Cultivating Calm During the Holiday Season

For so many of us, the holiday season can activate a wide-range of emotions, including anxiety, overwhelm and grief. It can be helpful to turn to grounding strategies to support our nervous system with regulation and balance. Below you will find a few supportive ways to connect to the present moment and cultivate an inner-sense of calm: 

• Go for a mindful walk, allowing your senses to tap into the environment around you. Pay close attention to the sensations of your feet on the ground with each step you take.

• Connect with your breath in your body through breathwork. Inhale through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth, letting out a sigh with each exhale.

• Tap into your senses with the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Start by noticing and noting 5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you touch, 2 things you smell and 1 thing you taste.

• Explore a body scan practice by slowly bringing awareness to the sensations you notice in your body, starting with your feet.

• Change the temperature. Cold water activates your parasympathetic nervous system, helping you calm quickly. Splash your face or wash you hands with cold water.

Another easy way to intentionally regulate is to identify activities that help you stay in the present moment. This could be as simple as taking a shower, baking, or engaging in a movement-based activity. Give yourself permission to slow down when you need to, name your feelings and build in opportunities to fully engage in regulating activities.

How Mindful Communication Can Help Resolve Conflicts

Conflict is a natural part of all relationships and can actually help strengthen relationships and lead to positive outcomes. Practicing mindful communication— being fully aware and present while engaging with others— can help us navigate conflict more effectively. 

A few elements of mindful communication include: 

• Awareness of what we're communicating and how we're communicating (i.e. body language, posture, tone)

• Listening attentively to what the other person is saying

• Noticing feelings that arise and other internal experiences (i.e. thoughts, beliefs, physical sensations, etc.) 

• Openness to hearing the other person's perspective and offering understanding and/or empathy 

For many, conflict often triggers states of distress. This may look like defensive ("fight mode") or stonewalling ("flight mode") reactions, making it difficult to practice the skills necessary to resolving conflict. We are best able to practice mindful communication when in a present and regulated emotional state, which allows us to show up to the conversation with a sense of openness and curiosity and work towards a resolution. 

If you feel overwhelmed by emotion during a conflict and/or find yourself shutting down or becoming defensive, pause and take the time you need to regulate before revisiting the conversation. Try getting in the habit of asking yourself whether you're showing up to a conflict feeling regulated, calm and able to engage in mindful communication, and, if not, what can you do to help yourself get there?

A Helpful DBT Skill for Managing Big Feelings

Therapy offers us a space to explore and understand our emotional states and the behaviors they trigger. for instance, sadness might lead us to withdraw, anxiety to avoid, and anger to react impulsively. these responses, while very common, can also create unhelpful behavior patterns. 

Opposite action, a technique from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), offers a way to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively to strong emotions. By recognizing our emotion-driven impulses, we can choose an opposite action that supports healthier coping and emotional regulation. For example, instead of withdrawing and being stagnant while feeling sad, you might try making a plan that involves connecting intentionally with your support network and/or doing something active. Oftentimes, this approach helps reduce the intensity of the emotion and makes it more tolerable. 

If you wish to reflect further on your own emotion-driven actions and identify a few opposite actions, you can download the opposite action handout here.

How to Respond to Self-Doubt

Overcoming self-doubt in the face of fear and uncertainty is a continuous and meaningful practice. It involves consciously shifting our focus from the fear and anxiety from the unknowns that often leave us feeling stuck or avoidant of change, to instead recognizing and embracing our strengths, skills, and readiness to navigate whatever challenges lie ahead. By doing so, we often feel more empowered to face new experiences with a sense of resilience and hope.

Tips for Navigating Change and Transitions

Navigating through the ebb and flow of life's transitions can evoke a range of different emotional responses. In these moments of uncertainty, it's helpful to have a compass of self-reflection and introspection guiding our way. How do we navigate seasons of change? What tools do we have at our disposal to weather the storms of transitions? By asking ourselves these reflective questions, we can gain insight into our coping mechanisms and resilience in the face of uncertainty and learn how to adapt to the shifting tides of life.

Unlock the Power of Wise Mind for Balanced Thinking 💭

Navigating through intense emotions and inflexible thinking patterns is a journey that unfolds with patience and practice. Enter Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a highly effective therapeutic modality developed by Psychologist Marsha Linehan. DBT has become a widely recognized and evidence-based therapy approach for teens and adults working on developing emotional regulation and fostering healthy coping mechanisms. With DBT, we learn to embrace our "wise mind," a space where feelings and facts harmonize and where acceptance meets the drive for change.

Instead of getting caught up in black-and-white thoughts like, "I can't do this," DBT encourages us to embrace the shades of gray and instead try thinking, "Yes, this is challenging, AND I'm capable of giving it my all." By embracing this balanced perspective, we become better equipped to weather the storms of intense emotions and break free from rigid thought patterns.

Help Teens Use Curiosity To Navigate Difficult Feelings

Curiosity is a supportive tool for teens (and adults!) in navigating difficult feelings like anger, frustration, anxiety, and sadness. Getting curious about our emotional experiences as opposed to avoiding our feelings, judging them or pushing them away helps us develop tolerance for difficult emotional experiences. 

As adults, we can support children in using their inherent sense of curiosity as a means of developing self-awareness and learning how to approach their feelings with acceptance and compassion as opposed to judgement or resistance. Staying in a place of curiosity when difficult feelings arise also helps us avoid over-identification, or believing that feelings are permanent, truth-telling states that have more control than they really do. In reality, feelings are transitory and will always come and go. 

When explaining the benefit of curiosity when dealing with tough feelings to teens, I’ll encourage them to become “emotion explorers”. What can we learn from our feelings and our response to them when they arise? 

When you find yourself stuck in a feeling, try asking yourself the following questions:

• What specific emotions are coming up right now?

• What thoughts am I experiencing?

• Are any painful beliefs at play?

• How is my body responding? Where in my body do I feel these emotions?

• What do I notice about my facial expression or body posture? 

• What is the most painful or vulnerable part of this experience? 

You can support your teen in exploring these questions by inviting them to describe a feeling through art-making, or tell a story about a specific feeling that they are struggling with using great detail (i.e. “if that feeling had a voice, what would it say and what would it sound like?”) 

Pema Chodrin says, “Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.” By leaning into curiosity, we allow there to be space for meaningful reflection, learning and growth.