Holiday blues with therapist Wayne Brazil

Hello, this is Julianne Good and this is Psych One-on-One. We're here to make psychology understandable, interesting, and hopefully entertaining. And we're here to give you some tips for making your life easier and the lives of your friends and family. Tonight, I am being rejoined by my friend, Wayne Brazil, marriage and family therapist. And we're gonna be talking about getting over the holiday blues. Hi, Wayne, how you doing? I'm fine. How are you tonight, Julianne? Terrific, thank you. Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background, please? Well, surely. I am a marriage family child counselor in private practice in Fullerton, California. I not only have a private practice in which there are 20 of us involved, it's a fairly large practice, but I'm also a professor of psychology at Hope International University. I come out of the business world and have been doing this for about 22 or 23 years now. That's wonderful. I am a single individual. My wife has passed away and the father of six children. I have 16 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. One of whom, by the way, was born with out of corpus callosum, which is the connection between the right and left brain. So we've got an interesting situation there. She's blind and it's the sweetest thing you ever saw in our lives. And it's the newest addition to our family. But her future is a little unsure at this point. We don't know what's going to happen with her, but she's a beauty. Oh, wow. Thank you for letting us know that. And also, you are an artist. I am an artist. I paint and draw and use oils and acrylics and watercolor and I do some teaching. And even some art. I'll therapy from time to time. Yes, I've seen some of your artwork. It's fantastic. Very expressive, yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I really enjoy it. I do some wildlife, but mostly landscapes and waterscapes, seascapes and that kind of thing. But it's a real joy to do. And it's a great relaxing thing to do. I think it's probably one of the, it's catching on to be one of the things people do to relax in our country, actually. I heard George Bush is painting, even George W. is painting. It'd be interesting to see what he's painting. I don't know what. I don't know what. We'll have to go to his art gallery sometime, right? I'm interested in seeing what he's painting, too. But I heard he's painting landscapes, so we'll see. Yeah, former White House landscapes, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Wayne, we are going to talk about getting over the holiday blues this evening. And I'm sure a lot of our audience goes through periods where, you know, every year here comes Christmas again. And here comes the expectations. And everything else that comes along with the holidays. Can you mention a little bit about what you've come across in your practice once it comes this time of the year, as to what clients deal with? Oh, it's amazing the amount of pressure people put themselves under as this time comes around. You know, there's the thing that I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be happy and joyous. I'm supposed to be home for the holidays. I'm supposed to be with loved ones. I'm supposed to be perfect. I'm supposed to buy. I'm supposed to be with my family. Of course, so many of our families are in divorce situations, and you don't know which part of the family to go visit first. And there's four or five sets of grandfathers and grandmothers and relatives and kids and all the expectations that are placed on us. It upsets our equilibrium, you know, the routines of our lives. We don't get enough sleep. We over or under eat. We gift ourselves, but with the wrong things. Too much food, too much alcohol. And, of course, some of the listeners out there are probably doing a lot of drugs, you know. And they don't understand, I think, that alcohol is a depressant. And drugs can be a depressant or an anxiolytic, too. It can create anxiety. And so we're going to do a little of those, and that will make us feel better. And instead what it does is it drops us into depression and anxiety, which is natural to the season. Right. Well, and look at all the sugar. Right. Right. And I think that's probably one of the number one things that people, I guess you could say overdose on this time of the year because it's cookies, candies. It's everywhere you turn. Here is sugar, sugar, sugar shoved into your face. Oh, absolutely. I was telling somebody the other day that you've got to have a plan. If you're going to be facing these kinds of situations like this, you have to have a plan. It's already in place, a holiday strategy, if you will, for all of these issues, including that one of filling ourselves up with candy. I know that around our office, somebody dropped off a five-pound box of See's candy, plus all the cakes, and it's amazing the kinds of things that show up about this time of year. And here we are. And they're wonderful. They're tasty and good, and oh, my goodness, and they throw our blood sugar off so radically. Yes, they do. And then the pounds start coming on, and then the guilt, and then, right. It's just a ruthless circle, it seems like, and everybody's expecting to gain at least five to ten pounds over the holiday season. It's almost expected with some people. Absolutely. You know, if you choose a high-calorie, high-fat diet, you know, I'm a good cook myself. I've always enjoyed the kitchen, and