Rewriting Your Holiday Narrative: You're Not Stuck in a Miserable Holiday Tradition

Who ever said holidays are supposed to be stressful? This festive season, let's flip the script and ensure that your mental health is the star of the show--- and not the narcissist douchebag or toxic energy vampire you may have in your life. I'll arm you with strategies to deflect toxic environments, and even craft responses to dodge those dreaded gatherings. This isn't about dishonesty, it's about self-preservation. And remember, you're not obligated to attend an event if it feels like stepping into the line of fire. 

But don't worry, I'm not advocating for you to become a holiday hermit. In fact, I'm all about reimagining the season in a way that serves your wellness journey so you don't feel stuck in a less than merry situation. So, ditch the tinsel and hang on to your butt. You're about to have the hap-hap-happiest holiday season of your life!

Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If so, please leave a rating and review so we can spread the word to the women who need it the most. Below you'll find links to my website, social media, and resources for victims. If you believe you're in danger, please seek help immediately. There are people out there who want to help and who truly care. Myself included! You're worth so much more.
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's time to wake up witches. I'm your host, cat Adams, and I'm here to remind you that, no matter where you're at in life, you're not stuck. Welcome back to the show, ladies. Today I was going to talk about hey, this is your check-in on your manifesting. How are you doing? Are you getting ready for your New Year's new year's goals? Are you doing the meditations and the gratitude, what are you doing? But nope, that's not what the podcast is going to be about today, because the holidays are coming up and I was going to save this until later, but I think I need to say it now because I have been getting so many signs to talk about this, including in my whole life, and I need to take my own advice.

Speaker 1: 1:07

But yeah, holidays and stress and avoiding toxic people and this is a tough one. If you go back several episodes, you'll find the one that's like why narcissists have outbursts on holidays, yada, yada, yada. So if you are stuck in a toxic relationship, you already know you have to prepare for what's coming, because they're going to make it all about them and it's just going to end in a shitty day, and I can use my own personal experiences through that. But if you're not in a toxic relationship or a miserable marriage. Maybe you have family members that you just don't want to be around because they're toxic or they're miserable. They bring you down or they give you that doo doo energy, or they're energy vampires. And again, go back several episodes. I have one on dealing with energy vampires, but today I want to talk about how you get around this, these holiday get-togethers.

Speaker 1: 2:13

How do you navigate getting together with people who bring you down? And it is a very simple answer you just don't. You don't get together with them. There the end. This podcast is over, just kidding, but seriously, that's what you got to do and it ain't that easy. So that's why I'm preparing you well ahead of time, so you can start crafting your responses to these people who are asking you to get together with them. So, for instance, let's just start with crafting those responses. Guess what you don't even have to do, that you can think of something simple and non-confrontational to say to these people who are like oh, are you coming to the family, get together. Or you can just be honest. You can, you can even lie. I know everyone's like oh, don't lie. You can lie. Say you don't feel good, you're feeling sick. Oh my gosh, you have so much work to do. I can't. I'm sorry, I'm so busy. You know who the fuck cares if you're lying to toxic people to protect your mental health, who cares? Personally, I just straight up say nope, that sounds like a horrible time for my mental sanity. I will not be joining you. Seriously, I'm not even playing. I had to do that recently.

Speaker 1: 3:56

My family is putting together a family get together, and so a lot of you know I live in the deep South and I am the black sheep of the family. All my family likes to talk about at Get Together's is let's go, brandon Fox News and Jesus is coming back any minute. Oh, also people that are not our skin color and how they're creating all the problems in the world. Okay, and if you know me, I am exact opposite of that. I cannot stand being around that mentality. I just can't. It puts me in the biggest funk because I'm surrounded by it and I can't like. Even if I'm like hey, this is actually the facts, or like no, but you know Jesus says, or no, but you know it's because this person's brown, it's pretty horrible. I mean, I think it's pretty horrible. It's a common sense to me to think it's pretty horrible, but this is normal behavior for them.

Speaker 1: 5:06

And I have this mouth breathing cousin who has stopped like my TikTok and Instagram and like sends it to my dad because I don't know it pisses him off. I'm a liberal feminist, I guess I don't know. He's probably listening to those, hey dude, and he's constantly just like trying to pick at me with you know, but this, democrats, is the problem. Go figure, he works for our union, but he's super like extreme right wing. I don't wanna be around that for my holidays. Like no, and I know people. I know people, I'm gonna sing. These are family members who are also like super antigens, to the point where, like, they're strapping them all over their body and wearing like body armor just to go to Kroger because it's just, I don't know these. It's scary.

