Managing Holiday Stress & Anxiety : How to Set Boundaries & Stay Grounded

This week, I'm bringing back a highly-requested episode originally recorded a few years ago that's perfect for navigating holiday overwhelm and anxiety.

If the idea of holiday get-togethers leaves you feeling stressed out and anxious, you're not alone! I created this episode to give you actionable steps and a lighthearted approach to managing anxiety so you can find Confidence and Self-Leadership and enjoy the season without overwhelm.

I'm sharing a personal story about discovering even master entertainers can struggle with social anxiety and perfectionism, which is often what high functioning anxiety is about. If you find yourself people-pleasing or struggling with over-planning to avoid imaginary catastrophes, this episode is for you.

4 Actionable Steps to Reduce Stress and Anxiety:

1. Practice Mindfulness: Check in with your body. Are you full? Overstimulated? Make tiny moves back to feeling good.
2. Set Practical Boundaries: Create a plan to hold boundaries that you're willing to hold. Have a plan to keep your peace so Uncle Fred doesn't have to kill your holiday.
3. Pre-Plan Your Exit: Decide how long you want to stay before you go , practicing self-care and protecting your emotional well-being.
4. Take Care of Yourself Now: Maintain your normal routine and your daily practices for wellbeing, like yoga, walking, journaling, or meditating.

Note: The Calm Communicator Script (Holiday Peace bundle) mentioned in this episode is time-sensitive, so please check Megan's website for the current offer!

📺 Watch an updated version of this episode on YouTube

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of More Than Anxiety. This week I decided to bring back one of my favorite holiday episodes about how you can manage stress and anxiety, how you can lay down some boundaries and how you can really work on one of the root problems that makes you people please or break your boundaries or anything else. that's that feeling of judgment that you get when you sit down to Thanksgiving and your family starts asking you about your job or your relationship or maybe your lack of relationship, when you're gonna give them grandkids, why did you not bake your own rolls? Why'd you pick those up at Kroger on the way over? 

All of the different conversations that come up, or maybe it's just feeling like you have to be perfect and you have to do everything. I'm gonna hit all of that in this episode. It is so important to help you manage the stress and anxiety and to start setting boundaries around your time and your energy so that you can really love the holiday season, starting this week with Thanksgiving and moving all the way through the new year. And you know, even when we hit the 4th of July later on, if you're hitting this episode then, so enjoy. 

And of course, if you want to pick up that holiday peace bundle and you're listening to this when it first airs, it is available until the end of Black Friday for $47. You'll get that calm communicator script guide that I've created with 10 go-to phrases to help you shut down awkward, maybe unsolicited advice and to start feeling really good about your family and your holiday again.

Happy holidays. Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety podcast. I'm Megan DeVito and I'm the life coach for stressed out and anxious women who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live where anxiety isn't holding you back. Get ready for a lighthearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth talk and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling confident, calm and ready to live. Let's get to it.

Welcome to holiday season and episode 63. If you live in the United States and you are listening to this in real time, this is your reminder that you need to go put your turkey in the refrigerator to thaw. So just hit pause right now and go do that because sometimes it takes a really long time. But if you're somewhere else in the world, I hope you're having a really great week and getting ready for holiday fun that maybe doesn't include Thanksgiving, but.

Maybe it's Christmas or Hanukkah or Bodhi or Eid or Advent or Les Posadas. There are just so, so many fun holidays and reasons to celebrate all the way up until and maybe even through New Year's. So whatever you're listening, whenever you're listening or however you celebrate, I hope you enjoy this episode because chances are you've probably got some holiday or celebration coming up that might sound really fun or maybe really overwhelming, depending on a lot of factors to you about how you can enjoy the holidays.

or holiday get togethers, if that's what you want to do, without anxiety and stress, messing up your celebrations. I'm a huge Christmas fan. I think I've mentioned that before, probably back when we were talking about Halloween, which feels like it just happened yesterday, but I like the holidays. I really do. I love Thanksgiving. I love Christmas. I love all of that stuff. And I also get pretty stressed out at the idea of entertaining. I learned some really interesting things this past weekend. I was actually in...

