Episode 30 Shownotes - Holiday Expectations and Why They Are Challenging

You are listening to Best Life After Cancer Podcast Episode 30!

Well, hey, my friends, how are you today? When this podcast is released, I will be off with my family, enjoying some time away where we can be outside and have a white Christmas, but I wanted to have this ready for you to listen to. This is the first time we will be away from home at Christmas since we had kids. It is the first year that officially no one believes in Santa (although I am pretty sure my youngest was paid by his siblings to keep up the show for a while, but that is another story). Because so many of our usual holiday events were not possible due to Covid, we decided to change things up and go away, and create some new traditions. And, oh, my brain has so many thoughts about that. So today is part of the “working on your brain” aspect of living your best life after cancer. I think for so many, emotions are more heightened after cancer, and the holidays are times when emotions are running high for everyone, so I know my cancer thrivers are likely feeling it double. There seem to be 2 reasons why the holidays are a more challenging time for people, and I am going to run through both. The first is because we have expectations about how events around the holidays should go, and we are disappointed if reality and the expectations don’t match. So I thought we could talk today about expectations, the challenges they bring to life, and some of the ways to challenge those thoughts. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the book I am reading, Solve for Happy, by Mo Gawdat. He tells in his book that ALL negative emotions are the result of reality not matching our expectations. This seems too simple to be true, but in truth, I think he is right! Because, really, what makes a holiday good or bad in our minds? It is if our expectations were met or not. If you think your boyfriend is going to propose, and you don’t get a ring, your experience of the holiday is going to feel rough. But if you had been expecting the man of your dreams to just get you a little gift and he proposes, your experience will far outweigh your expectations, and it will be fabulous. If your expectation is that your children will all get you a well thought out, meaningful gift, but they are teenage boys and therefore do nada, you might have a holiday that doesn’t meet your expectations, and you may be disappointed. If your toddler manages to make you a drawing and sneak it into your stocking telling you that you are the best mom ever, with a beautiful necklace that the child and your husband picked out, who knows when and where because life is so crazy, reality may exceed your expectation. If your spouse knocks the gift out of the park, if you have your first white Christmas, snug and warm, sipping hot chocolate by a fire while the kids and the dog play quietly, well, likely that is better than you expected, and you will feel happy. Let me start by pointing out something about how our expectations evolve around holidays. In the US, the media drowns us in images of what we should be hoping for over the holidays. Who hasn’t experienced commercials with not one but two new cars in the driveway wrapped in big red bows? Or the million and one jewelry store ads that insinuate that our love is less valid if we don’t get diamonds from our partner? For sure, these are over the top examples, and often times our brains call bullshit on these – they look nice but are so far from reality. But there are also commercials that are more subtle in creating desires that are a challenge in terms of matching up with reality. For instance, so many commercials with Christmas scenes. A house with a family with no surly teen, no drunk cousin, no loud, annoying aunt, no burnt pies or undercooked turkey. Or a house that looks like Martha Stewart decorated it, with no mess, no pile of mail on the counter, no dishes beside the sink in a dish drainer. These commercials that tell us that if our family is quirky, that isn’t so great. If our house doesn’t look like it is out of a magazine, we should be trying harder. I actually think these holiday ads really are detrimental to all of our happiness, because they set such an impossible bar for us in what we think the holidays should be. Am I saying don’t have expectations? No, for sure we should have hopes and dreams of what the holidays will be like. But they need to be tempered by reality. A dream that the kids will open their presents one at a time, and ooh and ah over what the others got, while you sip coffee and video them – well, in my household of boys at least, not going to happen. The past shows me that the kids will tear through the presents in 30 minutes, and be done. Expecting something new to happen is unlikely. I could decide I wanted to force a change, and make them go one at a time, but that will likely decrease their enjoyment and the holidays meeting THEIR expectations! If we want a different outcome, we need to brainstorm a bit on how to make it true. One year, we managed to get and hide a puppy until Christmas morning. They still believed in Santa. The puppy popped out of a box, and the massive unwrapping halted. For 2 hours, while they ooh’d and ah’d and played with him. So, have expectations, but review ahead what is likely, and try to match up ahead likely and dreams. You will have a better time.

