holidays Archives - The Powerful Woman

Giving Your Inner Child a Holiday Present in 7 Easy Steps

If this holiday season is like most for you, it probably involves running around taking care of everyone else but yourself. This may involve you feeling the pressure to send a card to everyone you know with a personalized note, even if you have forgotten their birthday; buying gifts for the key members of your that indicate how much you value them, even if they have been awful to you all year; hosting a series of dinner or parties where everything is cooked and baked by you, even if pizza and takeout are regularly featured in your weekly dinners.

Sound familiar?

Holidays and Your Inner Child

The reason why you feel you must plug the emotional gaps for those you know and those who you care about may have more to do with early messages in childhood where what was prized, and perhaps modeled, was taking care of everyone else before you take care of yourself. These messages, instructions, rules to live by are stored within us in what I’ll call your inner child, the remembered part of your childhood that can take over, guiding your actions, particularly in emotionally fraught times like Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve.

No, I’m not going to say stick it to everything that is planned and is expected of you, and then change everything at literally the last moment (even thought that may not be a bad idea). But I will show you how you can soothe and moderate these expectations by taking care of yourself.

Sound impossible?

Use Your Senses to Center Yourself

You are a human being with feelings and senses. Yes, you’re busy, but you can use your senses to help slow yourself down and help you feel more in control. Also called mindfulness, this paying attention to your senses can help soothe you and center you. And who knows, It may even make you more productive.

Try these seven simple tips:

Feel the bubbles made by the dish soap in the endless washing up you will be doing. Play with them, enjoy their smoothness and sense of play.
See the clouds scudding in the sky, the moon winking at you, the trees moving in the breeze. Take a deep breath as you walk, or run, through your day, and appreciate the beauty before you.
Smell and savor the delicious aromas of the cakes and cookies you are baking, or the roast you have seasoned.
Sense the warmth of the sun, or the tingle of snowflakes, or the crystal clearness of raindrops as you hurry through your shopping.
Say positive things to yourself:

These bubbles are fun.
I love my own cooking.
I deserve to see this beauty.
I’m doing well here.
This looks great.
I love the smell of the air just before it snows.

Own the power you have to bring joy to others by seeing and allowing yourself to “take in” the delight on the faces of those you love.
Note the rewards you want to give yourself:

Like the bubbles? How about a bubble bath on a regular basis?
Like noticing what you’re doing well? Consider writing your own personal daily affirmations. Yes, take the ten seconds it will require to do this regularly—you’re worth it.

My suggestions will take only seconds and not delay you in any task, but they will make whatever you are doing more enjoyable by making space for you, your needs, while you are being so productive in taking care of everyone else.

Know that when you create even these thin slivers, these tiny moments where you are in touch with yourself, you are feeding your inner child by recognizing your needs and your wants, a skill that may not have been taught to you as a child.

Making Changes—Developing Resilience

We can all learn from out stressful experiences. When we do this, it’s called resilience. Want to be resilient in the New Year? Then, consider changing a few things:

Play with pairing down the list of what you are pushing yourself to do. Want to experiment this holiday season?
- For example, consider sending out a Valentine’s card, with a letter that goes to those you care about. Or better yet, send out an email blast for St. Patrick’s Day with an update on you and yours. Not only will you have more time and energy in the coming months than you do now, but think how special your recipients will feel to be remembered when it isn’t Christmas or their birthday.

Make simple changes. They will be the easiest to do and will be more likely to stick.
- Take two golden minutes for yourself as you begin and end your day. Enjoy your coffee or tea as you gaze out the window. Do some gentle neck rolls, set an intention of something you’d like to do for you today, like take the stairs instead of the elevator, or pack some grapes or an apple for a snack at work.

Write a good New Year’s resolution. Feel you can’t change course midstream, and want to wait for a really good New Year’s resolution? Take notes on all the things you’d like to do differently next year. Yes, literally write them down in your journal.
- For example, make next Christmas’s dinner a family potluck where you’re only making the turkey or other main course. Collect these ideas for the next eleven months and you’ll set yourself up for a less stress-filled and more balanced holiday celebration next year.