hanging out with my parents and some of my family. And I was talking to my mom about how she's such a good entertainer. She's one of those people. She's a decorating queen. She does all of this amazing stuff and she does it and she just makes it look so easy. So I just assume that she loves it. She's great at it. And there's no way I can compete with this, right? Like I think that she is like the hostess with the mostest and I'm struggling to keep my head above water. So

I notice myself getting very stressed out when I think about entertaining, sometimes with the holidays, and then even sometimes showing up to holiday get togethers like, ugh, what if my food sucks because whatever, what if my, you know, it doesn't look right? Sometimes I get into that judgy space, but I just assume that my mom is super fantastic at parties and hanging out with people and decorating and entertaining because that has always what I've seen her do. And she told me this past weekend,

She's like, no, I have some big time social anxiety. And I kind of looked at her like, what? No, I don't even think you know what that means. And she said, no, I really, I get really anxious sometimes socially. I start wondering, you know, is this good enough? Am I doing enough? Is everybody happy? Is everybody having fun? You know, is this food, is it prepared well and all of that. And as I'm looking back, I hope she doesn't care that I'm talking about this. I don't think she listens to my body.

But as she's saying these things to me, I'm like, my gosh, what I've seen as her perfection and what I've seen as her like strength and something that I just assume that she really enjoys because she does it so flawlessly is actually really hard for her sometimes. I never knew this about my mom. So, you know, I think that's a really good lead in for me just seeing her as this person.

who has been able to knock off these incredible things year after year, and just assuming that she did it because she loved it, and maybe she did, part of it was definitely out of love and that she is very good at it she does love it. But it does still cause her to feel really anxious and stressed out. And this is really what high-functioning anxiety is about. It's about doing those things and thinking, is this good enough? Is this going to be perfect enough? What do people think of me? Did I fail? And I did not realize that that was an issue for her.

And ⁓ I feel like maybe I should have paid more attention to that as her daughter, but I am thankful that she's shown me how to be a good entertainer, even though I am definitely not even putting in the effort the way that she does. Maybe that's a good thing that I found out this past week. But if that sounds like you, if people tell you, wow, you are so good at this, you always show up with the best thing and the best ideas and the best food, and it makes you just want to curl into a ball.

stick with me because you're definitely in the right place. There's a lot of pressure and expectations around holiday get togethers in particular, maybe as opposed to like some random Friday night when you're just going to hang out with your friends and order pizza. So if you're excited about the holidays, but you also have this part of you that just feels like it was over or you feel like, my God, I just don't know if I have it in me this year. Let's keep going because this is what I want to talk about. If you are like me.

and you are like, you know what, I don't even know if I want to put the effort in because it might not be good enough. Maybe that also is some high functioning anxiety, or maybe I just learned that I didn't ever have to do it because my mom was so good at it. thoughts about what you should cook or how much do I buy? Will people like it? Does anybody have all of these? know, are there food sensitivities? These are awareness ideas of like planning ideas. So let's just start there.

This is where I get the most hung up because I want to cook food that's going to work for everybody. I have a couple kids who have some food sensitivities, not allergies, but they try to eat with like maybe less gluten or less dairy. And that's great. Like I can make that work because at my house we mostly eat meat and vegetables anyway. ⁓ But with Thanksgiving or maybe with Christmas or whatever holiday you're celebrating, that might not be as easy. So trying to plan a menu.

trying to get people to RSVP, which apparently isn't really a big thing anymore. And I really wish it was because it's hard to plan to cook for a lot of people or even a few people when you don't know how many people are coming. And then when that one random person shows up and they're like, yeah, I don't need gluten and you've made like glutinous foods, that's really hard. So we want to have this way that we can make everyone feel good, feel welcome, feel included. So we're to need a little communication there, right?

deciding what to cook and then how much do you actually buy so that you have enough or so that you don't have, you know, too little, whatever. And then deciding if people will like it. Those are some thoughts that might be on your mind. You might also have different ways that you get anxious at the holidays. Like I have this party, but God, I don't want to be the first one there. There's no way. Like I'm not going to be the first one there, but I don't want to be late.

