort of like, your system is just priming itself to be able to react if it needed to. [0:09:19] PF: When it becomes overwhelming, what about when it's so much that it's like, “Okay, I can't breathe, or I can't – There's so much adrenaline, I need to sit down.” Different people can just feel completely overwhelmed by it. How do you regulate that to keep it from hitting that point? [0:09:35] DR: Well, I think, first, we have to reframe it and understand that that means that your neural system is actually intact and your emotional system works. If there were some sort of a threat, your body actually would respond very well to that. Anxiety is an overactive fear response, but fear is a good thing. The first thing we need to do is reframe and understand, if you have an anxiety response, that means that your body is actually working well. Your fear response is intact, which is actually a very healthy thing. It's like testing your smoke alarms and knowing that it works. [0:10:10] PF: I love that analogy. That's really good. [0:10:13] DR: It's a true thing. The other day, it happened to me. I was in a doctor's office and they were doing this procedure. I hadn't eaten much that day and I just – it was an international trip that I was on, so my sleep was off-kilter. They were doing this procedure, which I was not expecting to have. It really, all of a sudden, clammy hands, cotton mouth, feeling a little bit woozy and a little dizzy, which sometimes happens when people have that anxiety response. I said to myself, “Oh, wow. Your fear response works. Here you are.” Under the stress. It was not comfortable, but I just leaned into it. I didn't judge it. I didn't get upset about it. It was over within two minutes. [0:10:54] PF: How do you learn, or did you learn to lean into it like that? Because many of us, anyone who's dealt with anxiety for a long time, we have a pretty well-conditioned response to that. It's going to take a minute to change that thinking. Were there any practices that you did, maybe even when you weren't anxious, to start reframing it in your mind? [0:11:17] DR: There definitely are practices, but the first and foremost step was to get this very clearly into my mind that when I feel anxious, nothing is wrong with me. This isn't something that's going to kill me. Anxiety doesn't kill people. It's just not the way it is to really, truly come to that belief very clearly. Are there practices? There definitely are practices that you can use. One of them is to stop avoiding things that make you anxious. [0:11:50] PF: If a crowd makes you anxious, you need to go shopping in a crowd, not sit at home and [inaudible 0:11:54]. [0:11:56] DR: A 100%. You got to go during the rush. Now, if you want to avoid situations when your anxiety is going to be, I don't know, on a scale of zero to 10, like an eight, or a nine, okay, I get that. You want to work your way up to it? Fine. But definitely go when it's going to be a four or five. Push yourself and experience the anxiety and let it wash over you. [0:12:21] PF: Can we talk about some of the things that might be exclusive to the holiday season? One of those being office gatherings. We have our office party. Some people really cannot stand going to those. It's a very nerve-wracking thing for them on many different levels. Say, you've got to go. You know you need to do this. What are some of the ways that you can prepare yourself going into that? [0:12:44] DR: That's a great question. For some people, this might be an eight, or a nine out of 10. I want to be clear. If that's the case, then you probably do need some professional support and help around this and to strategize. To give some general strategies, I'll tell you what not to do. Don't drink away your anxiety at the holiday party. [0:13:04] PF: No one's ever done that. Come on. [0:13:06] DR: Yeah, never. You'd be surprised in college, how many people – that's not the holiday party, but in college, how many students, how many college students develop alcohol use disorders because of anxiety, because of social anxiety. [0:13:20] PF: Oh, interesting. [0:13:21] DR: In the weeks leading up, getting back to the holiday party analogy, in the weeks leading up to it, think about it. What are you anxious to do? Are you anxious to make small talk? Are you anxious to speak to certain specific people on the team? Are you anxious with people of the same gender, opposite gender? What exactly is it? You're nervous about what to wear? Often, when we feel anxious about these things, we don't think about it. We put it out of our mind. “Oh, I'll deal with it later.” It'll be fine, but you know it's not going to be fine, right? Come up with a plan for whatever it is making you anxious. Think it through and start in advance. If you're nervous about speaking to whoever it is on the team, well, you have a little bit of time now before your holiday parties. Have a conversation with them in advance. Try to strike up a convo and lean into that anxiety in advance. Maybe hard at the holiday party. Might be too late. But while there's time, take it. [0:14:21] PF: Is it possible to use self-talk in the time leading up to that, to flip your thinking on it? I'll try to cheerlead myself into when I have something coming up that I don't want to do, I will start weeks sometimes in advance telling myself how excited I am about this, how great it's going to go. It's going to be fantastic. Even thinking about some of the conversations I'm going to have to really get myself jazzed for it. [0:14:46] DR: I like the idea of psyching yourself up. I think it's a good idea. I think it's also important to have the self-talk, to say, your job is not to have a good time at the holiday party. Your job is to show up, to be nice, that other people will like you, and that you'll be – and to leave at an appropriate time. Does not have to be a fun, fantastic, awesome experience, so people just don't like it and that's okay. The goal is to face the fear, be socially appropriate, and leave. I think that's a much lower bar. If we psyche ourself up to facing the challenge and moving on, I'm totally fine with that one. [0:15:27] PF: Absolutely. Then another biggie is those family