Written by: Marcella Friel, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you ever heard the saying, “If you feel depressed, you need deep rest”? Never is this more true than during winter holidays. One out of two of us experiences depression, anxiety, and loneliness this time of year. If you—like me—are that one, you are so not alone.
Starting with that national high holy day of overeating known in the United States as Thanksgiving, our holiday trajectory becomes a burrow of darkness that reaches its nadir at the Winter Solstice.
Our circadian rhythms instinctively know this is a time to go inward, pull the blankets around us, curl up with those books we’ve been meaning to read all year, and settle into a long winter’s nap.
Unfortunately, in a culture that values commerce over connection, those rhythms are continually jarred by a world that assaults us with inflatable turkeys, plastic Santas, glaring lights, and fake tinfoil cheer.
No wonder our addictions get so triggered this time of year. How else can we cope except to eat too much, spend too much, get too busy, get too drunk, and hanky-panky under the mistletoe, only to regret it all the next morning?
It takes the strength of Samson to prevail over the madness.
But it’s not impossible.
If I could do it, so can you.
Celebrating on My Own Terms
Holidays—Christmas in particular—were a dreadful time for me as a little girl. With my father incarcerated and my mother mentally ill, the volatile family dynamic of my early years would go nuclear at Christmastime. One spectacular Christmas Eve featured Mom, in a rageaholic blackout, grabbing the star atop the tree and pulling the whole thing down. Shattered ornamental shards on the floor refracted the tree lights as if each were crying tiny tears. That night, a loathing of Christmas took firm root in my soul.
In my 20s and 30s, I spiritually bypassed the pain by going on monthlong meditation retreats from mid-December to mid-January. Looking back, I commend myself for such excellent self-care. But deep meditation practice couldn't budge the shame, rage, and despair that resurfaced every holiday season. It wasn't enough to run away and hide, even if that hiding was beneficial. It wasn't until I started Tapping that I could wash the family nonsense from my nervous system.
Over time I forged a deeply healing relationship with this annual interval of restorative darkness. That healing includes a sacred promise to celebrate the holidays on my terms rather than those dictated by a bankrupt material culture.
The Twofold Nature of Holiday Depression
When we’re besieged by an afflictive emotion, such as depression or loneliness, there are two things going on simultaneously that can be so interwoven as to be indistinguishable.
One is the basic energy of the feeling. The basic sadness. The basic discouragement. The basic disconnection.
The other is the story we tell ourselves about why we feel this way. The mental ruminations over what our negativity means about us, about other people, and about our world.
The basic energy, devoid of story, is part of the natural ebb and flow of our emotional life. If we give this energy the space to be as it is, we often discover little seeds of wisdom and healing right inside of it.
In other words, if we feel the basic energy fully, it often naturally resolves itself.
The hitch comes when we take this basic energy and turn it against ourselves vis-à-vis the story we attach to the feeling. We attack ourselves, we judge ourselves, and we feel there’s something horribly wrong with us for feeling this way.
When I used tools such as EFT Tapping to revisit the ghosts of Christmas past, I saw the true reason why I was so miserable at holiday time.
Some hidden part of me blamed myself for my family’s insanity.
As I gradually released that story and detached myself from my family-of-origin turmoil, I realized, in the marrow of my bones, that I am not that trauma.
Neither are you.
You are not the traumas that might be holding you hostage at holiday time.
Let me lead you through an exercise to make my point.
Shifting from Judge to Witness
Here are a few questions you can journal on or simply contemplate.
My intention in offering you these questions is to help you shift your perspective from judge to witness and to tease apart the depressive energy from the story surrounding it:
What is triggering my depression right now? Answer this in a simple, matter-of-fact statement, as if you were telling a doctor what’s wrong.
Where do I feel this energy in my body? Allow yourself to tune into any body sensations connected to this energy. You might feel a lump in your throat, a knot in your stomach, a pulsing in the temples of your eyes.
What emotions am I feeling about this? These can be single words: Hopeless. Discouraged. Numb. Despairing.
What thoughts and stories am I telling myself? These might show up in the language of a child: I don’t feel safe. I’m not good enough. Nobody loves me. I’m all alone in the universe. Try to write these without censoring.
What does this remind me of in my history? Go back to the body sensations and emotions. Are they familiar to you? Have you experienced these in the past? Might they have a link to something historical?
