Holiday Survival Guide I: Ending Family Arguments ft. Rainn Wilson | The Happiness Lab

Key Takeaway

Remove social media from your phone and limit checking to once or twice weekly with deliberate intention. Practice 'vigilance and preparedness' - don't be a passive victim of social media's negative effects. When you do check, mentally prepare for both positive connections and potential comparison triggers. This simple boundary can dramatically reduce holiday FOMO and social comparison anxiety.

Episode Overview

Rainn Wilson joins the Happiness Lab to tackle listener-submitted holiday challenges, offering spiritual and practical tools for managing FOMO, perfectionism, family dynamics, political conversations, and hosting pressures during the holiday season.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Holiday Survival Guide I: Ending Family Arguments ft. Rainn Wilson | The Happiness Lab from The Happiness Lab. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

We are now deep in the heart of December, a very dark, cold month in the US, which we often try to brighten up with some festive cheer. But while we're supposed to be having fun this time of year, in reality, the holidays can be tough. There's often family squables, financial pressures, and even a heightened sense of loneliness. Here at the Happiness Lab, we like to tackle holiday wos head on. Which is why we asked you to send us all your holiday challenges, the worries you have about dinner table strife and giftgiving anxiety, and how to really create a happier holiday.

And wow, Happiness Lab listeners, did you deliver? We got tons of questions about how to stay joyful this season. So, armed with your questions and wearing my Santa hat, I jumped on a call with this episode's special holiday helper and asked him to introduce himself. Lori, I'm Rain Wilson. I think you know that. And I have a podcast called Soul Boom and it's based on my book of the same name. It's about why we need a spiritual revolution, but it's not spirituality like you normally think about it.

It's about spiritual tools for mental health, wellness, personal transformation, and also maybe using some of those tools to help make the world a better place. If there's any time we need spiritual tools to feel better, make the world a better place, I think it's during the holiday season. That's That's That's that's good transition. Though best known as a comedic actor, Rain takes his spirituality pretty seriously. Rain was raised in the Bahigh faith, but he too has spent time observing the December holidays, like celebrating Christmas with his grandparents.

And it was fitting for me to have Rain on the show to chat about the holidays. Because when I think of holiday cheer, I can't help think of Dwight Shroo, the famous character Rain played in the office. In my favorite ever office holiday episode, when Dwight dresses up in a weird medieval costume and attempts to get his co-workers to celebrate the Pennsylvania Dutch version of Christmas. I was kind of hoping that Belshnickle would become a thing. Uh I was really hoping that would be a catalyst and there would be Bellnickl celebrations everywhere.

Impish or admirable, but uh I'm afraid it hasn't really caught on. But we need to make that happen. that happen. that happen. Maybe this is the year. Belnickle 2025. #Bnickle 2025. We're going to make it work. work. work. I love it. Let's bring it. Well, if that was the only holiday problem we faced, it would be very easy just bringing the belnickel back. But unfortunately, folks are struggling during the holiday season. And one of the things that we did on the happiness lab was that we solicited all our fans and listeners to send us their holiday wos.

And our goal today, Rain, is to give folks advice so that they can have a happier, more joyful, more spiritually excited holiday season. I love it. That's such a great service to folks. It's a it's a trying time, so we need all the kind of tools and the joy and connection we can get. Start with the level one holiday wos. We got a lot of requests for help managing holiday expectations. One of our listeners, Karishma on Instagram, just wrote that straight up her holiday woe was short but sweet, FOMO.

Fear of missing out. missing out. missing out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the special kind of FOMO we get in the holidays where we look on social media and we see everyone's lights and perfect trees and the big presents under the tree and we just feel like, why is my holiday such a mess? Um, how do we get through that? Well, Well, Well, thank you for asking. a television sitcom actor and occasional author about advice around how to get through that. I don't have any specific advice, but I will say this and I'm sure you've talked about it a ton on your show.

Uh, social media breeds FOMO like nobody's business. Yes, Yes, Yes, I'm a by some intents and purposes a fairly successful guy. Like I have a book and a podcast and I do acting roles and I work in nonprofits and have my faith community and blah blah blah. I'm not saying like successful. Oh, look at me. But I'm saying like, you know, I've got I've got things going on. Yeah. A lot going on. I look at Instagram and like what some actors are doing or podcasters and like they have they're putting out content every other day and they're they and and when they take a trip, they don't just take the trip.

They they do a fun crazy exercise and they they're always redecorating and they're doing pottery and they're the list goes on and on and on. And I'm I'm always like, "God, I should be doing that. Why am I that. I should be doing that. Why am I not do I really should be doing that? Why am I not doing that? I could be doing that. I really could be doing that." So, I've taken social media off my phone. Nice. I only look at it very occasionally, like maybe once or twice a week for a limited amount of time.

and I kind of prepare myself going in that hey there's going to be all these actors, performers, podcasters, writers just bringing so much to the table and I'm choosing to do that in a very limited amount of time. So I think of the same thing works for the holidays. What is the holiday in your heart? You know, is it like we're just going to get a chicken from Ralph's and sit around the table and watch a football game or is it going to be more than that?

