Holiday Food Stress
I rethought a post I did last week about food and family stress. I had read an article on the topic in the New York Times last week. It was full of stories of families fighting over food at the holidays: a mother berating an overweight daughter for eating too much; a grandmother criticizing a grandson for eating too little; a father trying to keep everyone from eating chocolate. The article recommended that you set up boundaries (that’s therapy talk for rules), like making a “good-natured announcement” that comments about how much or little a person eats won’t be acceptable this year. Then every time someone broke the rule, you were supposed to call them on it. All while keeping your sense of humor.
With my family therapist background, I’m all for setting good boundaries in families. In my last post I wrote about ways to encourage your family to set new rules and live by them. That would be great if you could do it, but it is very hard to do this even for parents. I’m thinking kids need different advice. So here’s my revised suggestions for what you can do to improve holiday dinners if your family doesn’t look like a Hallmark card commercial.
First, you can take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. Holidays are big sources of stress for vast numbers of people. Food is a hot topic for a lot of people. And family problems can replay bigger and bigger when the extended family gets together. That means that huge numbers of people have a miserable time of it at the holidays — just ask any therapist!
Second, you could try to change the way your family interacts at the holidays. It’s difficult, but it may be possible. Try telling your dad how you feel when he says you don’t need any pie this year. Do it very calmly. If you get angry or start crying, he’s likely to ignore what you are saying or even get angry and defensive himself. Instead, try saying something like, “Dad, when you comment on my weight at the table, I feel like such a loser. Then I just want to eat more.” Sometimes people don’t realize what they are doing is hurtful, and calmly talking with them about how you feel now before the holiday dinner can give them time to think about changing their ways.
It’s at least worth a try, unless you know that even bringing up the subject would get you in trouble, or even be dangerous. Then, of course, don’t do it. Wait until you are in a safe place to start changing the rules. This means you may have to wait until you are an adult with your own place. (If you really feel like you are in danger at home, you should probably talk to an adult about that. Someone like a safe relative, neighbor, or a teacher or school counselor might be able to get you the help you need. Fair warning: most counselors, and probably teachers, have to report abuse of someone under 18 to the authorities. It’s the law.)
Whether or not you decide to approach family members to ask them to change what they do at holiday dinners, you can still change the way you react. Remember, you can’t change what other people do, only how you react to it. A little known insight into changing family interactions is that, if you change how you react, that may change what the other person does. Then it’s a whole new holiday dinner. But you have to change first. Here are two approaches to get yourself ready to change:
1. Practice breathing. I know, you breathe every day. How can that help? I’m talking about the kind of slow, deep breaths that bypass your chest and go all the way down to your navel. (Check out my page on this, but don’t try it if you have asthma.) They calm you down and help you think even in the middle of the most stressful times. The reason to start practicing this kind of breathing now is that it’s much easier to remember both to do the breathing and how to do it in a stressful moment if you have been doing it every day for a few weeks until it becomes a habit. Then, when your sister says you chew funny, you can take a deep breath and remember to smile as you thank her for noticing.
2. Practice visualizing acting just like you want to when your relatives misbehave. Here’s how. Sit somewhere quiet without distractions. Close your eyes. Imagine watching a movie of your brother sneering when you bring out the homemade candied yams you made (or whatever gets you upset). See yourself reacting calmly, saying and doing exactly what you want to in exactly the way you want. If you start to get heated up, stop the movie, rewind it to a point before you got upset, then play it again seeing yourself being the cool, self-possessed person you want to be. Make the movie as vivid and full of details as you can. Do this at least once every day from now until you all sit down to dinner together. The more times you visualize responding to a stress in a certain way, the more likely you are to act that way when the stress really happens.
Some stress and pain goes so deep that these steps will not be enough. You can always try using my Quick Start Guide to tapping to calm yourself down as you think about stressful family scenes from the past that you expect to replay this December. If that isn’t enough, see if you can convince your family to visit a family therapist to work on setting some new boundaries.