I don't want to be late to the party, but I definitely don't want to be first. And then I don't want to stay super late, but I also don't want to cut out too early. So these ideas about how do I manage my time to get to the party and be able to leave when I feel good about leaving without cutting out. Maybe while you're at the party, how do I deal with family conflicts or how do I deal with arguments that break out? Hopefully no one's talking about politics at your holiday party, but you know what?

I think it's kind of a thing. And I wish we could go back to a day and age where we weren't doing those things. But if that's part of what you're worried about, yeah, those are pretty normal worries. We're going to talk about that today. I also am going to talk to you a little bit about my story here and there about how I have some pretty high functioning anxiety just in general, but stressing over trying to make sure everyone is happy. This is a huge thing for me, not just for the holidays. It's like I'm celebrating trying to make everyone happy all year long.

This is probably my biggest anxiety trigger that I have not worked entirely through yet is people pleasing. Like I am very much a, let me help you with your emotions and your feelings and make sure you're a happy kind of person. Probably less to my detriment than it used to be, but I still definitely absorb everybody's feelings. So if you have somebody at your holiday party that is grieving a loss, or if you have somebody

that is, you know, maybe you're in a family where someone's trying to have a baby and someone else shows up pregnant. That's always a sticky situation. And if you're like me, and you're maybe a little bit highly sensitive or a lot highly sensitive, you can take on those emotions. So creating those boundaries can be a big deal. We can talk about that. Also, some people get stressed out about food, like, ⁓ my gosh, is this food going to make me feel sick? Or why can't I stop because I'm stressed out and I want to have this boundary here?

I'm eating too much. I'm overstimulated. I need a break. Let's just get into all of it right now. And let's start with what you think is going to help you. One of the things that we tend to do when we think about the holidays is say, you know what, I don't have to deal with this. I'm just not going. And that's fine. Like if you really don't want to go, you certainly do not have to go. And you can do that without guilt. But if your thought is I really want to go, but I feel so overwhelmed, you don't have

to go there. But one of the things that people do when they start to feel anxious and stressed is run. That's your flight response. So if your thought is, get too anxious and I'm afraid that I'll freak out or everybody will think things about me when I'm at Christmas, my family thinks I'm weird. My family thinks that whatever you think your family thinks, you might not go or you might go and isolate yourself or you might have this idea of

I'm just going to make an appearance and I'm going to hide in the corner. There's nothing wrong with just making an appearance. it's also, again, if we go back to if it's something that you're, you know, I'm not really looking forward to this, but I really feel like I should go because I love these people. And then you just say, I'm going to skip out. But if you want to stay or you wish you could stay, that's different. And then to the point of the food problems, it could be like,

my gosh, I'm thinking about going and they're going to have all this food and I'm already stressed out. So maybe you stress eat or you stress drink and then you feel awful the next day because your body is just so out of sync that you just go eat and drink some more. So we have these really crazy coping mechanisms that I think like to put on just like their sequin tops and show up at your party. Like, you know what? I don't usually drink, but I'm going to have a couple drinks tonight because all of these people, all of these thoughts, all of this

Stimulation is really making me feel more anxious. So what we can do is we can either isolate or not go at all. And then we try and eat or drink away. And another thing that we can do that you might see if you're in charge of the party is over planning. So you might over plan to keep away imaginary catastrophes ahead of time. Like, what am I going to do? I'm going to burn this turkey to a crisp. I have no idea what to do. my God, I don't know how to make a turkey. I'm going to plan this to the hilt or

What if extra people show up and I don't have enough, so I'm going to buy a ton of extra stuff and do all this extra planning? Or how do I keep Uncle Bob away from Aunt Francine because if they talk, there's going to be an argument. I don't want that to happen. I'm going to seat them across the room. All of these thoughts that you have that can feel like, why am I doing this? Why do the holidays suck so bad? I hate this. And really, we just want to enjoy.