And whatever it is, it's okay because it's just about connecting. connecting. connecting. I love this because I think you know, you know what what happens to you when you go on the social media during the holiday season. Like it could warm your Christmas heart and just make you filled with the holiday spirit or it could make you snarky and judgy and kind of sad about your own life. And if it's the latter, then you have a choice. You could just not hop on Facebook and not hop on Instagram during the holiday season.

You could just kind of make sure you have in real life connection time and just avoid it. So, I think this is great advice. Monitor the FOMO and the sadness and the social comparison. And if it's feeling crappy, remember, especially on social media, you can step away. away. away. My my therapist, Bruce, talks a lot about vigilance and preparedness. So, we're not blindsided by people and situations, situations, situations, and then then we're not victimized by them. So, if you're going to go on to Instagram, just be prepared and be vigilant that it's going to probably in some ways inspire you.

It's going to entertain you. You're going to laugh. You're going to see some funny videos. You're going to see some friends and check in. There's going to be some great, you know, oxytocin and dopamine releases that are very positive. And then there's also going to be some negative impact. So, it's super important to not be a passive victim and just click open socials, but to be vigilant and prepared, just like you have to be vigilant and prepared, I suppose, when you come and meet your family for the holidays.

And this is your therapist's advice, but it's also ancient advice. One of my favorite stoic philosophers, Epictitus, thousands of years ago, had this little passage where he said, "When you go to the baths, remember what happens at the baths." And the baths were like a thing. People would like go to the baths. And the idea is like at the bats, you know, there's warm water and it's great, but people are going to jostle you. People are going to annoy you. And I think like that idea of remember what happens when you go to the bats is something that I bring back over and over again in the holiday season, especially during holiday travel.

holiday travel. holiday travel. I have to fly to my in-laws in Iowa who I love and are great, but that takes me through Chicago's O'Hare airport, which is not great. It's like it's like it's like what Epictitus meant by the bats before he knew about like air travel and these kinds of things. It's like it's like he said remember what happens at O'Hare before going to O'Hare. Yeah. Some some translations of the Latin I think do call it O'Hare but but yeah but we got to remember we got to be vigilant.

And another thing we need to be vigilant for is something else that came up a bunch with our listeners which is this idea of perfectionism. Everybody wants the holiday to be Christmas card perfect but pretty much nobody's holiday is Christmas card perfect. How do you let the holidays just be and fight that perfectionism? How do you do that in your own life, Rain? Rain? Rain? So, I grew up a member of the Bahigh faith. So, Christmas was kind of a part-time endeavor for us and our extended family.

We definitely celebrated Christmas more as a cultural holiday. There was my grandparents had a a tree and there would be some gifts and stuff like that. So, I never kind of grew up with that kind of pressure. But, I know that there are people and I've met them and I've have some family members that start preparing six or nine months out. They go to those Christmas stores in the summer. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know. Yep. And uh and for some folks, it's it's one of their passions, you know, decorating and pulling off an amazing Christmas.

But I just think that, you know, this sounds so hokey. And maybe you can help me steer this out of the gutter, but it sounds so hokey, but like it's about the Christmas spirit, right? If you're a Christian, it's Jesus was born. You know, the prince of peace is here. It's a time of love, a connection, gift giving, coming in from the cold, bringing a tree in from outside in, you know, in the in the more Germanic tradition. But it's it's about connection and gratitude and thanks.

And it's not about stringing 87 popcorn strings and having the lights perfect and having those photos up on Instagram and sharing them in your Christmas card. And I would say Lori, what is that what is that human impulse toward beyond perfectionism to um make something better than it has to be? Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, maybe that is perfectionism. It's kind of like a not enough situ like I'm not enough. My house isn't enough. The trees not enough. The decorations are not enough. Yeah, I get I I'm ashamed to admit this, but I get this a lot.

Not necessarily so much about the winter holidays, but about other kinds of situations and holidays. Sometimes I feel like every endeavor that I'm supposed to be doing is like the middle school science fair, and I'm supposed to get, you know, the first prize in the middle school science fair. So, it can't just be like a regular tree. It has to be like the perfect tree and over the top and and then it stops being fun and I'm snarky with my husband and I'm, you know, bristling like in work meetings cuz I'm so mad that the tree didn't come out right and it's like, wait, what am I doing?

And I think too, I've been looking a lot at my own workcoholism and um uh Arthur Brooks just had a column on workcoholism and his his weekly column for the Atlantic and um so many great things in there, but one was, you know, there's something wonderful about humans getting self-esteem from doing good work, but if we get all of our esteem from impressing others, you know, putting in an obsessive amounts of hours that there's something really unhealthy there. There's something really imbalanced that I have to look out for my own kind of to I have to look out for my own kind of therapeutic practice of like I am enough.

