MERRY STRESSMAS #3 - RELATIONSHIPS

MERRY STRESSMAS SERIES

What stresses you out during the Christmas season? Maybe it is schedules, budgets and/or toxic interpersonal situations? What turns the celebration of Christ into a meltdown of stress? The good news is that there tools, principles and wisdom to rise above these situations. When we approach stress with a victim’s mentality we are vulnerable to biological, mental and relational viruses. However, when we approach stress as a challenge to overcome, we enter with the health of a Jesus-disciple. Join us for a new series at LifePointe called, MERRY STRESSMAS, DON’T LET THE GRINCH STEAL CHRISTMAS. Discover with us how to reach the other side of the holidays being both healthy, happy and holy!

 

TODAY - OVERCOMING RELATIONSHIP-STRESSORS

EPHESIANS 5:15-17 NKJV See then that you walk CIRCUMSPECTLY, not as fools but as WISE, 16 redeeming the TIME, because the days are EVIL. 17 Therefore do not be UNWISE, but understand what the WILL of the Lord [is].

  • CIRCUMSPECTLY (GR – exactly, accurately and diligently) 
  • EVIL (GR – full of labors, annoyances and hardships; pressed and harassed)
  • UNWISE (GR – without reflection; acting rashly)
  • WILL (GR – commands, precepts and pleasures of; i.e. the flux capacitor)

 

RELATIONSHIPS - WHERE THE STRUGGLE IS…

  • Social (imposed) expectations
  • Finding “the right presents” for people that it is hard to get for
  • Make up relational wounds with presents (kids, spouses and parents)
  • Being triggered by old family systems, patterns and dysfunctions
  • Witnessing strained and divided relationships throughout the family networks
  • Managing the pressure of family gossip and projected expectations from the gossip 
  • Challenges to know where you begin and your family/friends (and their expectations) end
  • Medicating the stress with alcohol, isolation and more
  • Stress multiplied by family members being hyper-stressed

 

PRINCIPLES TO MANAGE YOUR MONEY

This is not a DOCTRINE series, but a WISDOM series.

  1. Stress is when we try to control anything (time, circumstances, people, etc), yet feel the tension that it isn’t working.
  2. Re-entering extended family rituals and patterns trigger an insecure narrative of Self. Places, smells, reconvening of groups of people (Mom, Dad, siblings, cousins, etc) all increase personal triggers.
  3. Become vigilant to know your Self. Learn precisely what triggers you. You cannot change or feel what you don’t acknowledge. You have to name it to name it.
  4. We often aren’t battling the other person, but our own wound-based narrative.
  5. Eliminate all statements that tend towards controlling another person, and refuse to participate in the same statements pointed at you. Eliminate phrases like “I NEED you too…” and “If I can just GET my spouse too…”.
  6. Remember, when we don’t manage our own narratives around identity we fall into old patterns of interaction. Ask yourself at what percentage of dysregulation you will allow before you remove from a triggering situation.  
  7. Our goal is emotional calibration. Neither amp-ing up or shutting down.
  8. Other people’s behavior makes sense in context. You love people more easily up close. Understanding people helps me lower my expectations of them. Understanding people makes their actions less personal to me, which increases compassion.

CALL TO ACTION

Out of everything we talked about today,

what is your ONE NEXT STEP you need to take?

 

Pull out your PHONE and EMAIL it to yourself RIGHT NOW.

 

Some Considerations:

  • Set a boundary with that one person
  • Limit exposure to the one person that wrecks me
  • Buy a book on Boundaries
  • Learning how to define yourself
  • Begin the Science of Freedom Workshop
  • Write down how I want to see myself at the end of the holidays

 

Patrick NorrisComment