Why Holidays can be triggering.

Know that feeling where you can not wait until your long awaited holiday, and then you get there and its does not live up to those expectations? The fantasy of a carefree restorative time slips to the way side.

Holidays are often so built up in our imaginations, desert oases on the horizon of our working lives. They represent the macro act of care a counterbalance to chaotic and relentless careers.

However they frequently do not live up to our expectations, and we can feel such disappointment even failure. This can be amplified as we passively consume images of other people’s idealised holiday snaps on social media. Holidays and time off pose very specific psychological challenges. They disregulate our routines which can be a source of comfort and regulation, especially for those with neural divergence. This can be destabilising.

Additionally we tend to spend a lot more time with others in unboundaried settings, which can foster relational tensions, and even trigger family based traumas. You may experience this as feelings of emotional and physical claustrophobia.

How to holiday well is something that can be fruitfully explored in therapy. Designing a more mindful holiday where we make sure to attend to our own needs. Setting boundaries listening to our own cues whether these be interoceptive or emotional, making space for down time, carving out alone time if being with others is causing social burn out. There are many ways therapy can help you work out what you need to enjoy your holidays more. As well as to accept good enough over perfection. The desire for perfection may even impact how you approach restorative time.

Social Media Vice and Virtue

It is clear smart phones are linked to worsening mental health, this has been highlighted in the research and discourse surrounding the impact on young people. Perhaps you remember the film about Facebook and its creation ‘The Social Network’, the idea that these platforms were designed to increase a sense of social connection is perhaps a naive interpretation. In fact in an Instant Message exchange between Mark Zuckerberg and a college friend in 2004 (as reported by business insider) he states that the Havard students who shared their personal information via Facebook, which he subsequently had access to, were “dumb f***s”.

Over time we have come to understand that they have many uses, yes people may stay in touch via these platforms but there are many ways that this could be achieved without the more nefarious elements. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube are major sources of advertising revenues, our data is mined and sold on. Perhaps more worryingly is how the algorithms influences and directs what we see and subsequently what we think and how we feel. There are many examples of this well documented phenomena.

The New York Times podcast ‘The Rabbit Hole’ hosted by Kevin Roose is a great in depth exploration of the dangers of radicalisation as a result of the You Tube algorithm, this is well worth a listen. Another controversial example of social medias’ wider impact can be seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal which related to the misuse of data harvesting. This led to questions relating to their sway over the US 2016 presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.

‘Privacy, Data Harvesting, and You (Promise and Perils of Technology)" by Jeri Freedman explore these themes well, as she shines a light on the ethics of data harvesting the impact on our privacy and the normalisation of what could be seen as tantamount to digital stalking. If we imagined someone following us around for a day and making notes on our movements, purchases and perhaps even passing queries we would be frightened perhaps we might even call the police.

As a therapist working in private practice with adults I increasingly see the negative impact of Social media. My clients report anxieties born of doom scrolling, hours passing by, without being fully conscious of what they are consuming skipping through hundreds of images, often feeling a growing sense of dis-ease as they cannot remember what even provoked the emergent feelings of inadequacy and sadness. They explain that they come away feeling that their lives do not live up to what they see on these apps. Announcement culture and the need to share publicly our achievements plays a part in this. Whether that be scans that announce new pregnancies, with little awareness of how his may impact a friend who recently experienced the terrible anguish of a missed miscarriage and the trauma of a scan where the fetus that should have been is not; or the pictures of seemingly perfect bodies or lifestyles implying wealth and success. In our mature brains we may know these are vignettes they aren't the whole picture they are caricatures, they reflect in general what we want the world to see.

Our brains are not really designed to consume this much content at this pace, it is bamboozling what the mind experiences the body does too and we can't keep track of what we are ingesting.

Helping people engage in a conscious way with how they are using these ubiquitous platforms, setting healthier parameters understanding what role they play in your life for better or for worse is part of increasing our individual agency. If we are seeking increased connection to community, in a post industrial society, how can we achieve this in a meaningful way? I am not saying the internet or apps are devoid of this, I am just asking is it enough for you? Do you want more embodied social interactions? Do we want to feel more seen and held in mind by our friends and family and loved ones?

Blue Print for Living

If your life was a house? What rooms do you need for it to work for you, to bring you joy, contentment safety and nourishment? How big are the rooms? Is there a good work life balance? If your career takes up all the space clearly there isn’t much room to relax to take care of your inner world. Do you navigate these rooms with ease? What are the obstacles?

This is an exercise I find really useful when working with clients, we can design lives that feel fulfilling and meet your various needs, and the many facets of our personality.

We are all different. There is no correct answer. But lets explore what matters to you.

Often people find themselves sleepwalking through life, lacking awareness of their agency. Therapy helps you to bring consciousness to your hopes and desires, the unlived possibilities you may have even yet to give utterance to. Perhaps you don’t feel worthy of these dreams. Ultimately the fear of failure can be so inhibiting that it halts our personal growth.

This may show up in feelings of apathy for your day-to-day life, low energy and low morale. You may even find yourself feeling depressed, feeling lost in your career or personal life. These are so often contributing factors. Together we can draw our attention to what is missing and of course celebrate your achievements, simultaneously learning to really appreciate what may at times be unseen and diminished.

Impostor syndrome is a very common phenomenon, in therapy we can help you to understand where this self doubt finds its genesis. Through the therapeutic relationship we can heal those wounds that hold us back from realising our true potential.

I want to help my clients enthuse their lives with dynamism and meaning, finding the paths they feel they are destined for.