I'm enough just as I am. Like you said, you can live in a middle class home that isn't super decorated. It's not a Marthur Stewart home. And that your home is enough, your food is enough, you are enough. as opposed to like I always am having to prove myself by doing more. Yeah. And you said the word that I think we all need to pay attention to, which is balance, right? It's fine to like care about your house looking nice, but when that gets out of balance and now you're in judgy, snarky, pissy, sad mode, like that's when something's gone too far.

So, so vigilance again, watch for that moment of kind of imbalance and then try to rectify it. All right. Now, we have a longer holiday wo that we got from Beth. And I think longer holiday was we got a lot of cuz people have a lot of emotions when it comes to the holiday season. But this is about how we can manage holiday expectations about hospitality during the holiday season. And so here's my summary of Beth's email. So Beth's family hosts this big holiday event every year.

Um and when Beth was home, she ran into a high school friend who she found out had had some losses in the year, year, year, right? right? right? High school friend just didn't have anybody to go to the holidays with. So Beth emails her mom and says, "Hey, you know, my friend, she doesn't know where to go. Would it be cool if I bring her? I'm going to assume it's cool. Let me know if it's not, but it'd be so nice to have somewhere, you know, let this person have a happier holiday when she was going to be so lonely." But then radio silence.

Beth hears nothing. And so she's like, "Oh, this doesn't sound good." So a week before the event, Beth emails back and says like, "Hey, you didn't write back about my friend coming. I hope it's still cool." Still radio silence. But Beth's like, you know, it's it's it's the holidays, you know, Christmas hospitality, whatever it is. So Beth invites the friend and the mom is stone called silent, very mean to Beth and in fact so mean that she puts Beth at the friend at a separate table like the kids table in the other room from the holiday dinner where everybody's eating.

Wow. Um which Beth lovingly referred to as the punishment table. It's makes me feel like you know whatever problems my family didn't they didn't shun me to a punishment table at least in recent memory. So that's good. But I think it shows off what we often kind of go through, which is like this is supposed to be a season of hosting and the holiday spirit, but we can get so tied to what we think the meal is going to be and who's going to be at the meal that we sometimes wind up not being as kind as we should be.

So, any ideas about how we can put some checks on that like fight back against this idea of we can be so rigid that the holiday has to be this way that we wind up hurting the people we care about? Well, I got to do a little Dear Abby on the letter. We got to dear Abby this please. Yeah. please. Yeah. please. Yeah. All right. Well, first of all, I always say to folks and my own son, my wife, people I deal with when I was had this company, Soul Pancake, so many crossed wires by texting and emailing where it's like pick up the phone, pick up the phone, hear someone's voice, run it by them voice to voice.

It's it's really hard, especially on a chain, and then people don't want to respond because they, you know, it's it's not a great way to communicate. Also, some people have very different opinions about Christmas. They're like, I want Christmas with the family. This is my chance to just see I don't want Bobby bringing his girlfriend and Eddie bringing his high school friend and Dominic bringing his sick friend. Like, I just want the family together. Some people feel very strongly about that. I know my friend um Kevin once brought a girlfriend that he had only been dating for like 6 months and his family was like outraged.

Like if it's a real girlfriend, it's like if it's this is headed towards engagement or something, great. But don't just bring who you're currently seeing over. That's just doesn't seem right. But I'm guessing the family's from the Midwest and there's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on here. And the idea that the mom would be stewing on this for weeks or months and then just treat someone like that uh in person is incredibly dysfunctional and shows like they've got some uh there's conflict avoidance going on and passive aggression going on.

So I I feel on all sides, but I think some of this could have been avoided with with better communication. communication. communication. And one of the things we need to communicate about is is exactly what you were saying, right? Which is like our values, right? It might be that for Beth, like the Christmas season is all about, you know, being kind to people in need or kind of, you know, Christmas hospitality. Who cares? But it might be that for Beth's mom, it's really about exactly what you're saying.

It's family, like family, family. That is the value that we want to engage with in the season. And if you bring some rando, it's going to interrupt our family time. And that matters. But you can't know what other people's values are unless you first communicate, but then second, you know, are really honest and ask questions and say, you know, how do you feel about this? what does this mean to you? And so on. We often just don't do that second step of trying to see how it would feel to someone.

And that matters a lot. a lot. a lot. And increasing sensitivity and compassion to everyone during the holidays to understand that, you know, Uncle Ronnie may just want to watch the football game, you know, and Aunt Sally really wants to connect with this side of the family. And you know, someone else, it's really about Jesus and church and going to church first thing in the morning. And it's much more of a religious thing. Some people expect a lot of presents like doesn't mean you have to cowto to their every need but get in reality with your family about what is what is the holidays for us and maybe that's a great source of conversation is kind of like on Boxing Day sit around like hey everyone let's get together let's talk about what the holidays mean for us and like next year like what is it that we want to do I mean what do we love about it what do we think we could change what if we didn't exchange gifts cuz it's a lot of pressure and we just all put in money towards this charitable event that we feel strongly about or cause that we feel strongly about, you know, but to encourage that kind of group conversation to kind of move it forward.

