Feeling Stressed Out This Christmas? How Men Can Find Peace

Feeling overwhelmed by the Christmas season? Between finances, family, food, and endless commitments, the holidays can leave men drained instead of joyful. In this episode, Don shares practical and heartfelt ways to slow down, simplify, and rediscover real peace this Christmas.
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Question for You
What’s one thing you’re going to do over the next 10 days to remove some stress from your Christmas season and bring back peace? Comment below — your answer could help another man do the same.

⏰ TIMECODES
00:00 Introduction: Finding Peace During Christmas
 00:32 Understanding Men's Holiday Stress
 01:56 Major Stressors: Finances and Weight Gain
 03:37 Family Dynamics and Grief
 06:37 Practical Tips to Reduce Holiday Stress
 12:51 Sharing the Load and Seeking Support
 15:25 Conclusion: Embracing Joy and Peace

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#ManhoodTribes #MensGrowth #HolidayStress #ChristmasPeace #MensMentalHealth

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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:01

Men we're getting close to Christmas, and if you're wondering where all the peace and joy of the Christmas season has gone, you're probably not alone. If the most wonderful time of the year has become the most stressful time of year for you, that's because it is for a lot of us. Today on the Manhood Tribe Show, I want us to talk about how you can salvage a little bit of peace in these remaining few weeks of the year. So let's dive into that today. My name's Don. I'm really glad that you're here today on The Manhood Tribe Show. It's Christmas time and so we're spending a few weeks just talking about men and how we deal with the holidays because we can sometimes forget that as men, there are some certain like. Expectations and stressors that we, in particular as men tend to experience during this holiday season. We can kind of get wrapped up in the fact that the holidays feel like they're really about family and often about kids, and that as men, we kind of take a backseat role in a lot of the planning and a lot of the activities. And so because of that, we tend to ignore a lot of what actually goes on for us around the holidays. But in doing that. It can actually become a season of incredible stress for us as men. If you're feeling like the Christmas season is just a big ball of anxiety for you, then just know for starters that you're not alone. It is for a lot of men. But today we want to try to talk about what do we actually do about that? We're a little more than a week out from Christmas if you're watching this episode on the day that it comes out. And I wanna try to help you with just a few pointers on what you can do to salvage a little bit of peace during this Christmas season. All right, but to do that, we need to start off by talking about what are some of the big things that cause men stress during the holiday season? Now one of the first ones is something that we actually talked about in last week's episode, which is finances, right? We can very quickly get stressed out by how much we're gonna blow this year's Christmas budget, right? How much we're gonna likely go into debt with all of the things we're spending money on, whether that's gifts or parties, or travel, or you name it. Christmas can be an incredibly stressful season financially. So if that's you, I want to encourage you to go back and watch last week's episode to get a little more insight on the whole area of finances in particular. But apart from finances, there's a whole lot of other stressors that go on around the Christmas season as well. One big one that we as men don't often talk about is just the whole idea of weight gain. Christmas is a season of. Eating. Let's be honest. That's what, that's one of the things that we most enjoy about it. There's all kinds of good food available during Christmas time and that's great. That makes for really great parties. It makes for fun atmospheres in the workplace, like all kinds of places where food is available. There's specialty drinks at all your coffee shops that you like to go. There's all kinds of treats that become available at the, you know, dessert stores. Like, there's just all kinds of things that happen at Christmas food wise that cause us to. Eat a lot more than we normally would, and that leads to weight gain. We take in a lot more calories than we typically burn off, but a lot of guys go into the holiday season knowing that weight gain is probably coming, and just the anxiety of that causes a lot of stress. It can cause dread over the Christmas season instead of joy, which is what it's really supposed to be about. So weight gain can be a big one. Another one can just be family dynamics, whether that's your wife and kids, or more likely your extended family. All of the expectations that come from family dynamics around Christmas time can make things really, really difficult. Whose house are we supposed to spend time at this year? Who are we supposed to be buying gifts for? What are we supposed to be doing to make sure that they're happy and that she's happy and that we are happy and everybody feels good about the commitments that we've fulfilled this Christmas season? If you come from, uh, a divorced or broken family, you've got multiple sets of expectations that you're trying to be able to fulfill, and all of that can get super complicated around Christmas. So there are lots of stresses when it comes to family dynamics and relationships there where you're trying to. Not only just keep the peace, but actually experience all those people in a way that really does feel fun and enlivening and actually brings joy. Not just causes stress, but the thought of having to organize all that and orchestrate all of it and dance around the topics that you don't want to talk about at the Christmas party because you know it's gonna open up a can of worms. Like all of those things can just add to the big pile of stress and to make it really difficult. To look forward to spending time with the family members that you do want to see. Another point of stress can actually be grief. Sometimes if you've experienced any kind of loss in your family or close