Holiday Stress Quiz: What Will Your Holiday Be Like?

Holiday Stress Quiz from FLO Living!

Choose the answer in the holiday stress quiz that most applies to you, A, B, or C. Write down your answers.

1. When you think of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, etc., your gut reaction is:

---A. Dread and discouragement—holidays are never as much fun as they should be.

---B. Worry about stress and busyness, but looking forward to some fun times with family and friends.---C. Relaxed and amused—everyone else gets crazy at the holidays, but that doesn’t mean I have to!

2. When it comes to attending holiday parties and networking events, you:

---A. Say Yes to every event and after-party. You try to be "good" with your eating habits beforehand which results in not eating enough and then bingeing on food and/or alcohol at the parties.---B. Attend most of the events and try to avoid drinking too much or over-indulging on sweets, but find your willpower slipping.---C. Only choose the events that you really will enjoy and want to go to. You also know how to strategize your meals earlier in the day so that by the time the party comes, you're able to make healthy choices that feel good in your body.

3. Financially this year has been tight for you. At the holidays each family member spends $60 on you, and you do the same for each of them. This year you decide to:

---A. Open a new credit card account and go into debt in order to buy each person the gift they expect from you.---B. Talk to your family members, explaining your financial situation, apologizing for not being able to spend as much as usual, and asking them not to spend on you.---C. Show up on the day with a tin of homemade cookies for each person and a card telling them how much you love them.

4. Your December calendar: the dreaded office party, six other holiday parties, gift shopping, the big year-end report for your boss, and frantic hours at the gym so you can fit into your New Year’s Eve dress. Your strategy:

---A. Rush around and get through it like you do every year. At least the parties provide sugar and alcohol to keep you going, and you can crash in January when it’s all over.---B. Cut back on your activities so you won’t be as tired as usual. You get your boss to extend your deadlines, replace half the parties with restful evenings at home, and use exercise time to manage, not create, stress.---C. Decide that stress is no fun. You hire a temp to work late for you, skip all the parties except one with your close friends, do your shopping online, and replace gym hours with bubble baths, sleep, and love-making.

5. Your lover has just hatched a plan to whisk you away to a Caribbean island for the holiday weekend. You:

---A. Decline the invitation. You always spend the holiday with your family—your mother needs help with the dinner and everyone will be offended if you don’t go see them.---B. Call your mother and siblings to talk it over. If everyone else is cool with you going, you’ll take the trip.---C. Call your mother to tell her the good news and start bikini shopping online!

6. For once you are not hosting the big family dinner, and you are looking forward to relaxing the day before the holiday. Your sister is hosting, and she calls to ask you to make all the desserts, buy the wine, and come early to help her set up. You:

---A. Do as she asks.

---B. Do as she asks, after asking Uncle Willy to pick up the wine, and after letting sis know that she’ll have to find someone else to help next year.---C. Promise to bring your favorite chocolate brownies, suggest several other relatives she could ask for help, and tell her you are taking this year off.

7. You and your mother are in the kitchen chatting and chopping vegetables for the family meal. She makes an unnecessary comment about your weight/your marriage/your children. You stop chopping and:

---A. Your eyes well up with tears of anger and frustration. It’s supposed to be a nice holiday! Why can’t she leave you alone? You take a swig of wine and try to tune her out.---B. Start a conversation with her about why she is so critical of you especially at the holidays, trying to see her side of the issue while making it clear that you don’t like to be spoken to in that way.---C. Take a deep breath, realize there’s nothing wrong with you, go have a five minute chat with cousin Jackie who thinks you are nothing but fabulous, then return to your chopping.

8. Sometime in the last few years you’ve suffered a serious loss, and the holidays just haven’t been the same since. Your plan as you face another holiday season is:

---A. Not to let your friends and family see how much you are affected—holidays are hard on them too, and you don’t want to be a burden. When you are alone you will eat, drink, and sleep a lot; hopefully you’ll feel better in January.---B. To talk to your friends and family about how you are feeling, plus cut back on some of your holiday busyness so you have some extra time to rest and deal with any feelings that come up.---C. To spend the holidays with the people who support you the most, even if that is not your family, and to rally a great support team—good friends who will listen to you and cook you meals; a massage therapist or other healer to make you feel extra nurtured; and a professional counselor if you notice yourself getting very depressed.

Quiz Results: Finding Your Radical Support

Tally up your answers and note how many A’s, B’s, or C’s, then read on…Mostly A’s: Build your support network now!You are very negatively impacted by the holidays. It’s hard for you to say no to other people. You over-commit yourself and deny your own needs—resulting in negative impacts on your health and emotional life. Please call us for some professional support. It is not necessary or healthy to ignore your own needs in order to create a “nice holiday” for other people. You can have healthy relationships that nurture you more, and we’d like to help you. Start now by opening up to a close friend about how you feel at the holidays and by clearing one or two commitments off your calendar. Then schedule a massage so you can start feeling nurtured right away. Then seek out some professional support from counselors like us.Mostly B’s: Cut yourself some slack!You are skilled in the art of compromise. You’ve reduced the kinds of stress that ruin the holidays for you, while still fulfilling many obligations to friends and family. You are honest with the people close to you about what you are thinking and feeling because you want to have real intimacy with them. But there are a few key areas where you are afraid to let go of other’s expectations and love yourself unconditionally. Look back over the quiz and see where you still hesitate to give yourself the support you need to come through this holiday season with flying colors. Rally your friends into a more formal holiday support team for each other. Unschedule three favors for other people and replace them with bubble baths or snuggling with your honey.Mostly C’s; Smile- you're the Holiday Know-it-All!Want to come teach a workshop on how to have a fabulous holiday season? You have figured out that the best way to enjoy the season is to refuse to play by the usual holiday rules. You know that putting self-care first gives you the energy and emotional stability to be loving with your family and tolerant of their holiday craziness. As a dropout of the American holiday stress game, you are qualified to lead them to better self-care, so let that be your gift to them this year. Be a good listener, help them unbook their calendars, and bring them along to your massage appointments. And of course, keep taking wonderful care of yourself.

The Four Pillars of Radical Support

At FLO Living we believe that women deserve a lot more support in their daily lives than they ever dare ask for. That’s why, when you get this support that is normal and healthy, it can feel RADICAL. We recognize Four Pillars of Radical Support for Women; they are especially important at holiday time when stress levels are high.Supportive Listeners: Counselors and friends who have your best interest at heart and who will deeply listen to you speak about your life.Grounding Body Care: The right balance of exercise, rest, hot baths, massage, and loving touch to nurture you out of your head and into your body.Unbooked Time: Permission to clear your calendar and say no to other people’s needs, so that you can have time just for you.Mood-Stabilizing Diet: Check out all of our FLO friendly recipes and contact us with food questions.

Transforming Relationships, Transforming Holidays

Practicing radical self-care and receiving radical support from friends and professional is the absolutely necessary first step to transforming your relationships with your family members and breaking old patterns that keep the holidays stressful. By first learning to give yourself love, you begin to see clearly what kinds of love you want to receive from your family and friends.