The Story You Tell Yourself - Coping With The Winter Holidays Creatively

Okay. The winter holidays. Sigh. As long as I can remember I was never fond of them. Chances are that when you've chosen to read this, you feel the same. So in this blog we'll explore how to start seeing them as an opportunity instead of a negative period, and how to regain control of what works for you, especially when you add a little creative sparkle. Because in the end, they are your holidays too. So, shape them to your needs. And create your own story.

Create your own story

The biggest problem I have with the winter holidays on the Northern Hemisphere, especially Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve and the Saint Nicolas variations in North Western Europe, is this: those who feel happy seem oblivious to those who feel down. Add to this the bombardment of 'feel good' advertising, societal conventions and holiday movies and you can start feeling as if no one understands you: 'Why is everybody cheerful in these times except me?'

This however, is mostly a feeling. An emotion that is not necessarily true. It may seem that way, but the reality is that most people actually experience similar downbeat feelings. Most of us have created coping mechanisms that help us through these darker moments. Today, I'll hand you a few simple steps of gaining back control of the narrative in your mind. I've learned all of these tips from my own bad experiences, and I'll also add a few storytelling lessons that will help too.

We'll start with the deeper emotional storytelling lessons before showing a few simple to arrange and practical steps as well. Here we go...

Tip 1 - Start by acknowledging your feelings

The first tip is this: ask yourself what exactly the story is that you tell yourself around this time? Are you telling yourself you should be fitting in more with the 'perceived happiness'? Or are you telling yourself it's okay to be a little less joyful?

You're probably already feeling what the best answer is. But let me phrase it as one of life's more general lessons: ignoring your feelings never works out well for you. Bottling up stuff isn't helpful. Just to be clear, I'm not implying you should act on your more negative feelings (in other words, don't become the Grinch of Christmas please...). What I'm saying is that it all begins with acknowledging your feelings in the first place. At the very least to yourself.

You can do this in different ways. Write them down for instance, that's always a great idea. Or talk to a loved one, or a coach or therapist. Use breathing techniques. Cry for a bit, scream in a pillow... you're catching my drift.

Acknowledging your negative feelings means you can make temporary peace with them. Or even let them go entirely. Once you've recognized and named your negative feelings you will almost automatically identify the techniques that help you process them better. And I mean that quite literally: if it's 'anger' for instance, you can go for the pillow or punching bag. If it's 'sadness' you can go for a cry. If it's anxiety you can go for shaking (the best anxiety relief by the way...) and so on an so forth (more physical tips later).

Tip 2 - Understand other people's feelings... without copying them

Now, of course, you're not alone on the planet, and other people have feelings too around this time. Many of them different than yours. Part of the storytelling tradition is the fact that humans are social animals and tend to copy each other's emotions, both negative and positive. So during the holidays, all kinds of negative emotions can be copied in family settings, adding a lot of extra pressure.

There is a great philosophical tradition that helps understand and deal with such group-think shared emotions called stoicism (more on storytelling and stoicism here). The core of stoicism is the full acknowledgement of not only your own emotional state as discussed in tip 1, but also the acknowledgment and the emotional states of others. The combination of acknowledging both - yours and their emotional states - will allow you to objectify these emotional states.

And crucially, acknowledge that they will pass again.

You see, emotions are important indicators of the body, giving us signals on how to survive and thrive. Yet, they are also quite fleeting. You could be in a dismal, foul mood walking the street and then catch a glimpse of your favorite sports team score a goal... and poof, just like that, your emotional state has changed completely. This means that the ability to objectify an emotional state is a real superpower. Especially during the holidays.

This is how it works; first you must really, truly feel your own emotion and also empathize (not sympathize, which I'll explain in a second) with the emotions of the other people. In essence - and contrary to popular belief - a 'stoic' is a person so deeply aware of emotional states within themselves and others, that it allows them to distance themselves from it. Sometimes this is perceived by people as 'not caring' but it's actually something else: 'not copying'.