friends, the traditions of Christmas time and the holidays can just highlight the grief, can highlight the loss that you're experiencing, that that person is no longer there to be able to share in the things that you once shared in, that you cared about and did together, and that you no longer get to experience together with them. That can be super hard. It can feel very lonely. It can feel very stressful. It can feel very sad, and all of that adds to the stress and the difficulty of the Christmas season. And even can, like I mentioned before, can contribute to that sense of dread of not wanting to go through the Christmas season because of the pain that you know it's going to involve. So, okay. So those are some of the big ones, but honestly, there can be all sorts of Christmas stressors. Your schedule might just feel too full. You've got too many parties, whether it's family parties or work parties, or friend parties, or neighborhood parties, or you know, whatever. You've just got too many things that you have to go to. Your kids are involved in things, your community's involved in, things your church is doing, things. There's just so much going on that it can only. Add to the amount of stress that you're experiencing when all of those things taken by themselves probably would be fun. But when you pack that much fun into an already overloaded schedule, it actually becomes more stress than it is fun. So there can be lots and lots of things that can contribute to your stress around the Christmas season. So, okay, what do you do about it? Then? Here we are, you know, not too far out from Christmas. Is it too late to be able to actually redeem the season and to find a little bit of peace? I don't think that it is, but there are a few things that you need to try to do. The first is that you need to name your stress, all right? You need to actually maybe even write down the things that are causing you the most stress, or have already caused you the most stress. So maybe it has been an overly full schedule. Maybe it has been what you've spent on gifts so far, but also what you know is still coming in terms of travel or other expenses that you have upcoming. You need to write down the things that are actually causing you the most stress so that you can start to formulate a plan on how you're going to be able to address those things and create for yourself some opportunities and some moments for some peace. The next thing that you're gonna need to do is you're just going to have to simplify. I know it sounds hard. Simplifying around the Christmas season inevitably means cutting some things. It means like getting rid of some things, whether that's added expenses, whether that's added parties, whether that's added food, whatever it means, it does mean you're gonna probably have to cut some things out. But the way to do that is not to just like randomly hack and slash at your schedule or at your party engagement or at the calories that you're taking in. It's to actually think about when and where are the places that you're going to be able to experience the most joy. What of all of that stuff that could be causing stress that if you took those things individually and said. Is this thing actually gonna bring me joy? Is this thing going to bring me peace? Are these are the things that I would actually want to do? Or are these things that I feel obligated to do? The things that you feel obligated to do are the ones that you try. You need to try to eliminate. As much as you possibly can. I know there may not be every possibility of eliminating obligations. You've got a family member's party that you just absolutely have to show up to, or you're gonna be hearing about it all year long, and the grief of that is not worth the pain that you have to endure by actually showing up to the party. Okay, I get it. But inevitably, there are some things that you could skip out, and so it's time to just actually sit down and figure out what those things are. You might. Disappoint some folks. You might have to say no to a work function that you would actually like to attend, but it's just not gonna be worth it in light of the other things that you want to do, or you may have to miss out on a friend's party and you really value that friendship and would like to show up for them. But there's probably ways in the new year beyond the Christmas season that you can show up and maintain that relationship with those friends that don't involve having to just go to one more party during the Christmas season. So there's ways to be able to cut those things out. When it comes to food and to weight gain in particular, it's worth thinking about where is the excess food really coming from? Is it coming from too many dinners out? Is it coming from parties? Is it coming from lots of extra food that you have around your house? Do you have a whole bunch of friends and family that send you food and so you just get stuck with all this stuff that you don't know what to do with. If that's the case, then like some of it may actually be stuff that you could like. Re-gift. If you've got some non-perishable things or some package things that come your way, consider like donating them to some other local organization. Take them to a police station or a fire station. Take them to a church or school office as a way of just saying thank you and showing your appreciation to those people, and then you're not wasting the food, but you are getting it out of your reach and cutting some of those extra calories out of your life. If it's just coming from going to too many parties, then hey, kill two birds with one stone. Figure out which parties you definitely would like to be at and cut some of the rest. And then not only have you cut the stress of the overactivity, you've cut the stress of the over calories as well and manage to really be able to steal back some joy and some peace in your schedule. You've got about 10 days before Christmas arrives, and usually these are the busiest days and the time that's most full of all of the Christmas stressors. So find ways of being able to clear up some of that time over the next 10 days and really make room for the peace and joy that you want to have so that by the time you get to the new year, you're actually feeling good about how you