Holiday Harmony: Self-Care Strategies for the Holiday Season – Podcast
In this holiday-themed episode, we chat with Regional Clinical Director Sabrena Ness about essential self-care tips for the festive season. Sabrena shares her advice on maintaining emotional balance and setting boundaries while navigating the stresses of holiday celebrations. Listen in to discover how to transform holiday obligations into joyous choices and prioritize self-awareness to fully enjoy the season’s magic.
Nicholette Leanza:
Welcome to Convos from the Couch by LifeStance Health, where leading mental health professionals help guide you on your journey to a healthier, more fulfilling life. Hello everyone. Welcome to Convos from the Couch. I’m Nicki Leanza, and on today’s episode I’ll be talking with regional clinical director Sabrena Ness, and she’ll be giving us some self-care tips for the holidays. So welcome back on Sabrena. Always great to have you on.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, it’s great to be here. I’m glad I’m back so soon.
Nicholette Leanza:
Yes, definitely. And such an important conversation we’re having today because I think for over the holidays people tend to lose themselves, so really looking forward to you giving us some self-care tips, how we don’t lose ourselves over the holidays. So thank you again for being on. Why don’t we start, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, so I am the regional clinical director here in Utah. I oversee the Utah State [inaudible 00:01:05] here, but actually I’m a licensed mental health counselor and I also see a small caseload. Licensed both in Utah and Colorado. I’ve been with LifeStance since March of 2021, starting in Colorado, and then I started as a full-time clinician there and then I transitioned into this position here. My specialty that I work with when I see clients is mainly focusing on complex PTSD or developmental trauma. I use a method called or an intervention called NeuroAffective Relational Model. It’s called NARM. It’s a fairly new model, but it really helps support people in building their own capacity and understanding themselves and what they want, which aligns a lot with what I’m going to be talking about today. So this will definitely come up. It’s inside of me and how I work, so it will definitely come up, but I also do work with couples and ADHD and the LGBT population as well, which I also proudly identify in.
Nicholette Leanza:
It sounds like we’re going to have you come back on to cover NARM. I’m not familiar, so I’d love to have you come back and talk more about that for sure.
Sabrena Ness:
I would love to. We would have to figure out how to keep it down to 30 minutes because that’s a topic I could talk about forever. Yeah, I would love to talk about NARM.
Nicholette Leanza:
Definitely. We’ll have you come back on for sure to talk about that.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah. I also just want to share a little bit about me personally because I think that’s important. We’re talking about family, we’re talking about holidays, and so I’m the youngest of five siblings. I come from a blended family, which can make the holidays sometimes even more complicated. I have some half siblings from my father’s previous marriage and having them around for the holidays growing up, there was a lot to navigate there. So I think that adds a unique spin to it. I grew up in Minnesota, so the suburbs of Minnesota, so growing up there, but I’ve also now lived in Colorado, in Utah, California. I think I got them all. And so all of these different perspectives of living in these areas have played into my work with my clients and whatnot.
Also though I live in a different state than all of my family, so I do think that plays a role in this and it was coming up as I was thinking about this episode and how that is for many people. There’s also this feeling of obligation of traveling home or being home for all these holidays that are jam packed into this small amount of time, couple of months.
Nicholette Leanza:
Thank you for sharing all that. I did not know all that about you for sure. I work out of Cleveland, Ohio, which is where our LifeStance offices are, and so we’re used to some rough cold winters, but not up in Minnesota where it sounds like you spent some time.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, I feel like being here in Utah, it’s pretty nice in the valley. We get the mountains and the snow, but then it’s not crazy cold for that long here in the valley in Utah. I’m spoiled now, but yeah.
Nicholette Leanza:
Got you. So tell us why is self-care so important over the holiday season?
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, actually what we just were talking about leads into this. I think just talking about this time of year first, not even talking about holidays, but the weather’s changing, in many states it’s getting colder. In our states where both we live are getting a lot colder, days are getting shorter. Just having that reduction in sunlight, it has a huge impact on our mood, on also our mental health. So it can exacerbate a mental health issue that we already have. But it also, there’s something called seasonal depression. It’s a recognized diagnosis that comes around during this time because of what’s happening.
