Good morning to you from Punta del Est. You heard that right. I landed in Uruguay just yesterday. In fact, I received a message from my brother Randall just a few minutes ago saying there is no episode of Dear Constance today and I realized that I had confused the days of the week. Maybe that’s too much information, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m having this great adventure. I had a plan B thrown at me and I had this unique opportunity to come to Uruguay. I’ve never been anywhere in South America, so after my initial I’m not sure that really works out with my schedule I decided that plan B was what I was meant to do. So here I am.
On to today’s episode. Today is Wednesday and Wednesdays are for questions. My question today is related to the holiday season, because I was just talking to my friend, Sara. We were talking about holiday plans and potential hurt feelings and managing family affairs and as soon as I hung up, the first thing that popped into my mind was wow, she’s coping ahead.
I did an episode one time called Cope Ahead. It was about something my friend Dana taught me. So briefly, let me just remind you what coping ahead is about. Coping ahead is about knowing in advance that something’s going to trigger you or set you off, and deciding in advance how you can respond better. How you can anticipate and respond better? You want to do better than you have in the past. You don’t want to fall into your old pattern. So that’s what coping ahead is – just thinking through something in advance and deciding the response.
That brings me to the question for today which is this. What can you do to cope ahead for the holiday season? I think everybody is triggered in some form or another over the holidays. It can be that you’re triggered to feel lonely. It can be that you’re going to be let down by a gift from someone that always somehow lets you down. It can be about travel angst. It can be about having to work over the holidays. I don’t know.
Everybody has their stuff that triggers them and so the question again becomes what can you do to cope ahead? How can you perhaps think through and plan a better response? One that leaves you feeling less bad?
I’ll leave you with that thought today. Until next time, from my heart to yours.
