Episode #10: The Source of Your Holiday Stress

Did you know that when you feel stressed about the holidays, it's not caused by the gifts, the decorations, or your busy schedule? In this episode, I'll tell you about a sneaky thought (that seems lovely but is actually toxic!) that creates so much stress if you believe it. I'll also share some ideas of what you can choose to believe instead.  If you don’t feel any stress or anxiety or worry about anything related to the holidays, or if you are super stressed and uptight about a bunch of things but that doesn’t bother you at all, you could skip this epiosde. But if you feel some pressure this time of year, and maybe some resentment or dread or frustration as you plan and execute all the festivities, and you’d like to dial that down a little bit, this episode is for you!

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Full Transcript:

You're listening to the Think New Thoughts podcast with Emily Ricks, episode number 10, the source of your holiday stress.

I'm Emily Ricks, and this is Think New Thoughts, a life coaching podcast to help you find more joy in your relationships. In each episode, I'll share a simple idea that will help you see things in a new way so you can love God, your neighbor and yourself more deeply than you ever have before. If you're ready to literally change your mind, I think you'll like it here.

Hey, how's it going? So, it's the holiday season. Thanksgiving's just around the corner, Christmas will be in a few weeks, and for many people, this means giving gifts, putting up decorations, attending extra events and performances, family gatherings, and other celebrations.

So let's just do a little check-in. How are you feeling about the holidays? My guess is you're excited about some things, and you're probably not as excited about some other things. What do you feel stressed about? What are you dreading having to do? What do you feel worried about? Today, I want to point out to you the number one cause of the feeling of stress around the holidays, and then I'll give you some ideas of how you can create less of it.

So if you don't feel any stress or anxiety or worry about anything related to the holidays, you'll probably want to just skip this episode. Or if you are super stressed and uptight about a bunch of things, but that doesn't bother you at all, this episode probably isn't for you either. But if you feel some pressure this time of year, and maybe some resentment or dread or frustration as you're planning and executing all the festivities, and you want to dial that down a little bit, this episode is for you.

So first let's talk about the word attribution. Attribution is the action of regarding something as being caused by a person or thing, right? So like if I quote someone on this podcast, I usually attribute them as the source of those words. Or like when the Chicago bulls won the NBA finals three times in a row, we might attribute their victory to Michael Jordan and also include Scottie Pippen and their coach, Phil Jackson, as the source or the reason for their tremendous success.

That's attribution. Most humans get very confused about their emotions in terms of attribution. We tend to attribute how we feel to stuff that's going on around us, how busy our schedules are, how much stuff we have on our to-do list, if people are nice to us or not, that kind of stuff.

So my job as your coach is to help you get clear about attribution when you forget. So in case you need a reminder, your thoughts create your feelings. That means it's not the gifts, it's not the events, it's not the decorations, it's not any of that stuff.

And here's a thought you can think if you want to feel very overwhelmed and stressed over the holidays. This might surprise you, but here it is. You ready for this? Here's what I believe is the thought that creates the most anxiety and frustration this time of year.

Here it is. I want everyone to be happy. It sounds so nice, doesn't it? But usually it isn't.

Usually what we're really saying underneath this is I need to control what other people think and feel so I can be happy. If you're operating from this place, you will end up doing a lot of people-pleasing. So let's talk about people-pleasing.

People-pleasing is doing things we don't really want to do to try to keep other people happy. We want to make sure other people aren't disappointed. We want to make sure they're not angry.

We want to try to get them to approve of us or like us. And when we're people-pleasing, we're worried about what other people are going to think or feel. And so we adjust our behavior to try to manipulate that.

We don't want them to be upset or experience any kind of negative emotion. So we do stuff we don't really want to do in an attempt to keep them happy. We manipulate other people's circumstances to try to control how they feel.

And the whole thing is based on a false premise that circumstances create feelings. So people-pleasing shows up during the holidays in thoughts like, I don't want them to be disappointed, so I'll spend more than I really want to on this gift. I have to go to that event or they'll think I'm a scrooge.

I don't want them to be mad at me, so I need to fill in the blank. They'll be upset with me if I don't fill in the blank, so I have to. I want you to take a second and just do a little self-inventory.

Think about the amount of stress or worry or resentment or whatever other negative emotion you feel about the holidays. And then this is a really important question for you to consider. How much of your stress is coming from trying to control what other people think and feel? Only you can know.

But how much of your stress is coming from trying to control what other people think and feel? That is people-pleasing. Trying to manipulate or control what other people feel. On the surface, people-pleasing sounds like love.

I just want everyone to be happy. And I tell my clients that this thought looks like a really pretty berry on a bush. I just want other people to be happy, but actually it's a poisonous thought.

It will make you sick. And here's why. We say that we want other people to be happy, but when we're people-pleasing, and in a second I'm going to tell you how service is totally different and isn't poisonous and it feels amazing, but when we're people-pleasing, we want other people to be happy so that we can feel happy.