But even for people that don’t have maybe a clinical diagnosis, it’s just a time where a lot of us can feel lower or have lower moods or can struggle with just daily things that we used to do. It’s easier to get together with friends when it’s warmer out or when the days are longer and there’s more light. So there’s a lot of different changes that can happen. And so all of those factors just create this perfect little storm of challenges that we have, making it really hard for us to take care of ourselves and to navigate even things that are harder, like the holidays with family obligations, there’s lots of financial concerns and pressures around this time, we might feel like we have all these expectations from our family members or our loved ones traveling home. All of that can take such an emotional strain but also a mental strain on us.
Nicholette Leanza:
So what are some practical self-care strategies people can do to maintain balance during this busy season?
Sabrena Ness:
So going back to your original question on why self-care is so important, just even flipping those words, self-care, it’s about caring for ourselves. So during a time when there’s all these things that are creating that perfect storm, it’s really important for us to care for ourselves. Self-care is a buzzword and so it’s sometimes, oh, self-care, that’s mindfulness, all these things. However, it really just means caring for myself and I want to emphasize that because it can be that simple.
Also, it helps us express our needs. It helps us work towards honoring what we want for ourselves. But if I’m not caring for myself, even just like a baby, if I know how to care for a baby, I can do it. I know they need to eat, I know I need to change them. But if I don’t know as an adult, my needs are a little bit different. So if I don’t know what they are, I have to first understand myself and then I’m able to focus on caring for myself.
And even just to talk about that, the word of caring for ourselves is what self-regulation means. It really just means when I’m tired, I sleep. When I’m stressed, I have ways to release it in a healthy way. There’s also affect regulation, which I think people often have it fall under this same category, but it’s more about that I’m able to manage or deal with my emotions, like normal emotions around the holidays, excitement, joy, sadness, grief, and all of those things play a role in just the word self-care. So thinking about those, how simple that can be.
Symptoms of dysregulation. So to go on the other side, when we are dysregulated, it is developed, we’re unable to feel our emotions. So let me repeat that. Dysregulation happens when we are unable to feel our emotions. I think often people think it’s dysregulation happens when I have emotions.
Nicholette Leanza:
Yeah, gotcha.
Sabrena Ness:
But it’s just, if I cannot recognize that they’re there, and then what’s going to happen is I’m going to become overwhelmed by them, they’re going to bottle up inside of me.
Nicholette Leanza:
I was going to say that. Overwhelmed, right.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, completely. And so this dynamics of family dynamics and grief that could come up around the holidays and all these things can really overwhelm me. And if I’m not acknowledging that, it just makes it even worse for myself. And self-regulation, it’s been researched a lot in neuroscience, and the research essentially is saying that if we experience relational or developmental complex PTSD or we also develop any kind of trauma in our childhood, that it actually disrupts our ability to self-regulate or to automatically regulate ourselves.
And I think we all fall into one of those categories, whether it’s relational trauma or developmental trauma, just trauma that has happened over time being raised by humans, or also some kind of complex trauma or something like I got into a car accident or a death of someone. All of those things can disrupt this ability for us to take care of ourselves. And so this is why it’s so important for us to talk about self-care because a lot of us don’t have it all the time for that automatic things to kick in, for our breathing to be normal, our heart rate, our blood pressure, to remember to eat, to remember to sleep. So I just think this topic is so important for so many reasons because we live in this world where we’re faced with not knowing how to do that ourselves already.
Nicholette Leanza:
Definitely. So what are some practical self-care strategies people can do to maintain balance during this time?
Sabrena Ness:
Some practical self-care strategies first are going to start with what it is that I want around the holidays.
Nicholette Leanza:
That’s a great way to bring it back, what is it that you want? I love that you started with that. That’s great.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah. Thinking about if I, again, self-care, caring for myself, I need to know what I want. If I don’t know what I want, everything’s going to feel like a burden, everything’s going to feel difficult. The holidays are just a lot. Everything’s going to feel like a lot for me. The model that I practice, NARM or NeuroAffective Relational Model, in the book it talks about if we focus on deficiency or we focus on pain, then we’re going to get better at feeling deficient and feeling pain.