Well, this is a nice transition because the next set of holiday wos that we're going to tackle are navigating family dynamics. And we've already started off have the conversation, but we have some specific ones that I think might need the the dear rain advice. And so here's one from Cal. Quote, "The biggest challenge for me going home for family holidays was not only listening to a close relative boast about all the material possessions and fabulous job titles they had, but also watching my parents nod admiration and approval, whilst looking down on me for living in a two-bedroom apartment and making loaded comments about my old car and quote, "If only I was more successful." End quote.

M families bring up a lot of old school family expectations that often go unsaid because of this conversation issue. How do we navigate that? I don't know. You're going to have to take this one. Um but but I do I hear about this a lot. Um someone is like so you're still single like you know the expectation that you're going to be in a relationship or did you get that raise you were supposed to get last year or you still at the same deadend job? like there's can be some implications there.

And one thing I will say is that I think this is the grumpy old man in me, but I feel like people are less good at conversation than they used to be. And maybe it's cuz we spend so much time looking at our phones. We're so out of practice. We're so out of practice. of practice. of practice. Yeah. Because I think that a lot of times people are like they just ask the same old questions. So, how how have you been? Good. How's the health? Nice weather we're having.

take any vacations? How's your job? How's your kid? How's your mom doing? How about those bears? those bears? those bears? Um, how was O'Hare airport? And then you're done. And then they're kind of like, that's it. Um, and if you try and go deeper, people are not very good at listening. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't this doesn't answer the question at all, but I think it's something that all of us can just be working on is getting because to me great conversation comes out of curiosity.

Like curiosity. Like curiosity. Like if I meet someone, interact with them, I'm I'm deeply curious like who are they? What makes them tick? What do they think about things? How did they get to where they are? And um maybe that helps make me a podcast host or you as well. But I think that's the key. We all need to become podcast hosts around the family dinner table, right? We all need to bring in a little more curiosity and this is a spot where I think the research helps us a lot.

Uh my colleague Nick Epley who's a professor at the University of Chicago studies what he calls under sociality. This idea that we're not as social as we could be and we don't understand the benefits of sociality in the way that we should. And he has this technique that he calls deep conversation which is avoid the shallow stuff. No, how was the weather? How was O'Hare? You ask what's one thing that you're really grateful for this year? Oh wow, that's great. What's one thing about, you know, your work that really surprises you?

You know, what's the last time you cried, right? Which is actually one of the items on his survey. And what people predict is like awful. This is going to be like way too overshare. But what happens is people really enjoy it. Even when they're talking about stuff that might be tough to talk about, they wind up feeling closer afterwards. So, I think if your family conversations are veering into this stuff that's either activating all this old school, I'm not good enough or you feel like you're veering into like that career conversation you've had 40 times and you don't want to go through it again.

Just switch gears and get curious. Get a little deeper. I think it can help a lot. lot. lot. What about this? What about heading it off at the past? Like, gather everyone together. You arrive. Hey, everyone gather. I got a couple announcements. Yes, I'm still working at blah blah blah. And no, I didn't get the raise. And yeah, my car sucks. I'm going to I'm looking to get a new one next year. And uh I've only had a couple of dates with this Suzie, but um I'm still single.

And there you have it. You can you can make like a button. And so you don't even have to get into it. Like a little button that says still at the dead end job. Still with Susie. Yes, she's still she's still she's still conversation cards. Hand out hand out the cards. Here's some other questions to ask me on the flip it over. And then it's like, when's the last time you cried? cried? cried? Look, look, it sounds stupid, but I think props can be incredibly helpful.

And in fact, Nick will will share some of these with the episode, but Nick has a set of things you can download. So, literally print them out and stick them on the table so that when the conversation dies down, if it's just on the table, someone will pick it up and now you're talking about when the last time you cried was and you'll feel better. better. better. I would love to get those resources. I don't think you need them, Rain. I feel like you're pretty good at conversation being a natural podcast host.

No, but but I love like even that idea of like when's the last time you cried because that's going to be a portal to so many stories, you know, and to get to know someone. It's such a simple question, but it it's tugging on the thread that unravels the sweater, you know. you know. you know. Yeah. And I think if if nothing else, our time with the people we love should be there to get their stories. Again, not to get morbid, but many of us have family members that are getting up there.

you know, we might not have time to extract those stories. It feels like we have forever. But in practice, you know, unless we ask these deeper questions, these curious questions, we might never get there. So, we'll give you some tools to help out with that. You can find a version of these conversation tips from Nick Epley on my website at drlsantos.com/dequests. That's dr lisantos.com/dequests. Why not give them a try and boost your social connection this holiday season? It's time for a quick break, but Rain and I will be back soon with more holiday tips when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

Okay, not just family drama people are worried about, it's also the drama that we experience in the world. Politics. This is getting so deep. I'm going to take the Santa hat off. Both because it's hot and also to signal we're going to the hard stuff right now. Lots of families are worried about the fact that their holidays are spent with people who have political beliefs that might not align with their own political beliefs. And we heard from many, many listeners who wanted some help with this.