The second place that is a challenge is based on our expectations of other humans in our lives. This is something Brooke Castillo describes as having a manual for a person. You know, like an operator’s manual. All the ways the person should and shouldn’t act, without us even having to tell them what we expect. In one of my recent coaching sessions, we were discussing the upcoming holidays, and I was coaching on what our expectations are of the holidays, and then comparing that to the reality of our memories of past holidays. When I talk to people about holiday expectations, one of the things I always try to touch on that is so emotionally charged is gifts from our spouses. Many people have an unspoken manual for their spouses at the holidays. Some spouses have this perfect. I have to admit, I am a just the littlest bit jealous of these women. My husband is not a present guy. For a while, I kept arguing with that reality. In the past, I have had dreams of a designer bag, jewelry, romantic travel planned out and delivered in a beautiful package. Unfortunately, most years, these hopes were not met. I hadn’t yet found life coaching, and I sulked or pouted, or secretly was disappointed, and cross with the family. I didn’t like that outcome, so for a while, I tried giving him a list. Not much better – still lead to me being disappointed. Still wanting the dream holiday, I took to buying gifts and asking him to just wrap them. Often, even that didn’t get done. Then I realized (through a bunch of life coaching) – he didn’t have to give me what I wanted if he didn’t want to – this was me having a manual and expectations for him. The manual said “husbands will buy great gifts, wrap them and they will be perfect and a surprise”. Even worse was the part of my manual that said “if said husband doesn’t do anything at the holidays, this is evidence that he doesn’t love you. Now, I have SO much evidence that my husband adores me. But this manual I had left me disappointed and feeling like crap every holiday. Then I was bitchy, and it went downhill from there. So, the answer is that you have to take the reality and decide how you want to move forward. The work is understanding that your thoughts about what your spouse should do are just that – thoughts. They are optional, and you have it in your power to choose different ones. My favorite now is that my husband and kids only job in my life is to be present for me to love them, and to love me back. With that thought, anything extra is icing on the cake that I wasn’t expecting and give me an even better experience – because my expectations were met and exceeded. So many women say, what, so I should not get anything? And be happy about it? Well, if that is what is going to happen (reality) and you can’t change it, what are your options? I choose to get what I really want, pay someone to wrap it, and put it under the tree. Then, I get what I really wanted (by taking care of my own wants and needs) and I get to be thrilled by the love of my husband and kids, and enjoy the day thoroughly since I am not arguing with reality.

At this point, I hope we all agree that the holidays are a time when so many of us have lots and lots of expectations that might or might not get met. But does this mean that we don’t want to have expectations? That we don’t want to try to create what we want? I have been pondering this. If you listened to my podcast on Creating Joy, you know I am a big proponent of planning out what we want to happen, and then doing our best to make it happen. So it might be a surprise when I tell you that yes, you should plan, but then in the moment, you should roll with the punches and EXPECT that what you planned will not be exactly what happens. What might this look like?

