Setting Holiday Boundaries – Coping Strategy or Avoidance?
By Lindsay Ryan, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying)
The holidays can be joyful…and hard!
One of the things that may come up for people around this time of the year is setting boundaries and coping with environments or interactions that are uncomfortable. Holiday parties can bring with them overstimulation and difficult conversations. You may already know and expect to have a bad experience at a family dinner, a work party, or you may be facing some isolation at home. The holidays can be a very joyful time, but that joy can also be uncomfortable or come along with other uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
Given that the holidays can be difficult, it is natural to anticipate some discomfort and want to avoid that feeling. When a person engages in a behaviour to protect themselves from what they fear, behavioural therapists call this a ‘safety-seeking behaviour’. An example of this could be someone avoiding the work holiday party because they have anxiety about small talk. Safety-seeking behaviours can bring a temporary relief from the anticipation of discomfort but they generally aren’t a good longer-term strategy.
Is this where healthy boundaries come in?
A popular therapy tool that has made its way into the popular vernacular is boundary setting. Setting boundaries is incredibly important but it’s also important for people to know what their tolerance is for discomfort. If someone declines an invite to a holiday party that could be them asserting a boundary. It could also be a safety-seeking behaviour. So how do we know the difference between something we consider maladaptive (safety-seeking) and something we consider a coping skill (healthy boundaries)? And is there even a difference?
Baker et al. (2021) found that there was evidence of a distinction between safety-seeking and coping strategies though both occur in response to anxiety. Both safety-seeking and coping strategies are used to counter anxiety but are conceptualized differently; and coping strategies can also be dysfunctional. Taking our holiday party as an example, we know that declining the invitation could be viewed as a safety-seeking behaviour to avoid the stressful event. A dysfunctional coping strategy could be substance use, such as drinking alcohol, to “get through” the event. Coping skills and solutions are different for everyone and different therapy modalities also frame them differently. There is no “one size fits all” solution.
What other coping strategies are helpful?
Take a moment to consider what kinds of strategies the person in our example could use to cope with the stress of the holiday party. You may have thought about things like setting a time limit, identifying people that are easier to talk to, planning topics that are easier to talk about, and many others. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy calls this skill “cope ahead”. Here is a good resource if you would like to try it out.
Cope Ahead can also be helpful for Neurodiverse people. Dr. Kara Dymond and Maja Toudal talk about how even feelings we consider positive, such as joy, can cause overwhelm and overload when there is a lot going on and a lot of that experience or emotion. In their holiday episode they discuss coping strategies to help prevent overwhelm and meltdowns. They suggest things like pacing the day and reducing stimuli. Some of these ideas could be helpful for you too or could help you brainstorm your own ideas. For more ideas about preparing for a neuro-inclusive holiday, check out Autism Canada's Panel Discussion here.
If reading this has made you start to question whether you are using adaptive coping strategies or if you are safety-seeking – that is okay. It’s a question I ask myself pretty often as I practice boundary setting and I practice living a more full life. Here are some things I like to consider when I am trying to figure out if I am avoiding or if I am coping:
Do I want to do the thing? Or am I just genuinely not interested in the thing?
Will I be physically or emotionally harmed by it?
Will doing the thing satisfy a need that I have identified in my life?
Do I feel capable of tolerating the discomfort? Do I have the tools?
Do I have the time and space I need afterwards to take care of myself?
Asking these kinds of questions can be tough. If you want help to answer some of these questions or if you want to learn distress tolerance, coping strategies, or generally have a reflective and empathetic ear, we are here to help.
Looking for some support?
If you are looking for a therapist to provide some support through your journey of identifying healthy coping strategies, setting boundaries, or anything else, please get in touch.
When you’re ready, we can help.
Book a free 30 minute consultation and let’s talk about it.