A Therapist's Guide to the (Kinda) Perfect Recipe for a (Mostly) Stress-Free Thanksgiving Dinner

If you are looking for the perfect Thanksgiving turkey recipe or the perfect pumpkin pie recipe you will not find it here. But if you are looking for the perfect emotionally healthy and dysfunctional behavior free Thanksgiving dinner celebration, then you are in the right place and keep on reading.

Are you looking for the perfect (mostly) emotionally healthy and dysfunctional behavior free Thanksgiving dinner? Therapist tips for the win! — Though before we get started I think “perfect” is a bit of a tall order, humans are beautifully messy and complicated and perfection is never really attainable. Plus, the drive for perfection is not a sustainable practice.
So if you are looking for a recipe on how to have a good and not a perfect Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving with less dysfunction, stress, and anxiety, then keep on reading!

I am going to give you my top three tips on being able to navigate a thanksgiving dinner, but really these tips work well for any holiday get together. As a trauma and couples therapist practicing all over California, including the San Diego area, these are the tips I tell my therapy clients going into the stressful holiday season. And guess what? They work. These three tips are going to help you be more calm and increase your ability to not let the stress get to you. Perhaps you have had past Thanksgiving dinners where fights broke out, things were said, and sour feelings lasted for months or maybe even years after. It is the last thing you want on a day where you just want to share a meal with your closest loved ones. And you are hoping that this year will be different.

Tip One: Boundaries.

Having good boundaries can take a dooming event, like thanksgiving and turn it into an event where you feel prepared going in. Boundaries are not for the other person; boundaries are for yourself. Boundaries help you protect your energy, resources, and time. It is only human of us to give and give, especially to those we care deeply about, like our family and friends. But then we come to a point where we have nothing left and that is a slippery slope leading to resentment.

As a trauma therapist I often explore with my clients their lack of boundaries and we often explore in therapy if there are possible early childhood traumas that may be impacting their ability to have boundaries. Just maybe the act of giving in to the point of exhaustion, might be connected to something deeper. I am pretty blunt with my therapy clients and I often tell them that there are no awards for being a martyr or for being the most tired person. As a human who has had to learn boundaries as an adult, I get it. For example, me placing a boundary does not mean I love you less, something I teach my clients to embody in their own lives. As a therapist, I tell clients in my San Diego (and online all over California) therapy practice time and time again, we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. Classic example of this is what they tell you on airplane flights. Flight attendants stress the importance of putting on your own mask first and then you can help others.

With others. Be clear about when dinner starts, when it ends, and anything else that you feel is relevant. Be clear about what is expected of people. For example with the recent political climate maybe people are tapped out of those conversations. Be clear if there are off-limits topics and encourage others to share what they want to be off topic. A person's weight, a person's choices about education or work, dating life…I am sure you can think about how any of these topics can upset people and before you know it a blown up argument where hurt feelings are everywhere. You can set the boundaries that this dinner is not the place to have complicated conversations where there is a high chance of conflict. Believe me, sharing this with others can help others feel more at ease about Thanksgiving dinner too!
With yourself. You cannot control everything. There are only so many hours in the day and so many things that you can do. It is super important that you spend time with yourself, and letting yourself know that you can only control what you can and that you can let the hiccups of life be a welcomed part of life, since it is all part of the journey. This takes a great deal of mindfulness and self compassion, something that as a therapist in California I spend a lot of time developing with my clients, both individually and in my work as a couples therapist practicing in San Diego. Many people struggle with this and a therapist can help you deeping your self compassion and when we do this, we often end up being more compassionate with others.

Tip Two: Plan Ahead and Ask for Help.

I will be the first one to admit that I struggle with planning and asking for help, though I have gotten much better at this over the years. It is something that a lot of people struggle with. You don’t have to do it all on your own. I repeat, you do not have to do it all on your own. As a therapist this is something that I feel like a broken record repeating every single day, and something that I end up laughing with my clients about. As a therapist I love those moments where an online client of mine will say, that's my stuff getting in the way again huh? Yup. And we sit with it and thank that piece for doing its job and we ask it to relax a bit. As a trauma therapist, I see all the big and little traumas that continue to impact people well into their adult lives and we work on letting that go, to make space for a different, more intentional way of doing life.
Spend some time and plan the event. Decide what is yours and decide what is for others. Try to get as much of the stuff out of the way as possible before the day of. The day of should really be for putting things together, like the turkey in the oven and putting yourself together. That’s it. No shopping or changing of recipes. Keep it simple and breathe in letting yourself know that you have done enough. And because I am a therapist, perhaps take a deep breath and let's take that further, YOU are enough.

Tip Three: Respond Instead of Reacting.

Stuff is going to go wrong, that is life. A big tip, if not the most important one on this list, is to respond instead of reacting. Whether it's the turkey not coming out like you wanted it too or someone being late or early (before you even had the chance to shower!) Being able to respond feels better for your nervous system. Sometimes it does not take much, especially for those who have had trauma or are under a lot of stress, to slip into a crisis state of mind. Frantically moving about, irritability in our voices, and wishing the night to just be over.

Mindfulness is something that helps you cultivate a new baseline, that's how I frame it to my clients and couples in my California counseling practice, where you learn to notice and then have greater space before you choose your response. Slowing it way down can help you navigate the night with less bumps and bruises.

As a therapist I help people address their issues in a deeper way where they are able to have compassion for their humanity and I these tips do just that! I wish you the best of luck navigating not only Thanksgiving but the rest of the holiday season. And I hope these tips are useful in future events and get-togethers that normally give you stress.

Warmly,