Speaker 1: 6:05

I am not like this y'all. I don't care how you feel about it. I am peace, love, light and kind of a lot of go fuck yourself, especially during the holiday season and when my dad was like hey, do you want to? You know, I know you don't want to and I'll tell everybody not to talk politics, but I really like it if you were here for this holiday and I said, yeah, no, for my mental health, no, that sounds terrible, I love you, but no, just no.

Speaker 1: 6:36

And if you're not comfortable with saying that, you can come up with excuses, you can lie, but you have to have those answers prepared well ahead of time. So, once the opportunity arises, you already have your ammo and you're like, I know, guns ammo that's a bad analogy but you already have your reasons as to why you're not going to put yourself in the line of fire. And if you feel like, when you go to these events and be around these people, that you are putting yourself in a line of fire, that's a red flag. You don't have to do that. You truly do not have to do that, even if you think like, oh well, you know, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You need to put yourself first, in your feelings first.

Speaker 1: 7:33

And I've been on the receiving end of someone telling me they can't attend an event because they're mental health, they don't want to be around people. And I'll just go ahead and say it was my mom. My mom did not come to my second wedding my wedding I just had last year because she don't want to be around that side of my family either. Oh goodness gracious, I'm getting teams of messages on a Sunday, guess what. No, thank you, I'm not even open. Hi, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my mom didn't want to be around people that were going to be there and so she didn't even come to my wedding and that hurt me. But but I get it. I can't be the same and then like be hurt over. I can't. You can be hurt over someone not being able to do something for you like that. That's that special for you. But you also need to have the knowledge and the wisdom of that decision, why it was made. You know my mom was obviously putting her mental health first and that's what you have to do.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Even if it seems ruthless, even if it seems like you know you're going to hurt somebody's feelings, it's better than getting your feelings hurt in these situations, because I know how toxic this shit can be. It's why there's like a whole you know meme and what is it called the Christmas vacation type the Griswold? Why there's a whole like niche revolving around these shitty family get-togethers. That's so funny, you know, but a lot of the times for some people it's not funny, it's just it's toxic. And you ain't got time for that? Because right now you are working on self growth, manifesting gratitude and all these wonderful things that are going to get you out of your miserable life. And guess, what is not going to get you there is being around miserable people. So that should be goal number one this holiday season.

Speaker 1: 9:57

If you're being invited to stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm dreading it, I'm dreading it, I'm dreading it, and you got anxiety and you're like I just can't, I don't want to do it, don't fucking do it, don't fucking do it, you don't have to do it. And that goes the same with, also Christmas stuff like buying people presents. All right, oh my gosh, everybody and their mom is hurting right now because a bag of chips is like $6 and 50 cents. Your kid's teacher is not going to lose sleep If you don't get her a number one teacher mug filled with candy this year for Christmas. You don't have to keep buying shit for people, especially people you don't care about. Oh, here's another one. You don't have to keep buying shit for yourself to impress people you don't care about.

Speaker 1: 10:45

This seems like a thing, especially around the holidays, which is why I'm bringing up, because I used to be one of those people, oh my gosh y'all. I used to stress out over the holidays so much, not only because I felt like I had to join in this toxic atmosphere to show face, but I also felt like I had to take care of everybody and I had to do these traditional Christmas things and I had to buy everybody something because I wanted them to know hey, I'm thinking of you. That's what we do in this materialistic American culture. I used to buy neighbors things, teachers things, my mother-in-law at the time and great grandma on my exercise and cousins and, oh my gosh, everyone in their baby Daddy. I was having to buy stuff for Christmas for and I realized why am I doing it? Why am I doing it? And there's a couple of reasons why we do this.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Mine was because I learned this in therapy, by the way, because apparently I was trying to win people over and buy their love and buy their friendship and loyalty and things like that, which was like, oh my gosh. I guess at the time that was so spot on because I was in my abusive marriage and I was having some issues in some of my friendships. I said I thought we're friendships that weren't friendships. And I realized once I made that realization like why am I doing all these things for people, and especially people don't even care about? I stopped doing all those things and guess what happened? Nothing, except I was relieved and I had more money in my pocket. That's it. The world did not fall apart when I did not buy my neighbor something for Christmas. The world did not fall apart when I didn't send my mother-in-law who didn't even deserve anything at town, by the way, I didn't send her a box of goodies and nothing happened, like it was great.