So, here's just one. Kim Kim notes on Instagram, "I'm married to a wonderful husband of 23 years. He was raised in a conservative family and I was raised in a liberal one. It is a nightmare hearing both sides argue about politics, especially because both of us were raised in families so focused on politics that we hate politics. It is a problem every year. Please give us some advice. advice. advice. Dear Rain, you want to take this one? Yeah, I mean it's really simple. I mean, you don't have to engage.

Number one. Number two, you can say, "Hey, I choose not to engage." Uh, as a proactive response. And number three, you can kind of whether by it's by email beforehand or gathering everyone around at the get-go and just say, "Listen, guys, we live in such politically divisive times. Can we make an agreement about what we're going to do about about this? I mean, half of us voted for Trump, half of us didn't. Half of us feel like this about immigration, half of us don't. Like, we we all know that we're not going to solve anything by getting into it.

We may actually increase division. Can we focus on what unites us? What are those precious points of unity that we can focus our conversation on? Because I think that that's always the way to go. Yeah. And studies show that when you find stuff that you're united on, it can overcome, you know, some of the yucky political differences. There's some work, for example, that realizing like, hey, we both love the same sports team, like we are huge Patriots fans. that can overcome a little bit of the divisiveness when it comes to politics, you know.

So, if I'm if I'm a liberal and I know somebody else is a Patriots fan just like me, then it's okay that they voted for Trump because we still have this one thing that unites us. And so, think about the uniting things and and talk about those in detail. Um, but if you want to get into politics, I think this is a spot where the research shows a path forward, which is don't talk about the like the the facts of the matter. talk about the lived experience and the feelings.

Um there's some of this lovely work that's looking at the phenomena of perspective getting asking for people's lived experiences. It's kind of similar to these deep questions, but you ask, you know, when was the time that you felt like, you know, you were really struggling, you know, oh, I see like that's from your perspective, you know, when I think of, I don't know, people who are going through a tough time because of finances, you know, that's what they're going through and so on. But it's another way that you can talk about lived experiences and values and see those things.

And you don't have to talk about who you voted for, but you can get into the thick of it, which can kind of give you some insight into, you know, where somebody might be coming from if they think a little bit differently than you. You don't have to agree with them, but by asking questions and trying to learn more, you can often get a little bit of compassion sometimes. sometimes. sometimes. Yeah. I think and there's that curiosity podcaster thing again, asking questions. No one likes to be lectured to.

No one likes to have facts that they're unsure of kind of spouted at them. And I love that idea about talking about lived experience and um you know like climate change is something that's very important to me and you know renewable resources, regenerative agriculture, you know climate solutions, climate communications, communications, communications, but I wouldn't go to a family gathering and start talking about CO2 and bring a PowerPoint and walk through, you know, point by point. Yeah. and and lecture about, oh, you're driving that Hummer and here's the output and if you drove a Kia, you know, you could do like I'm not going to do any of that, but I might talk about how hard it was to have had evacuated four different wildfires in the last 6 years years years in three different houses, which I did undergo and undertook.

I can talk about how I'm afraid that the, you know, the Pacific Northwest woods that I loved growing up in won't be there for my son or his kids. And how can we preserve nature? Talk about a shared love of nature. You know, what was it like growing up on that pond or when you would go fishing each summer? What was that like? Because both left and right do want to preserve nature, conserve nature, cherish nature, and that's a point of commonality. commonality. commonality. Yeah. And I think we forget that we wind up having way more of these points of commonality than we think.

This is another bias of the mind that I think just gets even more extreme during the holiday season, which is that if you ask, most people agree on most things. Like most people care about the environment and and don't want it don't want the earth to go away. Most people care about, you know, free and fair elections. Most people care that people are being respected no matter what their identity is. Like if you look at broad strokes, most of us agree on most of the issues.

The nuance is like, you know, in the little things about how we want to execute those things. But if you find ways to stick to people's broader values and you do that with curiosity and asking questions, getting perspective rather than giving your own perspective, you usually wind up in safer territory. Well said. Well done. All right, here's another one. This is one I can totally relate to. It's from an email from Rachel. She says, "My mom and my partner's mom feel very attached to the holidays and have never been okay with quote sharing the holiday from year to year.

This causes us to split time and run around like crazy, seeing everyone, limiting the actual fun that can be had. I hear this from so many families who have young kids. Where are the kids going to go, you know, for the the big holiday moments? Like, if you're if you celebrate Christmas morning, are the kids going to be at my in-laws or are they going to be at my partner's in-laws? And families feel like they get left out if they don't get chosen. Yeah. There's also a lot more split families, divorced families.

