Episode Details

Private Coaching

Today, I am going to talk about what is honestly sometimes a very painful thing to talk about, which is going home for the holidays.

Because actually going home for the holidays for me is a joyous thing now.

But when I was younger, it was harder. And it wasn't necessarily because of my parents, but it was things that triggered me, like the cold, like it being darker. And those kinds of things would bring up a lot of anxiety with me.

One of the things I will be talking about is triggers and how to take care of yourself around triggers.

So, what do I mean by a trigger?

A trigger for me is it gets darker earlier.

If you listen to my podcast episode 102, you'll hear that when it started to get dark when I was a child, that's when my anxiety would kick up.

Guess what happens now? It gets darker earlier.

Now, I will be honest with you: it still reminds me every year, but I also have come so far that it doesn't bother me anymore.

But I'm not going to tell you that if I get emotionally ruffled, it's not going to get kicked up again, and that's what I want you to look out for this holiday season.

Exercise:

Either on your phone, while you're listening to this or pen and paper, I want you to think of three to five things that could potentially trigger you this holiday season.

So for me, it's that it gets dark earlier. The other thing is that my family lives on the East Coast. And guess what? It's cold on the East Coast. It's freezing. That's why I live part of the year in Los Angeles because it's nice and toasty here.

Those are things that immediately crop up for me.

My parents also live in the country. And for some reason, even though in L. A. I'm in the middle of nowhere in the middle of L.A., and I, for some reason, get very triggered by the cold and the night and being isolated.

So those are the three things that trigger me. And I want to ask yourself what your things are.

Is it a family member who says, "Oh, wow, that strike? Hey, are you even going to still have a career?"

Whatever Uncle, whoever Aunt, your mom, your dad, that older brother.

I recently heard from a dear friend of mine that his older brother used to put him down a bit. And although time has passed, it's still a trigger.

So, write down your three to five triggers. If you have more, that's fine.

Then, what I want you to do is I want you to think of a contrary thought or an alternate thought that you can say to yourself if you start to get triggered.

One of them, which is the ultimate Truth, is this too shall pass.

Or reminding yourself, is there something soothing you can do for yourself?

One of the things I like to do is have these special peppermints. My mom gave me them. They're Dutch peppermints. I like to have them in my pocket. It's just a little thing that comforts me.

Also, sometimes, putting my hand on a particular area of my shoulder comforts me.

So it's things that I can think of and things that I can do.

You want to think of an alternate thought and an alternate action.

With an alternate thought, as I said, "This too shall pass," but also, a good thought would be, "It's going to be okay. I got you. It's going to be okay."

Reminding yourself that the Universe is on your side.

One of the things that I do is light a candle that makes me feel safe because it reminds me of the presence of the Universe a