And so I think we can focus a little bit on what drains us during the holidays, what we don’t want. I hear that a lot, “This is what I don’t want out of the holidays.” But I like to flip that question of what is it that I actually want? What do I want my holiday to look like? Take it back. This idea that the holidays are family expectations and all these traditions that I have to live up to. I think that if you really deep down ask yourself what I want, there might still be some of that there and it might feel a lot different to seek that out if you are yourself making the choice, “Actually, I do want to spend time with family.”
So that can feel a lot different. I also think it’s just important to recognize that I’m not trying to find an answer. I have inside of me is what I want for myself. We all have that. That’s not unique to me or to you, but it’s unique, everyone listening to this right now has the capacity to know what they want for themselves. I will say sometimes that’s really lost inside of us. And so digging deep and figuring that out can be so incredibly helpful for us to do that. And so I know that it’s not like these steps I’m giving you of what you can do, but this practical self-care strategy is to figure out what I want and be able to communicate that with people.
Nicholette Leanza:
I think that’s a great way to put that. I really do because I think people fall into a lot of people pleasing behaviors, especially during the holidays, and so they’re trying to go with what they think everybody else wants. And so it would make sense, tailor your self-care according to what is it that you want? It’s great. It’s great. So that’s a wonderful strategy right there.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, definitely. Thinking about, I might not want to go to this family holiday over… Or maybe I’ll say what I do want. I might want to rather stay at home and relax and be at home today, but also in a bigger picture of what I want is I want connection with my family and I want not three days of connection with my family, but I might want some connection. And so I find that balance between, okay, I am going to get up even though I want to relax today and I’m going to go, and then I made that decision. I chose to go. And so me making that action of being there is very different than when I made the action to go because I felt like it was an obligation.
Nicholette Leanza:
Gives you the autonomy over it as well.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, definitely. I’m going to give one practical self-care strategy there, and I think it’s important for us to know what we want and figure out ways to communicate what we want to people.
Nicholette Leanza:
Perfect. So why are setting boundaries with family and for social obligations so important?
Sabrena Ness:
This leads right from the question we’re talking about. So I know what I want now. How do I set those boundaries? How do I tell other people what it is that I want? I actually think most of us are setting boundaries every day. And so also just recognizing that we’re doing that. Boundaries are not just about saying, “No, I don’t want to do this,” or “I’m not going to go.” It also is about sharing what I do want.
So it might just be me calling up my family and saying, “I want to pick names for a gift exchange this year.” And sharing that is setting boundaries for yourself of what you want the holidays to look like. It’s setting financial boundaries because maybe buying for every person in the family is not doable for you. And it’s not me calling and saying, “I can’t afford gifts for everybody and I can’t.” But it is more about saying, “What I would like to see this year is this.” And so that is setting a boundary. Boundaries don’t have to be this hard line of, “If you do this, I’m not going to do this.” Or “I’m only going to come if this happens.”
Nicholette Leanza:
I think you’re right. I think people assume that’s what it has to be such a hard line. So I’m really glad you clarified that for our listeners.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, definitely. There’s this book by Melissa Urban, The Book of Boundaries. The subtitle is Set the Limits That Will Set You Free. And she talks about boundaries in this way. I might butcher it here, but she talks about boundaries in a color scheme. Red boundaries would be that, “If you keep doing this, I’m going to leave.” But yellow boundaries, if I’m getting the colors, green, are about this is what I want, this is what I’m hoping for. And that can create a lot more connection where the red boundaries are really something we set when our boundaries have been crossed, when they’re not being respected. And so thinking about it in that way, make boundaries a lot less scary to set with our family or to even communicate and recognizing, wow, anytime I tell somebody what I want, I am setting a boundary. I think actually picking this apart, setting it is not the hard thing or even the most important thing. It’s withholding my boundaries.
Nicholette Leanza:
Go into that a little bit more. Withholding your boundaries.