the situation of being able to be with people that we love or not be with people that we love and feel really solid about whatever holiday you're celebrating and what that means to you. Okay, so we don't need to avoid, we don't need to over plan and we don't, and we just need to have some other coping mechanisms between sides. I'm sorry, I'm probably talking very fast and I'm tripping over my words. So eating and drinking away all of the chaos and the stress and the anxiety. So instead of doing that,

Let's talk about what is actually going to help you feel better. So some of the things that we can do to help you get through your holiday get togethers are the same things that you do to get through every other day of your life. These are things like practicing mindfulness. So in these situations, you might ask yourself, while I'm grabbing this next little plate of really great appetizers that are out, am I full? I just noticed, does your body feel full?

Or, how much have I had to drink? How am I going to feel if I have another drink? Or am I just grabbing another drink because it's keeping me on my feet right now, it's making me feel less anxious? Like, do I need another drink? Have I had enough? Do I feel overstimulated or triggered? And noticing how that feels inside of your body so that you're not just like, I'm so overstimulated, I'm so triggered.

Let's get mindful about what that really feels like and what's going on. So when you pay attention to what you're enjoying, you can do more of what you're enjoying. And you can also notice those tiny moves back to feeling maybe off center or a little more anxious so that you can say, okay, what has to happen so that I feel good now, but also maybe even feel good tomorrow morning when I wake up so I'm not too full or it's not like,

gosh, I have a dairy intolerance and now I feel terrible or hung over or whatever else it is. So just being mindful of your own body at the party. Do I feel good? Do I feel anxious? What am I eating? What am I doing? What am I really enjoying right now? Maybe you're enjoying the way the lights look. Maybe you're enjoying the, seeing little kids play in the corner, or you're enjoying sitting by yourself and just watching your family have fun.

Being mindful of those things and what really feels good is really powerful and important. The next thing that I want you to think about that can help you get through these parties is just setting practical boundaries. So if Uncle Fred is too loud or he's getting into a political argument with somebody else, what do you want to do to keep your peace and enjoy the holiday? Uncle Fred doesn't have to kill your holiday and you don't have to stand there and listen to him.

So create a boundary before you ever go. If someone starts talking about something political, just have a plan. It can be as simple as turning around and walking away to go get a drink of water. Say, ⁓ gee, I'm really thirsty. I'm going to go get a drink of water. But instead of going back to Uncle Fred, just go talk to somebody else or go look at the Christmas tree. Go do whatever it is that made you feel good. And use that mindfulness of what made you feel good.

If you decide that you're like, how long do I need to stay? I need a plan to get out of here. Know what you're doing before you go. So have that boundary in place where you can say, if I'm having a great time, I'm going to stay a little bit longer. But if I'm there and I'm ready to go, I'm going to give myself the ability just to say, hey, thanks so much for having me. I need to go now. You don't have to explain why. You can decide that beforehand.

You just need to excuse yourself without an explanation, smile and wave and head out. People don't need to know what your plans are, but it does give you the option of having yourself like be able to go there, be able to see people, let them know that you care and jet out when you're like, I'm done, it's okay, I'm at my limit. One of the other things that can really, really help you get ready for whatever holiday you've got coming up is just to take care of yourself now before.

before the celebration starts. Don't wait until an hour or two hours before to start saying, ⁓ I better get my game plan together. Just think about now, what do you want your holiday to look like? Make sure you're well rested. Make sure that you're following a routine now that helps you stay calm and really feel good about yourself so that you would, anything that you would do any other day during the year.

That might be making sure that you're drinking enough water. It might be making sure that you do yoga or take a walk in the morning. If that's your routine, don't stop just because it's the holiday season. If anything, do it more because that's what's keeping you grounded the rest of the year. If you wake up and you journal or you meditate, please keep doing that. Just be sure that you're getting enough sleep, that you're eating food that helps you feel good.