As a stoic you tend not to give in to group-think.

Even in socially very pressing situations - group-think contexts such as holidays - your higher emotional awareness gives you the tools to maintain a higher level of self-awareness. And it gives you choice: do I follow the emotions on the dinner table right now? Or not? It compels you to stay within your own 'frame' and not give into emotions of others that are negative, if you choose not to. For instance, you'll be prepared for that sarcastic remark that is likely to come from that grumpy uncle... because you were able to understand his emotions behind it.

Tip 3 - Separate empathy from sympathy

Understand yes... but not copy. In storytelling we make a sharp distinction between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions of another person... yet without necessarily copying them. Sympathy is the ability to not only understand the emotions of another person... but to really feel them and copy them.

We're going to take a slight detour into storytelling, so follow me along.

What storytellers do when they create a 'bad guy' is to make this bad person relatable to us normal human beings. In fact, the more empathy you can feel for this bad person, the better the story becomes. The simplest example are Bond-villains: if the audience can really understand how the bad guy became this way, they'll connect on a human level. They still don't want the bad guy to succeed (because their actions harm others) but they can at least understand the motivations behind their actions.

If we don't have a character like that, we call that a caricature: you get the clichéd bad guy twirling their mustache while stroking the black cat and saying 'evil' thingies, while letting out a maniacal laugh. And audiences tend to find such clichés very boring (except in comedy settings). Hence, the best Bond films are always those with interesting bad guys. And the worst are always those with 'mustache-twirling'.

Sympathy on the other hand is the emotional state of being completely on board with what the character feels and also their actions. A fantastic example is the 'anti-hero', such as John McClain (Bruce Willis) in the movie Die Hard (more story lessons on those John McTiernan films right here!). We don't necessarily feel the most empathy with him, since he can be stubborn and grumpy. However, we do really sympathize with all of his actions, even when he kills other people, since we feel we would be doing the same in his position, trying to save his loved ones.

Why am I showing you this detour? It's because you can do the same. If there are people or situations during the winter holidays that are challenging, you have the choice of empathizing with them... without sympathizing with them. This usually lowers the temperature of the dinner table: you'll be able to express your disagreements with another person, in a more empathetic and loving way.

Which is ironically kinda what those holidays are about in the first place.

Tip 4 - Visualize and/or make scenarios

All right, that's the emotional stuff out of the way! Now let's gradually become more practical. The first tip here is to do visualization techniques (for creative visualizing techniques click here) or scenario building techniques (for those of you who cannot form visuals in your mind). The internet has plenty of great places that can help, including meditation channels on YouTube and such, so you can pick and choose. In essence, it's all about lowering stress levels and then close your eyes and come up with either those visualizations or scenarios, whatever suits you best.

In essence, you imagine a few different situations beforehand, including - crucially - bad ones on that dinner table setting. This will prepare you for the worst that could happen, which again gives you options on how to react. This usually has the effect of lowering expectations to such a degree, that you'll actually start to enjoy things more when they don't reach that lowest level.

Tip 5 - Plan something alternative

You could also take this a step further and not only imagine different situations, but actually create a situation of your own choosing. For instance, you may choose a moment for only yourself while walking the dog or watching your favorite series, or a day with friends, or a quick visit to a spa around the holidays that is independent of the holiday obligations. And crucially, independent of the expectations of others. It gives you something to look forward to that is for yourself only.

Tip 6 - Prepare yourself physically... and energetically

Stress is something that is captured in the body. It tends to build up until the energy is somehow released. For many people, the stress of the holidays - whether they are expecting very positive vibes or very negative ones - builds up to a boiling point at that exact moment at the dinner table on Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatnot.

You could see this as pent-up 'energy in need of release'. And instead of letting it all build up to that one boiling point, you can already release lots of it beforehand. With your body that is. In other words: prepare yourself physically.

