I want you to imagine yourself standing with your arms stretched out to the side, now stretching your arms upwards. Imagine creating a bubble around yourself, a safe bubble, where you can feel your emotions and process them without letting them spill over into someone else’s space. A bubble where you can be safe from other people’s emotions.
Then, imagine the people around you also having these bubbles around them. This is what healthy emotional boundaries are all about. It is about taking responsibility for your own emotions and feelings and not allowing other people’s emotions and feelings to affect your emotional well-being.
During Xmas and the holidays this is an important skill to have. The holidays can trigger many emotions and feelings. It often brings dysfunctional family patterns to the forefront and this can be challenging to deal with. It can trigger loss and grief. Fortunately, it also often brings lots of Joy.
If you feel triggered and upset by someone’s behaviour or their emotional state,
1. REMEMBER – You are only responsible for your own emotions, not for other people’s. You can only control yourself.
2. Immediately IMAGINE YOUR BUBBLE AROUND YOU (by doing this you are keeping yourself and the other person ‘safe’).
3. TAKE A PAUSE, take a breath.
4. If you can PHYSICALLY REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE SITUATION do so.
5. Remind yourself that things sometimes “go wrong”, IMPERFECTION IS PART OF LIFE, it is OK to be upset.
6. IDENTIFY WHICH EMOTION IS ‘VISITING’ YOU. Is it anger, or sadness, or anxiety, or fear, or disappointment, or frustration? Each of these bring a special message. For example, - Anger and frustration generally show up to alert us that a boundary has been crossed and that we are trying to protect something. Read more about anger here. - Sadness shows up when we have to let go of something that is not working, like our ideas of what a perfect Xmas looks like. It might be that you have to let go of your picture of an ideal parent-child relationship. Read more about sadness here.
7. ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR EMOTION IS VALID and decide how you want to handle it. Take into consideration that patterns in families have often been there for a long time and Xmas might not be the best time to sort it out.
8. TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF by offering yourself kind words like “it is ok to feel this way, take a deep breath, you can handle this”. Give yourself physical reassurance like a ‘hug’, or gently putting your hand on your heart.
9. If the situation is too difficult to handle, EXCUSE YOURSELF AND RETURN LATER when you feel calmer, or not at all.
10. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO STAY IN CHALLENGING SITUATIONS IF IT IS GOING TO AFFECT YOUR MENTAL WELL-BEING. STAY AS LONG AS YOU FEEL SAFE AND YOU ARE ENJOYING THE CELEBRATIONS.
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