Speaker 1: 13:05

I tried that one year and I was like I am only getting my daughter and my husband, my mom and dad, something, not even my sister, I think I sent my nephew some money, but we've now agreed like oh, we're just too old to that. We're not gonna exchange presents that way. And plus, other people actually wanna do this too. Other people would love for you to say please seriously, don't get me anything. Spend your money on yourself and your family. Especially with the way prices are these days, it's okay.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Like stop doing this stuff for other people. Stop putting yourself in the line of fire, stop putting yourself under Halle stress. Stop thinking oh my gosh, I have to bake cookies with my kid because it's a holiday tradition. Oh my gosh, I have to fucking make a turkey and I don't even know how and I don't even. I have to get all this stuff. That's super expensive and I have to buy these serving dishes from sir-la table and I have to have everything perfect to entertain people. I can't stand. No, you don't, you really don't. So I stopped buying for people and it was amazing.

Speaker 1: 14:20

I stopped going to toxic family get-togethers that I knew were not gonna be in my best interest. It felt amazing and you know what I did. Instead, I did whatever the fuck I wanted. Seriously, I did whatever the fuck I wanted and it was glorious. It is amazing feeling. It is a sense of freedom.

Speaker 1: 14:49

I do not dread the holidays like, ah, y'all I hated the holidays and this is gonna hit home for a lot of you, a lot of you listening, especially if you're in a miserable marriage. Y'all have this need to put on a perfect family face right Like perfect Christmas family on the holiday card. You don't want anyone to know what's happening behind closed doors. You don't want anyone to know what's happening in your head, how you're just miserable. Maybe you're in an abusive relationship. You have to keep this facade about you happy, perfect family and you don't want anyone to know the truth. Because many different reasons. One is it's you feel ashamed, and so you carry on these traditions and you put on your fake smile and you paint this illusion of this perfect, happy family.

Speaker 1: 15:48

And you go to these get-togethers. Because God forbid, you send your narcissist-asked husband to these get-togethers without you because, make no mistake, he will go, because they like to be the center of attention. Right, they are usually very extroverted and it need to be life of the party. Everyone sees them. He has to make it all about him and if you're not there by his side, then they're gonna think oh, where is wifey? Oh, what's going on? Are they having problems? Ooh, what's the juicy gossip? And you know what? You gotta not give a fuck about that. You gotta say I don't give a shit, I don't care. Like, let go of. Oh, we have this perfect life and I need to show everyone we have this perfect life. I need to show everyone my highlight reels on Instagram and not like the dirty dishes off to the side. They just need to see this beautiful dinner I created and not my dirty sink. And I don't know if you got that analogy but I've been cooking a lot lately, so that's what came to mind Like you can't care about that because that's not going to serve you in the long run and get you to where you need to go. So you have to just accept that this is the way things are. And if you don't want to get together and go these places and you're married and your husband wants to go, let him go. Let him go alone and do your own thing.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Stop caring about what people are gonna think if you put you in your mental health first. You have to let go of that. You can't control what people think about you. You gotta just stop caring and go about your business, create new traditions.