We want them not to be disappointed so we won't feel bad that they're disappointed. We want them not to be angry because we don't want to deal with their anger. We want them not to be grumpy because we think their grumpiness will ruin our holiday.

And so then we exhaust ourselves trying to curate the perfect circumstances for them so that they can be happy so that we can be happy. But all of this is nonsense and it's an attribution problem in our minds. We're attributing their happiness to their circumstances and then attributing our happiness, our feelings of peace or contentment to how other people react to us.

So we have to create circumstances for other people so they won't be upset or disappointed. And then if they feel positive emotions, they can be our circumstance and then we can be happy if they're happy. Like, do you see how insane this is? It's no wonder we feel overwhelmed when we do this.

So people-pleasing pretends to be loving, pretends to be focused on the happiness of others, but actually it's a misguided attempt to regulate our own emotions. So how do you want to regulate your own emotions this holiday season? If you're trying to regulate your own emotions by controlling what other people think and feel, Brooke Castillo calls this the long way around. Think about this.

Trying to get someone else to be happy so you can be happy is like trying to get someone else to eat so you can feel full. It's nonsense. It doesn't work that way.

So here's something Jesus taught. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. Here's what I believe is the truth.

The truth is other people are allowed to be grumpy or disappointed or whatever they want to be. You're not actually powerful enough to control what they think or feel. The truth is their thoughts create their feelings.

You could give them a beautiful heartfelt gift and they might be ungrateful and grumpy anyway. Your thoughts create your feelings. Someone else can choose to be in a bad mood and you can still feel as much peace and joy as you choose to.

You don't need to control your circumstances or other people to feel as much joy as you want to. This is the truth. You can be like the apostle Paul who says, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

So instead of people pleasing, what feels really good, especially this time of year is serving. Service can look really similar to people pleasing on the outside, but it's actually really different. It feels totally different.

When we serve, when we give, we often do things that are inconvenient. Maybe you could say things we don't necessarily want to do, or I would say things that require a sacrifice of time or money or energy on our part. But true service comes from a place of generosity and love, not manipulation.

When we serve, we think loving thoughts about another person. We feel love for them and we want to act in a way that shows that love, which is actually really different than wanting to make sure someone else isn't disappointed. So we won't feel bad.

Do you see the difference? We serve because we feel thankful and generous and we want to act on that and share what we have. We people please because we feel afraid. We want to avoid feeling negative emotion.

We don't want other people to feel bad because if they do, then we're going to feel yucky. That's totally different. When we serve, we do want other people to be happy, but it's for them, not for us.

When we people please, we want others to be happy, but for our own sake, as if we require their positive emotions to generate our own. Serving is offering love because it feels amazing and we want to help if we can. And we choose to give without expecting anything in return.

People pleasing is a transaction where we expect someone else to think or feel a certain way in exchange for what we do for them. And it feels bad because it's not in alignment with the true nature of love or joy. Service is based in love and it feels great.

People pleasing is based in fear and it feels draining. So I want to invite you to play with that and notice the difference between the two. You will likely shift in and out of both of them over the next several weeks.

So the best gift you can give to yourself and everyone around you this year is to stay in your own model. Circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result. That's your model and everyone else has their own.

Staying in your own model means remembering that your feelings are created by your thinking, and you don't need to manipulate other people in order to arrive at the feeling you want in your life. Staying in your own model is like driving a car and letting other people drive their own car. Crisscrossing models, not staying in your model, is trying to get other people to think the way you want them to, feel the way you want them to, be the way you want them to be.

So instead of driving your own car down the road, imagine leaning way over to the side and trying to grab someone else's steering wheel and drive their car. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be in real life if you did that? Like you're leaning all the way over trying to get your hands on someone else's steering wheel and you can't see out your own windshield. And then who's driving your car while you're reaching for someone else's steering wheel? No one.

You're headed off a cliff because you have no idea what the road in front of you looks like because your focus is on trying to drive someone else's car. And that's what it's like during the holidays when you're trying to manipulate how everybody else thinks and feels. It feels very out of control.

So this year, as you are giving gifts, providing meals, attending events, donating money, or choosing not to do those things, notice how you feel. If you feel worried and uptight and resentful and exhausted, acknowledge where you might be people-pleasing rather than serving. Ask yourself, why am I doing this? Who am I trying to manipulate? Why am I trying to get them to feel a certain way or think a certain way? And notice how out of control it feels when you're trying to drive their car and control their thoughts and feelings.

Service isn't exhausting. It takes energy to serve, but we regenerate that energy when we give without needing it to be received in any certain way. People-pleasing is exhausting because we give, but with expectation that our giving will produce an emotion in another person.

And that's a tangled up mess. All right. I hope this was helpful and that you can sense the difference between serving from a place of love and people-pleasing from a place of fear.

You get to choose every day who you want to be and how you want to show up. I hope that this helps you feel true, deep joy this holiday season as you celebrate in whatever ways you do. Thanks so much for joining me today.