Sabrena Ness:
So holding them, I can easily set them. Using that example I used before, I call my family and say, “Hey, I would love to do a gift exchange.” And also other people have opinions, but let’s say we’re going to go with this. And so my boundary is that I want to have a gift exchange, and I’m sharing that with people. If something gets, they decide, “No, actually we want to send it for everybody else, or we want to do gifts for everybody.” That is going to take me actually really, what’s the word, encouraging or reiterating my boundary with people. I might have to share a little bit more about why I want that or if my boundary is that I don’t have the financial means to spend gifts on everybody, I really have to not only set the boundary, but I have to stand firm in that boundary.
And so that’s a huge part of it, is making sure that I am staying true to myself in those boundaries. And it does not mean that I can’t be flexible or I can’t change my boundaries. I want to do that. I want to check in with other people and then check back in with myself, is there something I can change or be different about this? But also there might be boundaries that I don’t want to change. And so setting them is one thing, but… Upholding them is the word I was looking for. Upholding our boundaries is probably the most important piece of it. Because I can try to set them all day, but if I’m actually not standing firm to them, no one’s going to take care of my boundaries if I keep just crossing over my own boundaries. I have to show that these are important to me in this situation.
And going back to just the question about why is boundary setting with families and social obligations important, I also think it’s important to dissect that word obligations because if I’m looking at family or social gatherings or anything that I have to do with other people as an obligation, that word in itself is setting me up for failure. It is burdensome.
Nicholette Leanza:
Yeah, good word. Burdensome for sure.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah. And so I can just check in with myself, ask myself what is it that I actually want out of this holiday? What aligns with what I want? And yes, I might not want to get out of bed to go to that holiday party, but at the same time I know that it does align with what I want, and so it doesn’t feel like an obligation, it actually feels like a choice. And that’s something that I can really focus on as this is my choice to go and it feels a lot different.
And I want to be clear they’re not all things that we love and want to do, just like that, I would rather stay in bed than go, or maybe financially, I’m not in a place to fly home for the holidays. However, I know that being there is something I also want. So we can be in conflict with ourselves, which can make things really difficult and it’s okay that it doesn’t feel great. Okay, I’m going to buy the ticket because I ultimately want to, but it’s really still about checking in with yourself and changing those words that it’s not an obligation, but it’s a choice. It’s something I’m choosing to do.
And then also the word of setting boundaries. It’s really about I get to have them and I get to share with other people what I want this to look like, and it can feel a lot better to take care of myself, going back to that ability to regulate our emotions, if I’m creating a space that I want to be in, it’s going to be much easier. Or if I’m even going into a situation where I feel like I made the choice to be here, it’s going to be much easier for me than to use self-regulation or take time for myself if things become overwhelmed. And it actually might be helpful for me to plan ahead and know I’m probably going to be overwhelmed, so what can I put in place-
Nicholette Leanza:
There you go.
Sabrena Ness:
… prior so that when I get there, I don’t feel so overwhelmed and I can take care of myself. And so here’s where I’ll name some of those things. I think if this doesn’t fit for you, you shouldn’t do it, but journaling can be really great over the holidays because if we know what our emotions are, what’s happening for us, we’re able to address them. So journaling, also focusing on the positives. So focusing on what I do want to do, what I do want to see, why I am visiting my family or why I am going to this party can be really helpful.
Also, just in the moment, taking time to check in, you can do that in front of other people. It doesn’t have to be I’m walking away. It could be taking a walk or going to your car or to your room or something like that. But it also could just be while I’m around people like, hey, what is it that I need? Do I need to go get some water? Simple tasks of taking care of ourselves can be really helpful when we are around that.
But if we go in thinking this is going to be this really great thing, which sometimes I think we forget about the years before when maybe we struggled and then we go to a family event or we go to a social event with friends and it turns out it’s not what we thought it was going to be. And so that’s okay. I think checking in with myself again and being like, “Oh, I recognize I had all these expectations,” which expectations can be helpful. It can help set guidelines for what I want, but it also can come back at me a little bit and make me feel like, oh, this isn’t what I wanted. And so is there something I could adjust or change in the moment to feel better?
Nicholette Leanza:
Nothing is set in stone. So I think that’s key to feel like, okay, these are my expectations, and this is how it’s going to have to be. You’re setting yourself up, like you said. So I think that key really is making sure you can adjust them, that you give yourself permission to adjust them for sure.
