Single And How To Survive The Holidays

Thanksgiving celebrations are taking place for Americans and also as of today, November 25^th – it’s exactly one month until Christmas.  For many singles, especially for those of you that have recently come out of relationships, the ‘festive’ seasons can be the most difficult ones.

When your relationship is over, you just can’t see how you are going to get through the “happy holiday seasons.”  It all just feels too hard, it hurts and everything about the holidays just reminds you of a life that no longer exits.  All you can focus on is how the hell to get through it all in one piece.

I love Christmas now but I didn’t always feel that way. The first few Christmases after I divorced were difficult ones…for all of us – my ex, the children and myself.  Every holiday season just reminded me of the traditions that I had built up over the years – 20 years in fact – and now I was on my own.

When you first go solo through the holidays you associate everything about that holiday with your ex and with the traditions you had built up.  It’s even harder when you have children and now have to decide how you split the time you and your ex have with them.

I spoke with someone the other day who was talking about how certain places and songs reminded him of his ex and he couldn’t see how it was ever going to be different for him.  He had a shelf full of CD’s that he couldn’t play because they all reminded him of his recent past relationship.

It’s when the holidays hit – you see the decorations in the shops, you hear the music playing everywhere – that you suddenly get hit with the reality that things are different and they won’t be the same again.  And when it does hit, it can hit you pretty hard.  Depression rates over the festive seasons are higher because it is the time people who are lonely really feel the lonliness.

Surviving Or Thriving During The Holiday Season?

So what do you do?  Do you go year after year just struggling to get through another Thanksgiving, another Christmas or another New Year?  How do you get your feet out of the past and move forward into the future towards happiness?  Do you resovle to survive each year or do you want to thrive again?

For starters ask yourself this question: What are you telling yourself?

Think about your thought and your beliefs. Are you telling yourself that Christmas will never be the same, that it will never be happy and that you just have to get through?  If that is what you are telling yourself then that will be your experience.

You are right that Thanksgiving or Christmas won’t be the same, but that doesn’t mean that these holidays won’t be good or even better than they used to be.

The good news is that you change your experiences by telling yourself different stories, by understanding the simple psychological concept of conditioned responses and taking action to create new experiences:

• Tell yourself different stories – Acknowledge that things won’t be the same but that you can create even better traditions and memories. Stop telling yourself things will never be good again. Start focusing on the kinds of experiences you do want rather than on the past experiences you’ve had.
• Use the psychology of the mind about conditioned responses and make it work for you.  It’s simple really.  You experience an event which is paired with an emotional response – you listen to a certain song while wrapped in the arms of your lover. The brain pairs the event and the feeling, so each time the song is played you get that warm fuzzy feeling.
• Now use the knowledge of conditioned responses to deliberately create new positive experiences around the holidays.  Get creative. Do things you would never have done before. Do things you always wanted to do but couldn’t because of your partner.  Step outside of the box.

The choice really is yours – it’s not fate, and misery is not the inevitable. You can change your experiences.  Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time. You choose to ruminate about how awful things are and how lonely you feel or you choose to focus on how you will change your life for the good and you get out there and make it happen.

Your brain is very obedient and will do as it’s told.  If you tell it you will always be miserable during the holidays, it will obey and ensure that you are.  If you tell it that you are going to have fun, create new memories and new feelings, it will obey you and ensure to create new conditioned responses.

The holidays are now different for me. I love Christmas – the songs, decorating my house, the live tree that exudes its fragrance when I walk through the door, the candle-lit evenings, the windows with lights that switch on when it gets dark.  For me it all represents light in the darkness and it give me a warm, fuzzy, coz feeling.  Every year I visit my sister in Florida to bring in the new year.  My traditions now are different, but they are mine and I love them.

Thanks to the internet and all the social media there are so many ways to connect to like-minded people or people who are in a similar situation.  You just have to go for it!