Christmas stress: Managing your inner critic

The festive season is culturally prescribed as a time for celebration and joy with loved ones. Yet sometimes this doesn’t stack up. Feelings of stress can begin to overwhelm us, allowing space for inner criticism to creep in. When our own inner Grinch arrives on the scene, self-sabotaging behaviour can follow. One of my clients recently described the Christmas season as ‘the madness’. So what exactly is going on?

Festive pressures can trigger our inner critic. Our inner critic is an internal dialogue that can impact us in one of three ways:

• Target self - Our inner critic beats us up repeatedly over our ghosts from Christmas past, current shortcomings, and future risks.
• Target others - Our inner critic focuses on what is wrong with others wrapped in their own Christmas spirit, or gets into inferior/superior comparisons.
• Target circumstances - Our inner critic generates feelings towards the circumstances around the festive season. Insisting that the whole deal is “bad” rather than seeing it as a gift and opportunity.

I caught my inner critic targeting me the moment the advent calendar arrived in the house before I’d even opened the first door! Once our inner critic has a hold, this can lead to sabotaging behaviour. The Positive Intelligence mindset training approach identifies nine different types of sabotaging behaviour.

Around this time of year, there are three that I’ve noted are common both personally and in coaching sessions with clients.

1. Pleasing

Whether it’s never-ending card/present buying or over-commitment to social events, pleasing sabotaging behaviour indirectly tries to gain acceptance and affection by helping, rescuing, or flattering others.

With increased exposure to people and occasions, some of us are more vulnerable than usual to this type of behaviour around the festive period. Our inner critic is triggered and in response, we put everyone else first. We lose sight of our own needs, which can leave us feeling exhausted or resentful as a result.

2. Avoiding

It might be the overwhelming to-do list or potentially difficult conversations regarding who is going where on the big day. Avoidant sabotaging behaviour focuses on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way, avoiding difficult, unpleasant tasks and conflicts.

The propensity to avoid can seriously increase around the festive period simply because there is often more on our table to handle (or to put on the table if you’re hosting Christmas dinner). By avoiding in the short term, we can generate a great deal of stress and conflict in our relationships in the longer term.

I recall one year saying ‘yes’ to a Christmas film Netflix binge, whilst leaving my present buying to the last minute. Needless to say, it was a chaotic last few days before Christmas that year.

3. Perfectionism

It might be that each decoration is perfectly positioned or that every minute of Christmas Day is run by a strict agenda. Sabotaging behaviour here seeks perfectionism, taking the requirement for organisation and coordination too far.

The impact of the behaviours is that they can often make us feel anxious and angered the moment something falls out of alignment…as it sometimes will.

So if any of this mentally comes online for us, how do we recover?

1. Challenge the inner critic

Name it - This might be saying the words ‘inner critic’ out loud or writing the word ‘critic’ down on a piece of paper. Both create a form of separation.
Pause - Take some deep breaths whilst paying attention to a sense. It might be a sound, looking at something in detail or the rise and fall of your stomach.
Redirect - Shift our mental dialogue back towards our inner leader. That part of ourselves that backs us and appreciates all our strengths.

2. Recover from pleasing

Triage your Christmas gift and card list. If giving a gift or card to a particular person feels more like a need than an authentic want, reach out to re-negotiate with this person to manage expectations.

If approached regarding helping with something Christmas-related, practise asking for space to reflect first and get back to them. In reflection, consider your needs as well as theirs before giving your response.

3. Recover from avoiding

List all the Christmas actions you are procrastinating on in order of importance and impact. Reach out to a friend or employ a coach to help you evaluate this list and hold you accountable for the task.

Begin with the action that is highest on the list that you are open to tackling now. Consider where you might be able to delegate to lighten the load.

4. Recover from perfectionism

Create two buckets for all your Christmas objectives:

• 80%: things where good enough is good enough.
• 20%: things where the highest possible quality really does matter.

It might be that this year your decorations are going to be spot on; however, your Christmas Day agenda is more fluid with space for adjustments along the way.

Given the Christmas demand, inner criticism and the desire for sabotaging behaviour are unsurprising. Furthermore, nature is directing us into our winter caves to hibernate and let go, whilst human culture is projecting quite the opposite, calling us out to social events and indirectly accumulating more in the form of presents.

Conflict can feel unavoidable.

To conclude, the art is not to prevent our inner critics and saboteurs but to accept they are coming to the party. Learn to live with them and find ways to recover from their effects more swiftly, so the inner criticism and resulting pleasing, avoiding, or perfectionism doesn’t need to burden us for weeks on end.

To this end, thankfully Christmas is a season…and seasons always change.