I know people I know one guy every year, a friend of mine, you know, his ex-wife hosts the Thanksgiving dinner and he does the day after Thanksgiving barbecue barbecue barbecue and he's always a little sirly about it. It's like, why do I have to like the day after? Yeah. Why can't Why can't we alternate, you know? But that's just how it is. And um again, this is uh adjusting to the holidays. And you know, one way to maybe approach this, Lori, and I'm wondering your thoughts on this is in soul boom, we talk a lot about spiritual paths and solutions towards mental health and making the world a better place.

And time and time again, this concept of service comes up. And when we are in a service mode, we actually increase our own happiness. We think that what's going to make us happier is getting what we want and setting things up so that we get what we want. But often times by turning that around where we can walk into a circumstance and say, "How can I be of service here?" You know, how can I be of service to my in-laws and to my mom to give her, you know, the Christmas that she wants?

And you don't want to, of course, just sacrifice your needs and suffer. That's not what I'm talking about. And not speak up for what's important to you. And, you know, you have to honor your voice. But like for my friend with the barbecue, it's shifting his mentality where it's like, this is about the kids. What do what do the kids want? This is what they like. Let me be of service to my family. I'm going to sacrifice a Thanksgiving dinner for the well-being of my kids from this divorce and then also provide them with this barbecue and have and so it's it's a it's shifting into a service mindset.

What do you what do you think? I love it. I mean the research shows that this is exactly the way to feel better. You you mentioned like well you don't want to sacrifice too much but I think what you see from the studies is like it's not a sacrifice at all. If you can get into that service mindset, then you get something out of the act of doing something kind for others. And I think this might be the path out of it. You know, if you're feeling a little rigid about your family coming at a certain time and you really thought like what would be a gift, you know, to your young kids who are traveling with a toddler maybe through O'Hare airport and have to frantically go from one house to another, you might say, "Hey, let's think about if we could do this a different time.

We'll do it a week out. we'll do it the week after, you know, the holidays when everything's on sale and we could get the decorations for cheaper and all, you know, the cheap hot chocolate and so on. Like just that act, I could imagine that Rachel, who was going through this, would say, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Right? But but it's this act of remembering that the gifts we can give don't have to be gifts. They can really be our kindness and our care during these tough times.

They can also be asking other people for help. So, oddly, some of the studies show that another way we can be of service is to ask for the things we need, especially if it's relatively easy for the person we're asking to give it. Do you have like an example of that? How does how does that work? Well, we do. In fact, from a happier story from Maria, do you see how good I am at the podcast transitions? Oh, wow. The transitions are so good. So much better than my podcast.

All right. Well, well, here's from Maria, which I like ending this section on dealing with family dynamics with this particular example because it's kind of a pause. Well, it starts out bad, but it winds up being positive. So, Maria tells us a story about her worst Christmas where she has a fight with her husband few days before Christmas. Doesn't remember what the fight is about. But during the fight, she asks the husband, "Do you love me anymore?" And he starts crying and he says he doesn't know.

Basically, fast forward, you know, 24 hours or so, it's the end of their entire relationship, the end of their marriage. their marriage. their marriage. But Maria is about to go home to visit her mom over Christmas. Mom loves Christmas and she's a little bit worried that she's going to ruin her mom's Christmas by being like, "My marriage just ended." And is tempted to pretend this isn't happening to hold it in. But here's the part that I think the story gets happier. But she notes, "Then I realize my mom, who's over 60 years old, she's had many wonderful Christmases in her life.

One bad Christmas is not going to ruin that for her. And in fact, she would appreciate it much more if I reached out to her and asked for help. She would be angry if she heard later on that I'd suffered alone." So, she goes home, she tells her mom, she calls her, and of course, the mom is super happy because when does a mom get to give that kind of present to her daughter over Christmas of supporting her through something that's really terrible? Um, other members of the family find out.

Maria's worried what they're going to say. But, of course, most people are incredibly compassionate, incredibly interested in helping. and it winds up being like a warmer, closer feeling Christmas than Maria had had before, despite, I mean, obviously the sadness of what she went through. Um, she ends the story with, "I hope this inspires others to reach out for help, too, and not to suffer alone. The helper will feel needed, and I'm sure it will increase their happiness and sense of purpose, too." purpose, too." purpose, too." Wow.

And fun fact, you know, that's how Maria and I met. And she's right here. Hurry up. Come in here. Say hi to Lori. Say, She took your letter. Come here. Come here. No, but it it makes exactly your point, right? This idea of service. We forget that if we can shift into a service mindset, we feel better. But also, if we can make it easy for others to shift into a service mindset, if we can give them the gift of helping us, I think that's huge.

And this gets back to some of the perfectionism we were talking about before. I think a lot of the people that go into like perfectionist holiday mode are often bad at asking for and receiving help with things. You know, we've all had the family the family martyr who does the turkey and does all this stuff and you're like, "Oh, can I set the table?" Like, "No, no, no. I'm I'm going to do it myself." Like, think back and realize that you can help others by letting them help you a little bit, too.

bit, too. bit, too. You know, a lot of this too goes back to what we were saying at the very beginning. And I think it's kind of preparedness preparedness preparedness and vigilance and it's proactive communication. communication. communication. I imag I don't know what the circumstances were, but I imagine her sharing with her family. Hey, I'm going through this really hard time. It's a holiday. I could use your support. I could use a safe space. I could use a space to grieve and to love and to just be surrounded by people that love me.