spent the holiday season. Or maybe you feel like you had to miss out on something, but by the end of January you're not even gonna remember that you did. You also might just be able to look forward to the coming New Year's season and recognize that hey, maybe the month of December is a little bit more of a time of indulgence, and the month of January is a little bit more of a time of. Pulling back of, you can call it retreating or you can call it fasting, or you can call it whatever you need to as a way of being able to just take a break from the indulgence that you experienced in December. Now, for some people that's like way easier said than done, and so that may not be the right strategy for you. Things like dry January or a weekend fast or some of these different opportunities. Uh, even if you're familiar with the Scandinavian tradition of Haga, which is just kind of this. Like retreating inwards a little bit, just spending more time indoors and trying to make things as cozy as possible without overindulging, just simplifying, but making things cozy and enjoyable. Those are great opportunities and ways to be able to take advantage of kind of a pulled back season and January that can help, uh, reduce whatever you kind of overdid in December. So it just creates some balance. And then you can recognize December is a season for joy, and one of the ways that I'm gonna enjoy it is I'm not gonna worry too much about overindulging because I know that in January I'm actually gonna get benefit and peace out of the fact that I'm gonna pull back in some of those areas. So all of that can be ways to sort of help yourself be able to figure out how are you gonna manage the season without having to deal with all of that stress. Another way of really making sure that this happens is you just got to share the weight of the stress of this season, whether that's with your spouse or your girlfriend, or especially with your tribe. This is the best thing to be able to do, is to just talk with somebody else about, Hey, I'm really feeling some stress about, you know, fill in the blank. Whatever it is for you this season that you are concerned about, that you're worried about, that you think might actually cause you some problems. Own up to it with somebody else. That's one of the best ways to just have an easy conversation and get a little bit of accountability and some help in being able to know, here are the strategies that I need to do to be able to weather this season, and I've actually got somebody else in my corner that's gonna help me be able to do it. That's what a tribe is for. That's what your family should be for as well. But whoever it is, talk to somebody else and be able to work those things out. Now, if you're dealing with Christmas as a season of grief, that can be especially hard, and this is again, where talking with someone can be really, really beneficial. That might be a pastor, that might be a close friend, that might be a therapist, again, might be your your wife or your girlfriend. In some capacity, you've just got to be present to another person with your grief. You've got to allow that side of you to come to the surface so that you can experience it and heal. You don't heal by keeping it stuffed down. You've got to bring it into the light so that it doesn't continue to be something that festers in the dark. And in doing that. You probably are going to experience some pain, but in experiencing that pain, especially with someone else, you start to bring healing to that place of pain so that it's not as painful again in the future, and you leave room for joy to come back into your life as you move forward instead of just creating scar tissue over that place in your heart that continues to ache and to fester and to cause you difficulty as you move forward in life. So do what you can there. Now, if Christmas is just one of those seasons that is really, really tough for you and it triggers a whole bunch of things, then I would love to let you know a little bit more about my one-on-one and group coaching program called Victorious Man Coaching. If you would like some help being able to get out of. A pit of a place that you have found yourself into and Christmas is just seeming to make it worse. If that's you and you'd be interested in talking to somebody about that, shoot me an email at info@manhoodtribes.com and let's see if my coaching program might be a good fit for you. Now as you move through the rest of this Christmas and New Year's season, I want you to think about what it would look like to be able to experience all of that. Not with stress and anxiety, but with. Genuine joy with moments of real peace and with a sense of moving into the new year knowing that you did this season well without any regrets, man, that would be an incredible feeling. That would be the kind of Christmas that we really all long for. Right? That's the Hallmark card kind of Christmas. That's the, that's the experience that we're really. Hoping that Christmas can be for us, but putting into place the things that you need in order to be able to make Christmas that way probably isn't going to happen by accident. You're going to have to be intentional to be able to avoid some of those major stressors, and you're gonna have to be able to take some specific steps to help you enjoy it in that kind of way. And if you do, you really can experience the kind of Christmas season that you would like to have. Not isolated, not frustrated, not full of stress, anxiety, and regret, but full of peace and joy and wonder, and a hopeful outlook on the year to come. And with that in mind, I would love for you to engage in the comments below and let me know what's one thing that you're gonna try to do over the next 10 days to be able to remove some stress from your Christmas season and make it something more that you can enjoy. All right, man. I hope you got some value out of this today and, uh, we'll have one more episode that comes out before Christmas and I'm looking forward to celebrating that with you as well. And in the meantime, do everything you can to help make this Christmas season a great one for you, for your loved ones, for your family, and for whoever you're celebrating with. Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you next time.