What have I made this situation mean about me? About other people? About the universe?
Let’s Do Some EFT Tapping
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, or “Tapping”) is sometimes called emotional acupuncture in that it involves fingertip tapping on points that are at or near the end of acupuncture meridians while recollecting a stressful situation.
The tapping sends a calming signal to the brain that can release the stressful associative memories connected to the situation.
Here’s a basic Tapping chart and a script you can use to lighten up your holiday depression.
Tap 5 to 7 times on each point mentioned below while saying the corresponding phrase aloud to yourself.
First, use a scale of 1 to 10 to identify the intensity of the emotions you named in question 3, with 10 being the most intense.
(Typically, if you need to tap on something, it’s probably a 5 or higher.)
Now let’s begin Tapping. Feel free to substitute your own words if the ones I scripted below don’t resonate for you:
Side of the Hand: Even though I’m feeling all this depression at holiday time, I completely accept that this is how I feel. (Tap and say aloud 3 times.)
Top of the head: All this depression I feel
Eyebrow: All this depression
Side of the eye: It’s holiday time, and I should be happy
Under the eye: I should be surrounded by family and friends
Under the nose: I should be jolly and merry
Under the mouth: I am so not jolly and merry
Collarbone: I’m actually really depressed
Under the arm: I wish I weren’t feeling this way
Top of the head: I actually feel really lonely
Eyebrow: This heavy depression I feel
Side of the eye: I feel depressed and lonely because (fill in your answer to question 1 here)
Under the eye: And where I feel this in my body is … (fill in your answer to question 2 here)
Under the nose: And it makes me feel … (fill in your answer to question 3 here)
Under the mouth: And I’m telling myself that … (fill in your answer to question 4 here)
Collarbone: And what this reminds me of is … (fill in your answer to question 5 here)
Under the arm: And I think it means that I … (fill in your answer to question 6 here)
Top of the head: All this depression
Eyebrow: All this storyline
Side of the eye: All these emotions
Under the eye: All these memories
Under the nose: All this depression that I’m feeling
Under the mouth: And everything I think it means about me
Collarbone: What if it’s just not true?
Under the arm: What if there were some wisdom inside this depression?
Top of the head: I don’t know what that might be
Eyebrow: But I’m open to finding out
Side of the eye: I would love to find some fresh energy
Under the eye: Amidst the heaviness of this depression
Under the nose: Maybe it could be safe to let this depression go
Under the mouth: And to find an authentic way
Collarbone: To enjoy the holidays on my own terms
Under the arm: I look forward to creating that for myself
Take a breath, shake out your arms and hands, and take a drink of water.
How does your depression feel now? What number between 1 and 10 would you give it?
It might be lower. It might be higher. Sometimes depression is like a lid that can release a Pandora’s Box of feelings when it gets lifted.
Whatever occurs, keep Tapping until the distress is down to a 0.
A Final Note
The point of the Tapping isn’t necessarily to make the depression go away but rather to lighten that heavy layer of false beliefs that sits on top of it.
Beneath that layer often lies a nourishing peace and stillness that give us the deep rest we so desperately need.
In this way, depression can become a gateway to deeper intimacy with ourselves and the whole rest of the world, whether we’re alone or in a crowd of a million people.
How would you really like to celebrate the holidays? Join me November 19 for “Mindful Eating for Stressful Holidays,” where I will help you craft a vision and a plan for making this year’s holidays the richest, most authentic, and most fulfilling ever.
Marcella Friel, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine MARCELLA FRIEL is a mindful eating mentor who helps health-conscious women love and forgive themselves, their food, and their figure. Marcella is author of "Tap, Taste, Heal: Use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to Eat Joyfully and Love Your Body." In 2018 Marcella founded the Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy, an online transformational mentorship program to help health-conscious women heal the emotional and metabolic roots of yo-yo dieting, binge eating, sugar addiction, and chronic body shaming. Marcella draws on nearly 3 decades of 12-step recovery and 35 years’ practice of Tibetan Buddhism to help women heal the self-hatred traumas that lie at the very root of their nervous system. She passionately holds an unflinching faith in trauma as the catalyst of evolution and guides others in dowsing their life experiences to find the gold amidst the dross. Learn more about Marcella by visiting marcellafriel.com