Write and let me know how you took care of yourself …

Wishing you a more peaceful holiday season.

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, is a speaker, a consulting psychologist in upstate New York, and the author of nine books, including The Girly Thoughts 10 Day Detox Plan and The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power: 12 Steps to Self-Parenting. She is a regular blogger at The Powerful Woman. Learn more at patriciaogorman.com.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

5 Girly Thoughts™ that Increase Your Holiday Stress

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14) – a fun book about a serious topic

The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

It’s almost the happy holiday season, and you’re already feeling the pressure. If you’re like most of us, you’re already hearing that inner voice that pushes you to do more, reminding you that it is up to you to make this a holiday season to remember while telling you that no matter what you’re doing, it is not enough.

How Your Girly Thoughts Turn Up the Holiday Pressure

I’ve named this toxic, negative self-talk your girly thoughts. Girly thoughts function as an internal gauge of perfection against which you measure yourself, and guess what? You find yourself falling short from where you feel you should be.

Here is what your girly thoughts are telling you and what you can do about them:

1. Everyone I know needs a card and a personal note from me. Let’s face it: in this day of digital communication, a handwritten note is a lovely indication of your caring. But having a self-expectation of sending a handwritten note to everyone you know when you now clearly do not send out notes regularly?

Consider writing a lovely email letter and sending this out instead.

2. I need to make home-cooked, memorable meals. The belief that every meal needs to be a masterpiece gets in the way of actually enjoying the meal. If you don’t enjoy it, neither will anyone else.

Instead, tell yourself: I need to make meals I will enjoy. Consider:
• Serving some ready-made foods
• Saying yes when guests ask if they can bring something
• Preparing simpler recipes

3. I must look fabulous. The pressure to look good is always with us; in fact, “I’m fat” is girly thought #1. Time to detox!

Change this to: I need to feel comfortable. Too tired after a day of working and an evening of cooking to wear those heels to the party? Ditch them.

4. I must attend every holiday event, concert, and party. Yes, this is the season of making merry, but that means you want to feel merry as well.

Consider setting reasonable limits on what you will and will not do. Notice the emphasis is not on what you can do but what you will do.

5. I must find the perfect gift that says I love them. Ah, the perfect gift. No pressure here.

Change this to acknowledging each recipient’s specialness, and stay tuned for a blog on gift giving.

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Give Yourself a Gift for the Holidays—Detox from Your Girly Thoughts

Girly thoughts act like a conduit through which all your discomfort, all the stresses of your life, are filtered, and the holidays just magnify that discomfort.

So this holiday season, give yourself a great gift: stop listening to that negative, toxic voice that tells you what you should do and instead look for ways to reduce your stress so you can experience all the joy of the season.

A Precious Gift for You, for The Holidays: Connecting to YOU!

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD,
author of: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (HCI, 2013)

Order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

and coming in 2014

Out Your Girls Thoughts and Embrace Your Strength workbook

We all love receiving presents. They are tokens of friendship: the cookies you bake and give to neighbors; tokens of caring, such as the book of poetry you give to your boyfriend. In some ways, presents signify our worthiness, as in being the worthy recipient of gifts from others: the locket your husband gives you, the potholder made for you with love by your granddaughter, the camisole given shyly by your partner. Sometimes gifts are even necessary, such as the money you may give your children.

Gifts connect us to others

Giving and receiving gifts are ways we connect with others, from the packet of family recipes you receive from your mother to the oil change your daughter gives you for your car. Gifts connect us to each other by saying, “I know you; we belong together; I care; I see what you need; your needs are important to me; you are valued.” And we all need connection.

Gifts are fun

Not to mention that gifts are fun—the festive, maybe even inventive, wrappings and bows and the thoughts behind them; the understanding that someone cares enough to think about what you may like, may need, what will make you feel special. Yes, there is an element of caring, even love, in every gift you receive.

Gifts can connect us to ourselves

And in this season of giving, hopefully you have you on your own list, giving something to yourself that you may want and may even need.

There are some things only we can give ourselves.

You may decide to make sure you receive exactly what you want and give yourself presents that are material, tangible reminders that you do care for yourself, that you value yourself, even if they require that you make sacrifices, well, for yourself.