And of course, mean, holiday desserts are so good. Like, I am such a fan, guys. Like, it's funny, I have this kind of, I guess it's process where I will say, okay, if I eat this, like, is this going to be a good offset? Do I really enjoy this enough to say, yeah, I'm going to eat this? Or am I saving up for dessert? And nine times out of 10, I'm saving up for dessert. So I have some really healthy food swaps that help me feel

like I'm not overeating, but I'm getting the nutrition I need that still makes sure that I get desserts. And this is just a really great mindset shift that I've practiced for years and years now. It's helped me to stay at a healthy weight, to not feel ridiculously nasty full or to feel like, my gosh, why did I eat all of that? I love it. I can teach you how to do that. Anyway, that is a really important thing. Just be mindful of the food that you're eating and that you're eating food that's healthy. To keep you, first of all, keep your immune system up.

to keep your stress levels down and to feel like you've got a sense of control over that. Another huge thing, just please be sure that you are sleeping enough. I know there's parties, I know there's a ton to do, but sleeping and eating that food together is so important. It's that balancing act of how are we taking care of our bodies, even when there's not crazy things going on. You know, if it's the middle of August or the middle of May, you're doing those things to take care of yourself. Don't quit when the stress is up. Actually do it more, okay?

You don't have to skip desserts. You don't have to skip the fun. You don't have to skip the parties, but you have to be mindful of what you're doing in the meantime. So start taking care of yourself now. I know for me personally that food always plays a huge role in how I feel like before and after get togethers. I know that the time leading up to the party is going to cause me a lot of stress. And then once I get there,

I almost always have a really great time and I'm so glad that I went. And when there's a time where I've my boundary or I've hit my limit, I definitely just think the person having the party and I head out with no shame. There are particular situations that are incredibly annoying and really far past what I want to deal with. So when those times happen, peace out. I graciously go and you can do this too.

I do it, I will teach you how to do it. So what about more specific challenges that might happen? If you tend to be socially anxious and you are wondering what the people at the party are thinking about you, or they wonder about what you're wearing, or they wonder about who you're with, whatever it is, whatever's going on that you fear in that social situation and you become anxious, or even feel like you're going to panic, same rules apply.

You can create a plan before you go on when you're going to arrive and when you're going to leave. You can practice those techniques, those relaxation techniques, and you can take care of your body before so that you've got those things on lock. I would really encourage you, just like I do with all of my coaching clients, to practice grounding techniques when you feel good. Don't wait until you get to the party to be like, crap, how was I gonna ground myself again?

You have to know it. Your brain has to know it. Your body has to know it. It has to be familiar. So if you are to the point where you've stretched yourself and you're like, no, I'm going to do this brave thing. I'm going to go to this party, even though I feel incredibly socially anxious. First of all, I am cheering for you big time for taking that step because I know it can be very scary and threatening. And that is exactly the way I teach my coaching clients to stop feeling anxious over the things they want to do.

I say, we're going to do it anyway, and we're going to give ourselves an out, and we're going to know how to be grounded. This is like coaching 101 with me. Calm your body, do the thing, and work into the thoughts like, I am safe, I am here, I can leave any time, I trust myself, all of those things. But please practice these things beforehand. So if the idea of going to the party is way too much for you to even consider right now,

I get it. If you've been struggling to connect with other people and really to enjoy parties or any other social situations, don't let another day go by without helping yourself so that you can really enjoy the holidays and your life. Maybe your holiday gift to yourself this year is just asking for help. Maybe it's telling somebody, you know what, I really wanted to do the holidays big time this year and I don't feel like I can do it. I need help. There is no shame. What an incredible gift.

that you can give yourself for whatever you're celebrating to find a way to stop feeling so anxious about whatever it is that's keeping you from that fun. And even now between Thanksgiving, well, American Thanksgiving and whatever holiday you're celebrating, maybe you have enough time to get a jump on that already. If you're ready to do that, like if you're like, look, Megan, it's already the middle to the end of November and Hanukkah is coming. I need to get going. Let's get started.