Sabrena Ness:
Exactly, exactly. I think just the same way that we’re like, “I don’t want to communicate boundaries.” I have clients actually that say this a lot, “I don’t want to communicate boundaries because I don’t know if that’s fully what I want.” And so I talk about that these boundaries can be shifted and changed, and that’s why it’s better to talk about what I do want versus what I don’t. Because if I don’t know exactly what I want, but I might know I do want it to feel like this, and I do know that I want the holidays to feel like we are really spending quality time with each other.
Me sharing that is not, I’m not giving everything or setting myself up to have to know everything about myself, but I am just sharing what I do know, and I think that’s so important that I don’t have to have it all figured out and I can, like you said, be flexible. I can change. I am a dynamic and changing person, so if I don’t accept that, then I’m probably going to run into some trouble.
Nicholette Leanza:
Got you. Any other takeaways you’d like to share?
Sabrena Ness:
Self-care is not just about stepping away from obligations or relaxing, doing mindfulness. It’s also about making a conscious choice that aligns with what I personally value. And so I encourage anyone that’s listening to this to approach the holidays from a place of self-awareness and intentionality and asking themselves what it is, this question that I ask all my clients in NARM when they first walk in the room using NeuroAffective Relational Model is, what is it that you want out of our session today? What is it that you want for yourself? And that same question, I don’t think you need to be with a therapist to ask that question to yourself. So continuing to ask what is it that I want for myself? And then being kind to yourself.
Nicholette Leanza:
Oh, that’s a key one. Definitely.
Sabrena Ness:
Like, it’s okay. It’s okay to know that I might not set boundaries or communicate them in the best way. I’m trying. I also might not know what I want this year. If this is the first year I’m truly asking myself, what do I want around the holidays? This might be a really new thing to navigate. It’s maybe a great option to seek a therapist to talk about those on a deeper level. Really, if I’m struggling to understand what it is that I want for myself, finding a therapist can be really helpful to explore that and to have a place that I’m dedicating some time to talk about that, because around the holidays is when all of this can get really stirred up in us, and so it can make things more difficult.
We actually see a decline sometimes in clients seeking therapy around this time of year. And I think what’s so hard about that is sometimes we don’t want to face what’s going on, the struggles we are having. When we really are struggling with something, it’s hard to even acknowledge it. And so that can be hard. And then the new year comes and a lot of people want to seek therapy, new year’s resolutions to better myself.
So I think that my biggest takeaway or what I want to share is that I hope that we can get from this podcast of me sharing this is there’s not practical steps or there’s not all these things we can do. It really can be simple. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but as simple as knowing myself or getting to know myself a little bit more.
And then I mentioned that book, I think The Book of Boundaries can be great to read. And then also NARM, what I practice, they have a book called The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma. I think I said that correctly, by Lawrence Heller and Brad Kammer. And that book was originally created for therapists to help them use this model, but quickly after creating the book, I think they realized, or in writing the book, I think they realized that also that it can be a self-discovery tool for individuals to increase their own self-awareness and start that growth and healing, but also just know what they want. So it’s a guide to have greater capacity for ourselves to connect to who I am, but also connect to other people.
So I do recommend reading that book and then looking at The Book of Boundaries I think can be really helpful when I’m like, oh, boundaries aren’t scary. So I want to learn about how I can actually set those boundaries.
Nicholette Leanza:
My gosh, Sabrena, thank you. You shared so much information on this topic, and I think one of the key takeaways that you were sharing that I’m walking away with, is just really for someone to understand themselves more and to ask, what is it that I want? And then to shift that perspective from an obligation to a choice. So those are all very key takeaways there. So appreciate you and look forward to having you back on the podcast.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, I would love to talk a little bit more about NARM, but thanks for having me again, and I hope everyone has a great holiday and that they really seek the opportunity for what they want from this holiday.
Nicholette Leanza:
Definitely. Thank you again.
Sabrena Ness:
Yeah, of course.
Nicholette Leanza:
I’d also like to thank the team behind the podcast, Jason Clayden and Juliana Whidden, with a special thank you to Jason who edits our episodes. Thank you for listening to Convos From the Couch. Take care, everyone.