Your self-gifting might include splurging to buy those jeans in the right cut and color, those earrings with just the perfect bling, that lipstick and nail polish that match just so, but these aren’t the only things you can give yourself.

You can also give yourself intangible gifts, such as relief from those thoughts and feelings that disconnect you from yourself, thoughts for which you pay a high price, thoughts that weigh you down and cause you to doubt yourself (or worse, hate yourself).

Give yourself the gift of releasing your girly thoughts.

Gifting yourself through connecting . . . to you:

This is a time of year to begin to envision what your life would be like without your girly thoughts, those thoughts that demand you act within a very narrow band of acceptable looks and acceptable behavior, and promise dire consequences when you do not. A special gift to give yourself is to play with the possibilities of how wonderful your life can be when you free yourself from needing to be someone you are not.

Try these simple steps:

Begin to play with the possibilities . . .

Stay in touch with how you feel, not just with what you need to do. Listen to your inner voice. I know that what you need to do voice is the louder voice, especially now, but experiment with turning up the volume on your feeling voice.
Make a note on your phone or your computer, even on a piece of paper, about your feelings, and if you have time, about what you like and what you don’t.
Experiment with sharing how you feel with someone you trust, at least once, maybe even twice.

It’s easy to tell yourself “I don’t have time,” but you’re making time to read this, aren’t you? Guaranteed you have another five minutes in your day, somewhere, and giving yourself this time can be a gift in and of itself. And just imagine for a moment how much more connected to you will feel to you!

Now that’s some gift!

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Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Saranac Lake, New York, is noted for her work on women, trauma, and substance abuse and for her warm, inspiring, and funny presentations that make complex issues accessible and fun. She has served as a consultant to organizations in preventative and clinical strategic planning. Dr. O’Gorman is a cofounder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA), and she has held positions ranging from clinical director of a child welfare agency to interim director of a crime victims organization to director of the division of prevention for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Learn more at http://patriciaogorman.com

Five Holiday Gifts for Your Daughter as You Teach Her to Challenge Her Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD,
author of: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (HCI, 2013)

Order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

What Are Girly Thoughts?
Your daughter is a girl, so isn’t she supposed to be thinking thoughts like a girl? Yes, but not these thoughts. Girly thoughts are the subtle conditioning that begins in girlhood and continues throughout life that results in women feeling less than. These are the thoughts that tell us how we should look and also pressure us with how we should act—well, like a girl, and not just any girl, but a popular girl.

Help Her Own Her Skills
So what’s your role as a mother who may be struggling with her own girly thoughts?

First and foremost, you want to help your daughter build her resilience consciously. Yes, even at a young age, your daughter is mastering a series of negative circumstances in life and is developing skills for dealing with them, skills that form the basis for how she will approach other challenges as she matures.

The trick for her is to own that she knows how to:

talk to a mean girl
study for a quiz
ask for what she wants/needs from you
handle her younger sibling’s tantrums
forge her own identity when she’s compared to an older sibling

. . . and the list goes on.

Yes, your daughter already has many skills. The trick is for her to consciously use them, for her conscious use of her skills will allow her skills to become part of her identity.

Consciously Using Her Resilience
The skill set we develop when we deal with difficult circumstances is called our resilience. And while we all have resilience, women often do not consciously walk around thinking of themselves as resilient because for many, this feels unfeminine or even unattractive. This notion that women cannot appear too resilient or too strong begins early.

Tips for Teaching Your Daughter Conscious Resilience
Since you are her greatest teacher, you need to model resilience for her. This means you need to own and consciously use your own resilience in your own life.

So take a moment and think about just what it is that you do. Then find moments to share your insights with her and point out the skills that you use to deal with difficult circumstances. How to do this? Start by saying out loud, “I managed this busy day by deep breathing,” or “I make a list and promising myself a reward when I’ve completed it,” or whatever it is you have done, and then:

share with her the skills you use throughout the day.
name the skills that you see her using in her own life.
point out the silliness of the ads in magazines, on TV, and in the movies that show photoshopped girls doing amazing things that are not real.
speak to her about her real life heroines (perhaps her grandmother, aunt, teacher, or even a classmate), women she knows who are struggling with a major challenge. Point out the skills they are using.
make a list of the skills she uses each day, and hang it on the refrigerator or her closet door.

