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Unmet Expectations Could Lead to
Post-Holiday Slump

Says Houston Psychologist
Bill Crawford, Ph.D.

Many of us find ourselves feeling low after the holidays, and Houston psychologist Bill Crawford, Ph.D. says that's because we may be expecting too much from them. "Many of us look at the holidays as an escape from our everyday problems, such as the drudgery of our jobs, the commute, and/or problems in our family" Crawford says. "We expect this time of year to be perfect and give us the experience we had (or wanted to have) as a child, and when this doesn't happen, we can feel frustrated and resentful."

"When families come together during the holidays, they can fall back in to old patterns of conflict or misunderstanding, and this lack of harmony can further frustrate our desires to have this time of year be special" says Crawford. "Further, rather than lifting our mood, often the holidays only serve to remind us of what we have lost. Whether from death or divorce, rather than celebrating a time of wonder and good cheer, many families find themselves grieving a shattered dream."

Crawford suggests that we see this holiday stress not as the problem, but as part of the solution; similar to how we see the warning lights on the dashboard of our cars. He says: "Stress is a signal that something needs to change . . . Suffering is when we don't make the change!" Rather than suffering, we can see our reaction to the holidays for what it is, an old habitual response that isn't serving us. We then can begin to decide how we would like to respond, or how we would be feeling and/or behaving if we were responding to the holidays "on purpose" (or deliberately.) This way, rather than needing the holidays to be an escape, we can use this time of year to choose who we want to be and look for opportunities to practice being this person. "Who knows," says Crawford, "if we practice this more purposeful way of being enough, we might even be able to respond to life after the holidays in a way that "escape" is no longer necessary."