So – let’s start with a bit of what my expectations of the holidays have been in the past. They are that we will decorate the house and have a massive, live Christmas tree. As a family, we will all work to decorate it. I will make up amazing Christmas cards and send them out December 1st. I will have awesome gifts for my kids, family and friends, and they will do the same for me. The house will look great - festive and welcoming. All the gifts will be wrapped (with bows!) a few days before Christmas. Phil’s entire extended family will get together Christmas Eve (in our home the last few years) and we will talk, laugh, and visit. We will have my mom and dad here with us, and get up with them Christmas morning, open gifts, and mom will make Eggs Benedict. This is what I have planned and done my best to make happen in the past, although I never made it mean something bad if all that didn’t come together perfectly. But this year, many of the things on that list haven’t or can’t happen. Because we are going away, we didn’t get a giant real tree. We only decorated our smaller fake tree that is normally in the basement. Only the youngest of my kids had any interest in helping decorate the tree. I lost track of time, between work and kids and my coaching group, and didn’t even get the cards ordered until well into December, and am behind on gifts. There is no Christmas Eve gathering due to Covid. Therefore, my brain wants to tell me that this is not the best holiday (even though it is simultaneously excited to go away!) Why is this, I wondered? How can I work on this, and create a better experience? First, I realized that when we plan something new, even if it is good and exciting, our brains will want the old, too. I should have expected this, having a bit of knowledge of how brains work, but it snuck up on me anyway. When something new is happening, especially if it is not what we wanted to happen, we need to expect that our brain will feel discomfort. Our brains want to keep us safe, and in our brains, new and different might be dangerous. Now, you and I know that a different holiday celebration is not dangerous, but my brain doesn’t know that. It thinks that I might miss out on what we usually have. That the kids might be disappointed that there are less gifts and more experiences this year. That I will miss my family, and that missing them is not only bad, it is a danger. So let’s be on the lookout for this, and know that our brain is doing what all human brains do. Nothing is wrong with us, and it is ok to be a little unsure about a new plan! If this is all normal and expected, how can we work on it to increase our chances of that perfect white Christmas?

This year, it looks like allowing myself some grace that not everything has gotten done in my Type A personality timeline. The cards will still be well received even if it is January 1st. If things don’t get wrapped, they could for sure just go in gift bags, and the gifts will still be enjoyed equally. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. In fact, thinking it has to be perfect really saps so much of the joy out of “good”! Even though the tree isn’t as big, real and good smelling as it usually is, it is beautiful and decorated with love. Instead of telling myself that it was so sad that the big boys didn’t want to help decorate the tree, I spent the time cherishing that my youngest still wanted to, because someday he may not want to either. For sure, it means looking at the things we do, and asking exactly how they are meeting my expectations, instead of focusing on how they aren’t. When we went to an annual drive through light show that we always do, it meant reminding my kids that even though this year they weren’t selling the caramel corn, funnel cake and hot chocolate, we still got to do it. It still was fun, and time together with my parents, and festive. It means telling my brain that things are different during a pandemic, and a big gathering is not good for our health – even if we were home, we wouldn’t host the normal Christmas eve dinner. This is something that I need to lean in to the discomfort that it isn’t meeting the normal expectations. I remind myself that by next Christmas, we will all be vaccinated, and it will be better. It means when small things don’t meet your expectations, you look for how life is meeting them, and using those thoughts to drive good feelings.

I spoke with my awesome coaching group this week, who by the way, are part of my new holiday joy – seeing this group of women losing weight, and growing so quickly in how they think about their cancer journey is one of the biggest blessings of this holiday season for me. But we talked about how we improve the odds of having a holiday where reality and our expectations meet? This may be extremely unpopular with some of you listening, but I have 3 suggestions: Actually think about your expectations, and consciously choose to have ones that are realistic and likely. Look at what has happened in the past, and align your expectations to what reality has been in the past, and 3rd, if there is something you really want, that is not something that happened in the past, then you need to take the responsibility to make sure it actually happens, instead of hoping that someone else will read your mind and fulfill your dreams. Because what is the ONLY thing we truly have 100% control over? Our thoughts.

Ok my friends – I hope your holidays are full of love, joy, relaxation and memory making. If you are struggling with your thoughts about cancer, or are wanting to kick your new year off on the best foot possible, I am hosting a webinar on January 2nd with all of the information I give my patients of how to take control of their life to maximize their odds of cure. You can sign up on my website, Best Life After Cancer, or on my Facebook Page, Best Life After Cancer MD. Have a great holiday!