That would be really important to me. And if you hear that, you're like, "Yeah, f yeah. I'm in. I'm all in. Of course. How can I Yes. Yes. Yes. be a part of that?" But part of that is on the Maras to to communicate it well. Um, and this is oftentimes what I find with folks is just living in a little bit more passive victim state as opposed to like a a being a protagonist of their life, whether it's showing up to be of service or showing up to ask for your needs to be met.

Yeah. And I think we can apply this to so many of the things we talked about. you know, let's get back to politics, that really tricky one for so many individuals. I think you can just start with, you know, I've been feeling really burned out at work. I'd have a tough year. What I would really love is just for all of us to just, you know, put that to the side this year, right? That feels really different than I disagree with your politics, Dad. And so, we're not going to talk about, but like what I really want is just some closeness.

Can we just talk about old times? And, you know, it just there's ways to ask for help that make it easy for folks to grant you what you need and then everybody's happy. Nice. I love it. All right, now we're jumping to the third holiday woe that we heard about a lot. Kind of maybe built up a little bit from Maria's story. A lot of us are going through some times of grief and loss and loneliness during the holidays. Here's an email from Mindy. One thing I struggle with at the holidays is anticipating the loss I feel.

Both of my maternal grandparents died in early December. My father died a month before Christmas and my my mother [clears throat] is currently dying from ALS and will be gone before the holidays. What are the holidays without our grandparents and parents? Um, this is something I know you talk a lot about on Soul Boom, right? Thinking about spirituality and and one of the things we use our spiritual experiences for is to navigate grief and loss, especially during these like emotionally fraught times. So, any ideas about how to get through this?

Wow, that's a great question and a really great topic and I love that you're covering this because I don't think that this is covered a lot in podcasts or conversations about happiness. happiness. happiness. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's like how how do we navigate happiness and well-being when we're really dealing with grief, loss, and death? And um and you're absolutely right, like the holidays can bring up people that we lost during the year. It can be people that we lost that we miss that used to be there and are no longer there or are sick or what have you.

And you know, contemporary American culture, we don't talk a lot about this stuff. You know, we tend to kind of like, oh, I don't want to bum everyone out, so we're not going to talk about what we're grieving or or what have you. I'm I'm a little bit of an overshare kind of person. Maybe it's also being from California, but um chronic oversharing, but you know, perhaps it's carving out some time to honor the grief. It's almost like the Oscars in memoriam, like, okay, we're going to take four minutes now to show the slideshow of the people that died this last year, just to kind of like have a a somber note and honor that.

And I think that's great, but maybe maybe on a on a family level, and this would I think be hard for a lot of people to initiate. It's kind of like, can we come together and say a prayer for Aunt Judy who's sick or Uncle Bob who passed away last year? Can everyone can we go around the circle and say, you know, who we miss or what how we might be grieving or or going through? Because when you give it the space and honor it, then you can celebrate and it's not weighing on you like a wet blanket.

You know, you can just take 5, 10, 15 minutes to do that and then you can have days of of joy because you've taken the time to, you know, to recognize what's what's real. I think this is so critical. I mean, one of the things we know about negative emotions is that like negative emotions when you have to feel them, they don't last as long as we think, right? I mean, obviously the grief of losing a loved one lasts a lot, but those moments when it comes up, it's not going to last forever.

The problem is that we kind of suppress those emotions down. We say, "Nope, it's the holiday season. We can't, you know, think about grandpa. We have to pretend that everybody is perfect." But when we allow time to just sit there and like radically accept our emotions, the studies show that those emotions wind up passing a little bit better. Like when you sit down to feel the grief, you're going to feel it. And if you allow yourself to do that, you'll give yourself some space. But then, just as you said, it's like, huh, okay, now I can make space for the joy because I'm not, you know, using part of my frontal lobe to hold down the grief that I'm feeling about grandpa for the whole Christmas season.

I gave myself some space to experience that. And I think that's so important. You know, happy holidays doesn't have to mean that we're happy all the time at every moment. It's like, you know, a 10 out of 10 on joy for every second. Like, there's a lot of nostalgia there. there's a lot of past coming up. There's a lot of dealing with tough things. We need to make space for all the emotions that come through it. And that lets those emotions kind of take their course and and go on their merry way.

merry way. merry way. Uh that's that's so well said. I I met this old 12step guy once and he said the only way out is through. Meaning like Meaning like Meaning like the only way to be relieved of with the burden of whatever grief you're feeling is to go through it. And like is to go through it. And like you say, it can be really scary, but it's often times briefer and easier than we think it's going to be and more socially shared, right? You bring it up and it's like even if someone's not grieving, the exact person you're grieving, if their loss is not the same, I bet that pretty much everyone you interact with during the holiday season is going through something that's making them sad, some loss, something that feels different than they'd like it to be.