This is again generally achieved by lowering stress-levels. Feel frustration? Do a boxing workout a day before the dinner. Anxiety building? Some breathing techniques will do the trick. So anything that works for you personally and physically to lower your stress levels towards the holidays is good. Whether it'd be going to a spa, do sports, take some yoga... just plan it in. And you can even go as far as using martial arts techniques for it, especially Qi Gong is something I highly recommend.

Or shake. And I mean literally shake your body, for a good ten minutes or so. Nature has created that perfect mechanism in the animal kingdom to get rid of anxiety: a deer shakes after escaping a predator, a dog shakes after an altercation with another dog and an athlete shakes the anxiety away just before a competition.

Tip 7 - Make The Winter Solstice your new ritual

Now, here's a left-field idea that has worked absolute wonders for me and that I once got from a great friend of mine called Sophia, which I've kept in my planning forever: plan a small ritual around the Winter Solstice.

So, the thinking is this: the true moment that the year on the Northern Hemisphere 'turns around' isn't Thanksgiving, St Nicolas, Christmas or New Year's... it's the solstice. That's the longest day. Literally. And the date of the original harvest feasts.

We've created all kinds of other moments around this single day, but forgot about that exact date... which leaves that day open for you to fill in to your heart's desire.

What my friend had taught me is to write down all the things I want to leave behind - which are usually a lot of negative things - from the past year, and write that down on the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice. It means that both literally and figuratively it becomes the darkest moment.

And then you burn that paper.

Then you write down all the things you would like to feel in the coming year. And you both literally and figuratively move toward the light again. And you can choose: keep or burn the paper, whatever feels best.

Mentally, this works wonders. It means you have something to live toward from the November and early December holidays, making them less negatively impactful. And Christmas? New Year's? What this simple ritual has done for me is give me the feeling that my new year has already started on the 22nd of December. It's like a switch in my mind: both Christmas and New Year's - which can be very emotional - are not part of the old energy anymore. They have become part of the new.

And this changes everything in my heart. I now care more about the positive energies, moving towards the light, and less about the negative stuff that is already behind. It gives me this incredible feeling of being ahead 10 days in a new year on everybody else too.

Tip 8 - Negative emotions are positive creative fuel

Which brings me to the next tip: use the bad, the dark as creative fuel. What happens to us during this period is that we are mainly focused on what others do and think. That means their negative stuff too. The paradigm is that the winter holidays are about loved ones, so we almost automatically switch to thinking less about what we ourselves need and care more about others. That's okay, that makes sense... but it often works out the other way.

Maybe we should try and build more of a paradox: we choose to strengthen our own narrative, so we can become more open to others. Especially if they are hurting too.

A lot of those negative emotions at the dinner table come from people also feeling bad, just like you, and just lashing out. Choosing to put your own needs first during this winter time means choosing exactly what and how you wish to experience it. It prepares you mentally for those lashes. Even making small choices on exactly what you wish to do and how this period works best for you, and communicating them, will already give you a great sense of regained control over yourself... which will lead to you having more space for the feelings of others. Even the lashes.

The winter holidays are so 'heavy' on emotion that any tiny step you take to do what you feel like will be a major victory. Doing so creates an opportunity to feel better, connect more, love more and have a better creative output.

And to get there, we must remember: feeling bad is not all bad. Negative emotions are not just indicators for positive change... they are the primary fuel for positive art and creative projects, as they always have been and always will be. In other words, keep in mind that negative emotions are energy too, which can be converted into positive action. And so can conflict, another important pinnacle of storytelling, since without friction in stories, there are no great resolutions either.

For me, that makes the winter time on the Northern Hemisphere an often more successful and productive time for me than other times. I get into the zone.

And not by being chipper. No, no, no. By embracing, and fully acknowledging the negative.

Using it as fuel.

Love, as always,

Rogier

And check out my book The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling here !!!

The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling - Rogier van Kralingen