– 5 REASONS THE HOLIDAYS CAN BE HARD: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE. Part 1 of 2.

Last Updated on December 14, 2015 by Chris Roberts

5 REASONS THE HOLIDAYS CAN BE HARD: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE. Part 1 of 2.

For some people, the holidays are great. My wish is that all people felt this way! But for many, the holidays also encompass stress, tension, worry and fret. Nashville individual counseling can help a person understand more completely why the holidays aren’t as playful and exciting as they wish for them to be. This, for me, is not an enjoyable article to write, but perhaps it is a necessary one. If we are better able to predict why circumstances aren’t as fun as we want them to be, we can be better prepared to deal with the disappointment when it arises.

The 5 areas where the holidays can seem like more work than play are:

• Family
• Gifts
• How to celebrate Christmas
• Travel
• Managing down time

FAMILY: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE

In its essence, family means home. We typically associate wonderful things with home: warmth, rest, play, and kin. However, for many people, home brings up old wounds and confusing paradigms. It’s always difficult for a grown child to return home as an adult. As much as the grown child isn’t sure how to interact with their now peer-relational parents, the parents have as much difficulty accepting their child is a full-grown adult. Without care and attention, everyone can slip into old patterns that are uncomfortable and strange. It’s important to be vigilant of how we want to behave around our parents and how we are actually behaving during the holidays!

GIFTS: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE

The media creates the idealism of gifts as pure excitement and joy. In many ways, that is the essence of a gift. But deciding on the “perfect” gift for a loved one or child or parent is not as easy as the 30 second commercials make it seem. In real life, we have to think about budgets and coupons and what the person might actually want, and of course, where to actually find it! Without being aware of the pitfalls that are always inherent in finding a gift for a loved one, we can be sucked into the mindset that it should be simple, easy, and carefree.

HOW TO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS: A NASHVILLE INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING PERSPECTIVE

In the same way the gifts “should” be easy and fun, deciding how to celebrate Christmas “should” be full of joy and excitement. But, whenever there is more than one person involved, there are multiple ideas of the “right way” to celebrate Christmas. Should we open a gift on Christmas Eve? Should we eat before opening presents, or after? What will we eat on Christmas Day? Should all the presents be wrapped, or just some of them? How do we handle stockings? How do we discuss Santa? All these questions, and more, create havoc in an individual’s life when we aren’t aware of the ambiguities that exist when describing how we want Christmas to be celebrated.

One of the best methods for ensuring that Christmas is as exciting and relaxing as it should be, is to sit down with our loved ones and have conversations about our expectations and hopes. These can be marvelous conversations for understanding our loves ones better! Unfortunately, these conversations typically turn heated and tenuous. We will talk about this more in the next article, but suffice it to say: We like things our way, and we want Christmas to be as magical as we have is planned in our mind.

Nashville individual counseling can be a helpful place to get clear on what our own expectations are for Christmas, so that we can decide what types of conversations we want to have with our loved ones. Nashville counseling can be a great arena to help us find the joy we are longing for during the Christmas season!