Speaker 1: 17:36

So now you have this plan of what reasons you're going to give for not participating or if you're gonna lie and go for it If that makes you more comfortable. You're not comfortable straight up saying you know I'm not doing this, or you do have an abusive husband and you can't straight up say like fuck you, motherfucker, I don't wanna be around you and you're an asshole, so that's why I'm not going, although you know I have been known to say that to my ex probably not the brightest and smartest idea. But lie, lie. And if you're like I don't wanna lie, lying's bad Dude, if you're lying to like a narcissist, toxic person, someone who might even be dangerous, like it's okay. It's okay to have to lie to protect yourself in situations where you know you have to put yourself first and your kids first, which is bringing me to like you don't have to do traditional stuff. So now you have your reasons and you can tell them. You know I'm not doing it because of this, I'm not doing it because of that, whatever. Fine, wow, take a deep breath. You just passed the hardest part saying no, choosing yourself. That's the hardest part. And now what are you gonna do with all that time? What are you gonna do with a time that used to feel wrapping 25 presents for people you don't even care about or building yourself up? So you don't have the anxiety when someone asked you who were you voting for this year, like. You have time now to create the holiday magic that you won't, and it does not have to look anything like a traditional holiday situation, atmosphere, whatever. It can be anything you want. Let me tell you what I do and let me give you some ideas.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Growing up I came from a broken home so my parents were split. Christmas was never traditional like, oh, baking cookies and everybody happy holiday cards, yada, yada, yada. So I wanted that for forever and for years I tried to force it. Even though I was in these horrible situations where it just was not gonna happen, I still tried to recreate that for my daughter. So we still did like very traditional Christmas Eve stuff that we used to do, like we make lasagna, we make cookies, we go dress in pajamas and, you know, go around and look at Christmas lights, things like that. And I'm a Clark, or I was a Clark Griswald. I wanted everyone to have the hap-happ, happiest damn Christmas and I tried to force it, even though I don't think I truly wanted that. I think I just wanted everyone to be happy. I didn't want, like I didn't need, the traditional stuff, so I just wanted happiness, peace, stability, especially going through the situation I went through with my ex, every holiday was a nightmare. So I created my own stuff and I do now.

Speaker 1: 20:58

We don't do the whole oh my gosh, stressful Christmas Eve dinner. We have to make a million things, we go to goldabellycom and we have flown in whatever the hell we want. Lately it's been the past two Christmases We've gotten crab, because we love like crab and shrimp, so we've gotten crab flown in. They have cakes. We're like, oh, you want to eat a feast from New Orleans, or you want to eat a feast from New York? You want to get some New York pieces and we'll have something special flown in. Cause, if you don't know what gold belly is and I know I've mentioned it before it's where you can just order like food from around the US and they'll pack it up, you know, frozen, and have it to you in like a day or two and it's freaking amazing. So I'm like, oh, I don't have to do a stressful meal anymore, we'll just order something.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Now our tradition recently changed to we used to, you know, do the holiday meal and we're doing that, by the way, for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, like we love it so much that we don't do a Thanksgiving dinner or we didn't do turkey and all that stuff. We're just like let's relax, spend time together, do whatever you know we won't and not put ourselves in toxic situations and order whatever the hell we want and don't even have to cook it, just warm that shit up. It's been a game changer. So we create a lot of new traditions. Another thing that I did with my daughter and I didn't get to do it last year, but one thing that I did with just her is we started going to have tea downtown at the Peabody. So we have a fancy hotel called the Peabody. It's just like an old historic hotel and they have high tea there, and so we started dressing up and doing that around the holidays because it's all decorated and it's pretty and that's just one of our little traditions we created to do that. So I'm not in the kitchen baking cookies, because that's usually a disaster and I thought that's what I wanted, but instead I get to sip champagne and tea in a fancy hotel and it costs about the same as all the ingredients for a freaking cookies and plus my time in stress level, it works out the same. So create new traditions, like I love that.

Speaker 1: 23:25

What we're doing now, instead of the whole exchanging gifts thing, is my daughter's old enough now to where Christmas isn't as big of a deal as it used to be with like Santa and stuff. So now we're starting to take trips, we're booking vacations and I saw one time I think it was a TikTok where it was a couple and they were like you know, my husband and I don't exchange gifts for Christmas. What we actually do is we sit down Christmas night and we plan a getaway for just the two of us and we book it. And I was like, oh, that's genius. That's just a freaking genius, because for years I've been like I don't want to deal with the holiday stress, I just want to go to like a tropical island or I want to go somewhere where it's snowy and beautiful, like Leavenworth Washington. I've been trying to get there forever. It's still on the bucket list and this year I have chosen to do that. We have come to the agreement that this is the first year we're going to try it and we're all excited about it. So we will be going to New York for the holiday season and I freaking can't wait, because I've never been there and I turned 40 and I was like to hell with 40 in Tennessee. I'm not going to be turning 40 years old in Tennessee. So we're celebrating holidays, birthdays and an anniversary in New York City Instead of doing the same, all this exchange presents and yada, yada, yada, whatever.