Help her see herself as someone who is learning how to navigate life’s challenges by using her resilience. This is a sure way to help her be less influenced by the media’s peddling of their collective notion of who she should be and help her kick those girly thoughts to the curb.

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And please know that I’ll never sell, share, or rent your contact information—that’s a promise!

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Albany, and Saranac Lake, New York, is noted for her work on women, trauma, and substance abuse and for her warm, inspiring, and funny presentations that make complex issues accessible and even fun. She has served as a consultant to organizations in preventative and clinical strategic planning including Lifescape Solutions in Delray Beach, Florida. Dr. O’Gorman is a cofounder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, and she has held positions ranging from clinical director of a child welfare agency to interim director of a crime victims organization to director of the division of prevention for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Learn more at http://patriciaogorman.com

Using Your Resilience When the Holidays Threaten to Be Not So Happy

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD,
author of: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (HCI, 2013)

Order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

It’s the holidays . . . so be happy

Isn’t that what all the songs, the stories, the TV specials tell us? Happy is even the first or second sentiment of all of the messages we receive on everything from our postage stamps to the music in elevators: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Eid Greetings, Happy New Year.

The message is clear—have fun. There is such hype about feeling good, giving gifts, and, of course, receiving gifts. But the happiness is all very idealized.

We see holiday perfection depicted over and over again wherever we look. Family gatherings are portrayed as loving; members are connected, respectful, and understanding. Meals looking delicious, and we can almost smell them through the pages of our favorite magazines. And we all want to enjoy those we love; but that’s not always how it works, particularly in some families—like my family of origin, and maybe yours.

. . . except for those other families

Yes, this is what we all want, but for some families, these times are less than happy. Family alcoholism, divorce, job loss, or death of a loved one all create stress that seems out-of-place during these idealized joyful times, making them somehow even more painful.

So what can you do? Yes, you can get super-stressed, very depressed, and just get through it. Or you can use your resilience to actually enjoy the holidays. In fact, the holidays can even help you develop conscious resilience, as they certainly give you enough adverse circumstances to bump up against! But you can make choices to do something about them.

What you can do . . .

1. Actively love your inner child. You deserve no less.

Hold the hand of your inner child, the part of you that remembers and feels the memories and the feelings of the past.
Find time to be with this part of who you are, whether this means:
- finding time to have a good cry, or
- looking at those cute baby pictures and appreciate how that adorable child is still alive within you.

2. Set helpful limits (for more information on this, read the second step in my newest book, The Resilient Woman) to actively care for yourself during this time:

Get enough sleep.
Don’t overindulge with alcohol.
Allow yourself some treats, but don’t feel you need to jump into the dessert table with both hands, and God forbid, both feet.
Say “no” as a complete sentence when asked to do something that is not right for you.
Say “yes” to doing something you want to do, even if it is not part of your family tradition.

3. Create new traditions that make more sense to the adult you are now:

Buy yourself a present instead of being stressed about not getting what you really want.
Take the pressure off. Tell yourself you don’t need to:
- make the perfect meal, or
- send out cards to everyone you know, or
- have the perfect tree.
Get other family members involved:
- ask family and friends to not bring alcohol to your family gathering, or
- ask everyone to bring a dish instead of trying to make all the food yourself, or
- decide when to spend quiet time with those you love, rather than feeling you need to say “yes” to all invitations.

What does this all add up to? Giving yourself permission to try some new behaviors by putting your resilience into action.

Challenge those girly thoughts that tell you to please others, and try to take care of yourself. Now that’s a real gift!

For more tips on dealing with the holidays if you come from a family that had those painful struggles (particularly over the holidays, like the tree being thrown out the window), listen to Dan and I speak about my book, 12 Steps to Self-Parenting on Beyond50Radio.com, a radio show for baby boomers …12.6 @ 3pm ET. To join our live conversation call — (724) 444-7444. Dial 59781# when asked for talk show ID. Or listen to it online.

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