gatherings. It's not just the gathering itself. It's all the planning, the demands around it, especially when you're married and there's grandchildren and different people want to pull at it. What's your survival guide for people this holiday season when it comes to dealing with family? [0:15:49] DR: Yeah. I like how you said survival guide, because you do need to, personally to survive. Secondly, is you need a comprehensive guide. I'll give you a couple of ideas. Firstly, it is important again to lean into the uncomfortable feelings and to think about it in advance. What is going, probably going to happen at the party? Which cousin, uncle, family, sibling, whatever is going to make that off-color, uncomfortable, remark at the wrong time? How is that going to go down? How can you prepare for this in advance? Sometimes it doesn't mean saying something in advance like, “Hey, we're really looking forward to seeing you. Could we please avoid the topic of whatever it is.” Dejure. There's plenty that can really upset just other people and say, “Okay, we want to get together and have fun. If you want to have a conversation about that, let's get together another time to talk about that issue, but not – please, if we could avoid it.” You can be a little assertive about those things. I'm a big fan for automating what you got to do. If there's any ways to decrease the stress of preparing. You mentioned preparing meals, or having people over, by ordering in advance, by catering, by doing potluck, by doing these sorts of things, take it. You don't have to do everything yourself. If you're the host, or the hostess, that can really ruin the holidays. There's no reason why it needs to be that way. It might mean having conversations with people around. We'd love to get together, but this is too much for me and this is what I need. This is what we're going to do. [0:17:26] PF: I love that approach, because we're often afraid to say that. Or especially say a woman who's always hosted Christmas, or Thanksgiving at their house and is saying like, maybe she feels overwhelmed, but she doesn't feel right saying, “I can't do it this year.” [0:17:40] DR: Yeah. It could be that it just, you can't do it this year, or you don't want to do it this year. That's a conversation to have with the people around you and to see how they can pitch in and make it a little easier for you. Maybe a little more inconvenient for them. But well, that's part of the conversation. [0:17:58] PF: Yeah. Yeah. Because I know I have a friend who they had a blow-up last holiday season. He's already, I mean, back in September, he was already dreading like, “How are we going to get through this with her family?” It is very important to have that conversation ahead of time, but I think people are also concerned to do that. They're a little wary of bring – they don't want to be the one who brings it up. [0:18:22] DR: Yeah. Yeah, I got that. Part of it is that we live in a society that really values being on your game, being in control, being able to do everything you possibly can, working two jobs and also making Thanksgiving dinner for 50 people, or whatever it is, the proverbial host or hostess is with the most this. I think that there are limits. We're human. People go through periods of higher stress and lower stress. If you're already running ragged going into the holiday season, well, it might be time to accept and to embrace those limits. Actually, that might be the reason to, I shouldn't say the reason. That might be the catalyst for enhancing relationships with family. Often, when people don't say, “Hey, I need help. I can't do this. These are my limits.” That's when the blowups happen, because the stress is so high before you even go in. “I've done so much for this. How could they possibly say that? Don't they understand?” The answer is they don't understand, because you never said anything. [0:19:28] PF: Right. [0:19:29] DR: There's that dynamic. [0:19:31] PF: How important is it to be able to let your family know? I'm not saying your extended family, but just immediately, if you are anxious, if you’re anxious about getting together with your spouse's parents and family, or if there's a lot of anxiety for you, how important is it that you can share that with your partner, or with somebody that you're close to in the family? [0:19:50] DR: I like how you said someone that you're close to, because it doesn't have to be your partner. Ideally, it would be your partner. Sometimes it's hard for you. I can imagine one partner saying to the other, “I really have his trouble dealing with your family.” That's a hard – [0:20:05] PF: What could go wrong there, David? [0:20:07] DR: Right. Those conversations don't always go well. Let's just put it that way. It can go sideways pretty quickly. However, having someone to speak to, even if it's a therapist, or another family member, or a sibling, or someone to strategize about it, to speak to, to bond with over it. I think also, there are certain ways that you can say certain things. It could be that, “I'm really looking forward to having your family over this year. I'm also thinking about last year and these three things happened. I'm wondering how you can help me navigate it, because that was really hard on me when that happened.” Starting with the positive, really focused, being prepared for that conversation. Unfortunately, some spouses can't even have those conversations. That's not all marriages, or partnerships are going to be that close. That's just the way it is, but it's important to speak to somebody about it. Don't weather it alone. [0:21:01] PF: That's important. Yeah, that could be the sound bite of the whole thing. Just don't weather it alone. The holiday season, a specific event, you really do need someone to have your back and to know that you can bounce things off of them. [0:21:14] DR: For sure. I definitely do. [0:21:16] PF: What kind of self-care practices can people do on a daily basis? [0:21:20] DR: Yes, I'm so glad you mentioned self-care. Now, this is one of the ways that anxiety can help you to thrive. Because if you know that you are feeling anxious, you're feeling ramped up, you're feeling stressed, you're