And so opening up space for other people to share that stuff can be really important for our happiness, too. M that's great. But that connection leads me to the next thing that people go through, which is loneliness during the holiday season. Uh all our social media feeds are filled with people caroling and hanging out and having dinner together, but there's a lot of folks who are feeling lonely, either because they've had a recent loss or just because they're alone. We had one anonymous commentator on YouTube saying that his holiday woe is quote being lonely and just not having somebody to spend the holiday mormons with.

sort of this feeling of watching others have and experience happy moments and feeling like that might never happen to me. I think during the holidays it can feel like everybody is happy and being social and you're not. Sometimes even if you're in a big group of family or a big group of people, we can experience the deepest loneliness there. Um so what are some strategies for feeling a little bit more connected during the holiday season, especially if you're kind of feeling a little lonely? Well, my first experience of this had to do in an episode of Happy Days where Arthur Fonzerelli, who's so cool, you know, and beloved by everyone and can get any girl he wants and he's got his motorcycle and his pinball machine in his garage and stuff like that.

And they Richie Cunningham realizes he's spending Christmas alone Christmas alone Christmas alone and he's cooking a can of soup. And so they invite f the fs over to the Cunninghams and all is saved. But um in all seriousness, you know, I'm sure you've spoken about this a ton. We're in this loneliness epidemic. Yes. Yes. Yes. And especially with young people, a lot of times people are feeling more and more not just isolated lonely, but lonely while in groups of other people. lonely while at work, lonely while at school.

school. school. And I think this happens in families a lot, especially if you're feeling disconnected. You're sitting around the dinner table feeling like I don't belong. I don't connect to these people. people. people. Yeah. So, you know, I just want to honor that this is a very real thing, you know. I think the work on loneliness has to be done way before it's Christmas time, you know. So, I think it's uh that's a good time for some therapy. It's, you know, going on meetup. It's it's um little by little, bit by bit, exerting yourself exerting yourself exerting yourself into areas where you might feel a little bit of discomfort.

Join a bowling league or a kickball league or a a Dungeons and Dragons game. Join a park cleanup. There's this um nonprofit in our area called Food Forward where they get and they they pick stuff from the orchards around to give out at food kitchens. And um the camaraderie is amazing. They come over and they pick your extra avocados and lemons and stuff like that and and you know it's going to good and they're having such a good time doing it. You know, finding places to volunteer and maybe volunteering around the holidays is always a good idea too.

A soup kitchen or something like that. These all sign sound kind of obvious. I don't really have really have really have I think you are offering something important, right? You're getting back to what you talked about before, which is this idea of service. And just one thing we know about the psychology of loneliness is that a really good cure for loneliness is reaching out to other people. It's like thinking of your own service is trying to make other people less lonely or make other people happy in other ways.

And so, I think you're getting at it. If you're feeling lonely in the holiday season, reach out to a person that you think might be in need or that you think might be lonely and just check in. Not for the goal of trying to feel less lonely yourself, but just to say I'm solving the loneliest crisis around me. And you know, studies show that it'll make you feel a little boost of belonging, a little boost of social connection, and then you create these ripple effects that wind up making everybody feel a little bit happier.

But isn't part of the problem texting? because because because yes, yes, yes, I make a lot of calls and I have like I have a couple buddies I just talk to several times a week and we just like catch up on movies. How's it going? What's going on? And it's really oldfashioned. It's oldfashioned. It's oldfashioned. It's hey, how's it going? Like, and they used to say, oh, phone is so disconnecting. It's being in person and obviously being in person and but you know, can we get a coffee calling?

just calling to I just called to say I love you. I'm just calling to check in on you cuz we can feel connected. It's a fake kind of connection when we text someone say how's it going? Hey, how are you? Good. All right. You cool? All right. Later. It's not soul satisfying, right? And social media is the same way. Like you could post a picture of your cat and get 37 hearts on it and feel like you have 37 friends, but it's not a real connection around your cat.

Yeah. The science shows best connection, most nutritious, psychologically nutritious connection is at least in real time, you know? So the phone you're picking up and you say, "Hey, how's it going?" You say, "Oh, hi." It's not like a text like, "Voop, how's it going?" and then boop, back. But all that said, you know, if all you got is time to text, do that rather than nothing, right? But yeah, calling on the phone or if you want to get a big technological advancement, you can use these other video tools.

We have Skype, FaceTime. If you don't have a landline like Rain, feel free to use your iPhone to reach out to someone else. The video like the little camera feature. I send faxes. I still send faxes. One of the best forms of social connection during the holiday season. Did you get my holiday fax? You got my fax. You didn't get my fax. I had such a blast hanging out with Rain Wilson. Thanks. so much to every listener who sent in a holiday woe for us to chew on.

Unfortunately, there were lots of your tough questions that we didn't have time to fit into a single show. But I asked Rain to come back next week to offer even more sage seasonal advice. So, be sure to join me and Rain next time for more holiday insights on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Lauri Santos.