Let's get started because I have clients who see a change in how they're feeling and what they can do in two to three weeks. No, they're not 100 % in two to three weeks, but yes, they are absolutely feeling so much better in two to three weeks. Get on it now. If you are listening in real time, if you're not, let's get ready for the next holiday or the next event or the next vacation. So if I am working with somebody who has high functioning anxiety, it's a little bit than people who have

more of the disordered anxiety, whether it's social anxiety, health anxiety, but we do the same things. Their focus is different on what they're fearing because maybe the high functioning people are more perfection oriented, they're more action oriented, they're inside, they're crumbling and they feel incredibly anxious, whereas maybe people who are more chronically anxious are not going or not engaging or just avoiding the things that they want to do altogether. That's okay.

We can deal with both of those things. I'm gonna teach you how to calm your body down using grounding techniques that you probably already know. We're gonna create a routine so that you can practice them when you feel good. Just like I just mentioned, don't wait till you get to the party. You have to practice the grounding techniques before you get there. I want them to be a habit. I want it to be as simple as picking up a pencil and writing your name on a piece of paper. So we're going to create these

these routines and these habits for you that just become part of your daily life. You're going to learn to calm your body down first. You're going to learn exactly what stress and anxiety feel like so you know when you're out at a party or when you're out celebrating, I know this feeling. I know exactly what I need to do. And you drop into that habit that we created. And then we can start saying, okay, am I safe?

What do I think is going on that I know is actually true? And how much of this is just my anxious brain telling me all the things to make me run out the back door and never come back to another holiday party again? That's what I can offer you. You guys can talk with me this week, but you have to schedule time to do it because I mean, first of all, I don't know who's listening to this podcast. I don't know what kind of help you need and I don't know how to get ahold of you. So you have to come to me, but it's super simple. I promise it's not scary at all.

All you have to do is go to the link in the show notes and you're going to click this thing that says schedule a consultation call. And when you click that link, it's going to bring up my calendar and you're going to find time that works for you. That also works for me. And if you don't see anything on there, guys, if you're like, but Megan, my schedule is weird. That's okay. You can message me. You can email me. You can reply to the podcast. You can jump on social media and find me and just say, Hey, I need to talk to you, but you don't have time on your calendar.

I will find a time to talk to you. We're going to talk about how you're feeling, what you want to be able to do. Maybe you say, you know what, there's a New Year's party coming up. I really want to go and I'm terrified. I just don't think I can do it. Great. Let's get there. Let's get you to whatever's coming up. And maybe this is a goal that you have for 2024. I mean, we're to November. I can't believe that we are here. It has been a wild and crazy year in my life. I have to admit it's been something else.

But here we are. So let's find time to get you the help that you need. Everybody gets gifts at their holidays of some sort. Maybe it's the gift of, I mean, maybe your gift is food and maybe your gift is friendship and maybe your gift is like a new Apple phone, Apple watch. What am I saying? Apple phone, iPhone or Apple watch. Or maybe you're asking for, I don't know, something, a gym membership.

What if you asked for coaching for Christmas? What if you asked for therapy for Christmas? What if you just ask for help for Christmas? That's a big deal. Or, I mean, whatever else you're celebrating, right? Bodhi or Hanukkah or anything else. So I hope this was helpful for you. If nothing else, to know that you are not alone and to know that even people who you think are killing it are sometimes really anxious, just like I found out about my mom this week. So.

You guys, thank you so much for listening. Whatever you are celebrating, even if you're just celebrating Tuesday. Thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful. I would love to hear from you. If you guys can swing by and leave me a five star review on Apple or Spotify or Amazon or wherever else you're listening to this podcast, I would so appreciate it. That would be an incredible gift to me this holiday season because this just helps more people be able to find this podcast to feel better as well. So take care and I will be back next week.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And of course, if you're ready to feel more relaxed, have more energy, more confidence, and a lot more fun, go to megandevito.com forward slash work with me, or just to the show notes to talk to me more about coaching. See you soon.