DIY Guide To Getting Through the Holidays When You Really Just Want to Hide Under the Tree. -Holiday Cheat Sheet for Birth Moms

DIY Guide To Getting Through the Holidays When You Really Just Want to Hide Under the Tree.

Practical Holiday Cheat Sheet for Birth Moms

Holidays get togethers can bring many questions for birth mothers like…

• Will I be able to hold Aunt Susan’s baby without crying this year?
• What if someone asks me where my baby is?
• How much should I share about my recent adoption and with whom?

Maybe you too are dreading the family get togethers that you need to attend, in order to not be altogether rude, regardless of how you are feeling this year?

Perhaps your not sure how you will fight the attempts to cry or gag whilst you watch families whom seem perfectly in love with one another go about their merry day?

Holidays arent always blissful for everyone. As a matter of fact sometimes they are downright depressing. Yet even still there are certain motions that must be gone through in order to make the holidays special for the people you care about in your life.

Holidays bring expectations.

Hopes are rekindled.

Sometimes there is even a magical expectation, thanks to Hollywood and overly generous family members,

Holidays like Christmas also come around the end of the year when your next expected to make other BIG decisons and commitments.

You reflect….look back….rejoice in some triumphs and cry and kick yourself in the pants for the many mistakes and losses.

Yet really those things taught you what you needed to know in order to move forward in life. Funny how we treat the messengers.

You take it deeper and begin to wonder about how things might of been if you hadn’t placed your child for adoption. You forget the circumstances for a moment and the self loathing begins.

So…How are you going to get through the next couple of days?

By getting through them and by having a PLAN for the HOW part.

If you skip the plan..Stan…you will miss the whole strategy.

More times than not in life it is in the planning that things happen or dont happen.

Here is the …Birth Mom DIY Holiday Survivial Plan:

First: The Pre-Plan Part of the Plan: You know you are going to feel like staying in bed in the morning and left to yourself you will. So here is where the plan kicks in….since the day before you already established a planned time that you will be up by no matter what you get up. You tell someone to call you or you tell your family to wake you at that time.

• Consider starting the day by journaling your thoughts. Whatever you are truly feeling or fearing.

• Get dressed even if you dont want to.

• Eat something with protein that will help you think and focus before the day fully starts.

• Make plans to do something-anything -just so you make an attempt at being in the company of others

Set boundaries for your day and when people cross them you poltely leave if possible or seperate yourself from them for awhile so you don;t regret what comes out of your mouth next.

Things you purpose ahead of time:

When someone asks you a personal question that you arent comfortable answering you dont feel bad for them- you honor your soul, smile and say

“I’m sorry but that is really personal and I am not comfortable talking about that”.

You then move on.

When someone asks you a personal question who you know really does care you again honor your soul and take that opportuity to privately share your heart and lesson the load. Let other people in on your pain. They have their own pain too. Be sure they have earned your trust in other areas first.

Remind yourself thoughout the day the joy of knowing that your child is celebrating with a family who dearly loves him or her. If you are still pregnant, use this time to find out how the family that you are considering for you child celebrates the holdays and what values they hold.

Be gentle with yourself. It is okay to feel a spectrum of feelings from sad, to happy to distracted to suffocated. You are not supposed to have arrived at a certain level of healing or growth by now. You are exactly where you are for this part of your life journey.

Plan a quiet evening for yourself and journal your thoughts at the end of the day. Compare them to those from the beginning.

Most importantly, acknowledge yourself for getting through the day.

Close the day out by making plans for the following day if you aren’t working to get together with friends and go out somewhere.

Rinse and Repeat….

THAT… dear birth mother… is HOW to get through the next few days when you really just want to hide under the tree.

Thinking of you with much love as I do the same. xo