While the seasons of Yule and Christmas are upon us, I thought I would share this week’s message to my students.
First, for context, I need to back up to my Thanksgiving message. If you haven’t been following me for several years and you haven’t heard it, the crux is that holidays are a time when people are under a lot of stress and family dysfunction can result in more than the usual amount of trauma. Families are trying to create the perfect Hallmark holiday, and when things begin to come off the rails, a lot of anger, lashing out and hurt feelings often result. Then put everyone around the same dinner table, including the judgmental aunt and racist uncle (just about everyone has those, right?) and the whole event becomes awkward and ugly, and children often bear the brunt. I tell my students that I’ll be thinking of them, and that I wish for them to be able to stay out of the blast radius as much as possible.
In past years, my Christmas message was pretty much a repeat of my Thanksgiving message. I adjusted it a bit this year. I told my students:
You remember my Thanksgiving message, right? Thanksgiving was a sprint; Christmas vacation is a marathon. There is a lot more stress, because Hallmark Christmas is much more intense than Hallmark Thanksgiving, but the dysfunction is spread over an entire week. Steeling yourselves against whatever comes your way can work for several hours, but when it turns into several days, sometimes all you can do is hide in your blanket fort at the first signs of each battle, and wait for a cease fire. My holiday wish for you is to find strength, endurance and endless patience whenever you need it.
Some, perhaps many of you are often criticized for not being good enough, and this can get worse at holidays when families are under more stress. Remember that you do the best you can every day. By that, I don’t mean the best that you could possibly do under ideal circumstances, but the best you’ve got that day, even if all you can manage is to get out of bed. I have days like that. Everyone does. And on those days, if that’s not enough for someone else, then they don’t understand the meaning of “best”. You do your best every day, and I’m proud of you for it.
Sometimes, many of you put yourself down. This is a smart thing to do—if you say something before someone else has a chance to do it, you’ve taken the power to hurt you away from them. If someone is trying to hurt you, don’t ever stop taking away their power.
When you say those things, some part of your brain knows they’re not true even before you say them. You protect yourself by saying what you expect those other people to say, but hearing those things in your own voice makes it hard to not believe them. My assignment to you over vacation is to notice whenever you say negative things about yourself, and inside your head remind yourself that you know those things are not true and you’re just saying them to protect yourself. If you do this regularly, over time your internal monologue will shift to one that builds you up rather than tears you down. I want you to build yourselves up, because you deserve nothing less.
Finally, you need to be the one to do this. Not me, and not anyone else. You are the only person who should be allowed to program your own brain! That said, if you find that your cup is nearly empty and you want a reminder that you are seen, heard, and believed, and that you are lovable even if the only person saying it out loud is your physics teacher, send me a message and I’ll respond with a fresh cup of self-esteem.