Speaker 1: 25:00

So create yourself some new traditions. It does not have to look like you think it is. It does not have to look like what your family used to do. You don't have to copy paste that. Come up with your own shit. Another thing and also travel, by the way, travel I highly recommend it, even if it's just somewhere like a quick you know, one night or a weekend, get away, that's nearby. Get out of your house and go do something.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Another thing that I really like to do is volunteer. Spending your time with less fortunate people is extremely fulfilling, and that ticks off like the gratitude thing for Thanksgiving, right, and the gratitude thing that you're supposed to be doing anyways. Take some time to volunteer and just help someone out. Even if it's just collecting toys for some kind of toy drive or something for a food bank or stuff for animal shelters, you can do that. And so spend time with your toxic neighbors who you can't stand. Oh my gosh, that's a game changer. Go do something for people that need it. Spend that time not just on self-care and you, but on giving back, and it makes you feel, hey, all a lot better. I would much rather be getting food together for a homeless shelter than sitting around a table talking about politics and having family members say let's go, brandon. Oh my gosh, y'all just try it.

Speaker 1: 26:30

I'm giving you these ideas and let me tell you they are game changers because I have applied them in my own life over the last several years and I no longer don't look forward to the holidays. So you have all this time on your hands now, because you're not going to put yourself in the line of fire and I've given you ideas of what to do. But, most of all, keep in mind front and center like use this time for self growth. Use this time to even plan what you want to do next year. Use it to reflect, reassess where you at in your manifest journey, or even do the manifest journey. If not, I highly recommend you go back and you find that first episode about manifesting and give it a try. Read some books, do something you've always wanted to do and you keep putting off.

Speaker 1: 27:14

Keep busy. That's a distraction. If you need a distraction although I'm more like I just want to sit still for a little bit and just be in the present moment, which is something I struggle with being in the present moment but if that's not, you then keep active, stay active, distract yourself. Go for a walk, go for a hike, do something. Just don't put yourself in a situation that's going to bring you down and set you back, because you are not going to grow that way.

Speaker 1: 27:45

Yes, you have to get outside of your comfort zone to grow, but that doesn't mean you have to put yourself in shitty situations where that dark do-do energy to grow it means getting outside of your comfort zone, changing some things that have been routine in your life, like traditional holiday get-togethers and gatherings and traditional holiday stress and duties like buying everyone and their mom things. Stop, just stop. Cut out all the noise. Reassess. What do you truly want? What do you want to accomplish in the next year? Set yourself up right now, today, to start that, because the you who's going to be out of these miserable situations is not going to be the you who's like oh, I guess I have to go to this family, get together, even though it's super stressful, because I need a show face and this person wants me to be there and I don't want to hurt their feelings. No, the you that you're going to be in the future is like fuck that shit. I'm booking a vacation to I don't know Puerto Rico forever and I am going to have fun or I am going to sit my ass down and watch holiday romance movies back to back and order some New York pizza from Gold Belly because that's my new tradition.

Speaker 1: 28:59

Whatever you want, you create the holiday magic. You make that happen and don't think, well, my kids might miss, you know, baking cookies, or my kids might miss this, or my kids might miss that. Ask them they probably won't, they probably won't to be involved in new traditions. Ask them what they want to do. Ask them, if they want to order what they want to order from Gold Belly, pick up a. Let them pick out a cake, or let them pick out a dessert, or let them pick out a new tradition. Let them pick out. I don't know if I could go so far as saying let them pick out travel, because they're going to want to go to Disney, but let them be involved in crafting these new traditions, because we don't have to follow the same cycle, because sometimes that cycle is toxic and it's not good for us. So break that cycle and make new cycles and new traditions and learn to love the holidays, because you make the holidays. However you want them to be, you choose how you want to craft your magic during this season? Do you want to be brought down or do you want to start a new life, a new chapter, and be well on your way to a new you, so you no longer feel stuck?

Speaker 1: 30:29

Thank you so much for listening. If you love the show, please leave a rating, a review, and if you know anyone who also might love the show or who could benefit from this information, please be sure to share it and subscribe. The more we get this out to people, the more people we can help, and I truly believe there's so many women who need to hear these words because so many women are feeling stuck. Also, if you're looking for me, you can usually find me on the ground at author Cat Adams, and be sure to head over to my website, and that's catadamsadamswitha-double-d'scom. Subscribe to my newsletter for the latest information. Also, when you subscribe, you're going to get free novella. And just be forewarned, my Aranche Romcom is as dirty as my mouth. So if that's your thing, go for it. It's super hilarious. But thank you again for tuning in. Until next time, please stay safe and I'll see you on the other side.