having a hard time already, and it's just getting into holiday season, we're only getting started. That's your body signaling to you. You need to increase your sleep. You need to start having breakfast before not eating throughout the day and then gouging at nighttime and feeling terrible about it. You start shutting off your phone half hour before bedtime and also, having a bedtime, starting an exercise routine now, not waiting until January. All of these kinds of things. Even if you just take the sleep. I can't tell you how many patients I've seen, where they were super stressed out and I simply said to them, “I don't want to see you on a regular basis. I just want you to work on your sleep. Get seven to eight hours of sleep for two weeks and then you can call me back.” They called me back and did not need any therapy. [0:22:20] PF: That's amazing. [0:22:21] DR: It's happened multiple times. [0:22:23] PF: Yeah. That TV in the bedroom is a bad, bad thing. [0:22:26] DR: Oh, my God. TV and devices. Do not keep your device next to your bed. Get a regular dumb alarm clock, if you need it. [0:22:35] PF: Yup. If something happens, people will find you. If you need to be contacted – [0:22:38] DR: Yeah. So, yeah. [0:22:41] PF: Yeah, that's really important. That sleep. Then also, this is – we had already alluded to it. We don't eat properly. This isn't about overeating. This is about being sure that your body is getting the nutrients and getting the nutrition that it needs, because when we're stressed out and when we're anxious, we are burning through our calories. How important is it that we start really looking at, making sure we're getting some good nutritional food in us, too? [0:23:08] DR: It is important. Sleep, I would say, is more of a card to play. Exercise, I would also say is another more important card. Nutrition certainly is up there. One of them also is caffeine and alcohol. Those come up a lot during the holidays in both amounts. When you have caffeine, even one cup of Coke, or Dr. Pepper, these are highly caffeinated beverages, or coffee. If you're having it in the evening, or even after 3, 4 pm, 150, 200 milligrams of caffeine, you're probably going to have trouble sleeping at night time. I think it's time probably to kick the afternoon Coke habit if you're going to go into the holiday season and be prepared. Have those good night's sleep at a regular time. Wake up and do your thing. Then the other one is alcohol, which we mentioned, which can – just to be mindful of how you're drinking, when you're drinking, who you're drinking with, why you're drinking. All of these are important to keep in mind. [0:24:03] PF: That's a really tough one during the holiday season. I know we have two events this week, during the week. I wouldn't normally go out and have a cocktail, but that's going to be probably the reality of it. As you said, we are just getting started. [0:24:19] DR: Yeah. I don't have a problem with drinking, or social drinking. Where people get into trouble is, if you are drinking when you feel anxious, especially if you are drinking, because you feel anxious, that's where people can get into trouble. They end up overdoing it. They end up having to recover from it the next day. [0:24:39] PF: If someone's feeling anxious and it's like, “I'm just going to have this glass of wine and that's going to solve it.” What should they do instead? [0:24:47] DR: It's hard to say, but try to lean into the anxiety more and embrace it. Understand that it's the holiday party might not be festive or fun and that's okay. Can you weather that storm? What I would prefer to see is somebody makes it through the party, they make it through dinner, they're not drinking, they're dealing with their anxiety, they leave early, but a socially appropriate time to leave. They go home and then they have a glass of wine. That would be okay with. [0:25:16] PF: That's great. Yeah, that makes a little bit more sense. [0:25:18] DR: Drinking in response to your anxiety, you're really rewarding yourself at the end of the day. I worked hard and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to enjoy it now. Then you'll actually enjoy the drink, as opposed to – [0:25:28] PF: That's what I was going to say. It's probably a lot more enjoyable, because you don't have this – you’re just trying to get this medicine in you. [0:25:34] DR: It is self-medication. It's exactly what it is. People, aside from the alcohol abuse, the propensity of the risk for abuse and independence, even for anxiety, it's not a great idea. [0:25:47] PF: Yeah. Yeah. As we enter this holiday season, what is the one thing that you would like everybody to keep in mind? We are going to tell them about your book and how they can find it. If you had, if this was a masterclass and this is the one thing they're going to take away, what do you hope they will keep in mind this holiday season? [0:26:05] DR: Yeah. I'll tell you right now. Don't fight your anxiety. The more you fight the anxiety, the worse it gets. Instead, understand that your anxiety is there to strengthen you, to increase your emotional resilience, to help you bond with other people when you speak to those one or two other people about it. And to help you to recalibrate and rebalance and understand that there's only so much we can do. There are human limits. If you're feeling really jazzed up and anxious, well, or stressed out, I should say, it's time to rebalance. One thing I have to say is don't fight it. Do not fight your anxiety. Let it be there and let it teach you what it means to teach you. [0:26:42] PF: Very well said. David, thank you so much for joining me today. This is very insightful. I know our listeners are going to get a ton out of it as we move into the holiday season. [0:26:51] DR: I hope so. Thanks so much for having me on your show. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:26:58] PF: That was Dr. David Rosmarin, talking about anxiety. If you'd like to learn more about David, check out his new book, Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You. Follow him on social media, or download a free guide on anxiety. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]