the thing I love to do is sauces and so forth and so on. Yeah. And lots of the sauces I prepare, you know, it starts with a pound of butter. Heart attack city. Casseroles and desserts, and it's just not just one plate of food. We eat to excess, and, you know, within ten minutes, we're having a second helping, and, you know, we just desire more food. And, you know, I don't think it's about. It isn't about being hungry, but how good it tastes. You know, I mean, you know, God knew when he made us that we were going to taste things, we'd make it taste good, so he put within us the ability to taste sugar and salt. And fat. Oh, boy. Yummy. I know. I know. Well, yeah. And people just get so. They get into this consumerism mentality for what a good six to eight weeks. And every year, the retailers are putting out Christmas things even earlier. I mean, this year I saw it even before Halloween. It was on the shelves. It was Halloween, you know, objects. And then there was Christmas, and then there was the Christmas tree already. And this was like mid-October. I'm going, are you kidding? Are you kidding? Seriously. Oh, totally. Totally. And it's, you know, it's sugars and sweets and treats. And that's just the food stuff. And then all around the stores, there are things to buy and advertisements for us and sales. Oh, my goodness. Every place I look, it's 60% off and 50% off. And you can buy this, and it'll make you happy. It's going to bring you joy into your life. Or this is the only way that you can tell somebody that you care and love them that this is truly it. Look what I gave you. Especially the jewelry companies. Oh, they just shove it down your throats. It's just sticky sweet. Yeah, I appreciate the jewelry companies advertising that you too can, you know, spend all that money on these things. It's really, you know, it's pretty stuff. I mean, goodness sake. And I know the loved ones that I have in my life would just love to have some of that. But all that does is just add pressure to an already pressured world and a pressured life for most people. And we have people who are basically depressed anyway and anxiety-driven. And they start looking for solutions. And they start looking for solutions for the holiday blues. You know, and the normal solutions are go be with people. You know? Yeah, right. I'm going to, I'll tell you what, I'm going to go be with my family. You know, that's going to make fun. Wait a minute. There are people in my family I don't like. There are people in my family who don't like me. My goodness. There are people in my family I don't see any time but that time of year, which tells me, you know, there's something wrong. Maybe I'd... Maybe I really don't want to be with them. Well, yeah. And then we're all expected to behave in those situations. Totally. And there's people that are just simmering at the dinner table and harboring past injustices. And it's amazing. But we're all expected to behave. And then, of course, you add alcohol to situations like that. And sooner or later, somebody's going to burst. Oh, my. And that depression builds anxiety. And, you know, and we don't, and we get all that food and we're uncomfortably stuffed. And we've come there feeling like, oh, no, you know, am I performing correctly? Am I doing this right? You know, maybe I should go on a trip instead. Maybe I should just stay home. And watch funny videos. I don't know. I wrote a poem one time that says, you know, especially in Southern California, California is a... Christmas in California is a weird thing. It's a strange thing. Because we are... We don't get snow. And here today, it's, you know, and it's 70 degrees. My place is 75 degrees, 80 yesterday. Yeah. And, you know, the wind is blowing brown leaves against the curb. And... And... It's blowing all the... All the fake snow off the lawns. And the Santa Clauses are blowing over and they won't stay up. And, you know, somebody is hurrying up to a double parked Mercedes Benz while a Jaguar blows Christmas carols at him to get out of the way. You know, all that kind of thing. Rush, rush and weirdness. Rush, rush, rush. You know, and that's Christmas in Southern California. Right. And we... We... We... Finally get ourselves home to the fifth production of Scrooge this week. You know? It's... It's just a lot. It's just a lot. And we'd say, okay, this year we won't do that. We won't... I'll tell you what. This year, you know, we had that experience one year in my family. We said, okay, we're just not going to buy each other anything. My wife said that to me and I said, you know what? That's a... That's a formula for absolute failure. She said that, but she doesn't mean it. And I won't feel good unless I buy her something. So I bought her something and I gave it to her for Christmas. She said, we weren't going to give each other anything. And I said, yeah, that's what we said. And she said, here, this is for you. And she gave me the one she bought for me. I know. I know. It's all a good intentions list. Just get together and, you know, spend time together. Have a nice dinner and stuff and don't do any presents. And then it's just... And somebody... Always ruins that equation. Always, always, always. I know. That was just a formula for just an absolute disaster. Yeah. And we're not going to do anything this year. What we're going to do is we're going to adopt a family and help them out. Well, we did that and we do that anyway. Yeah, that's great. It's just another level of pressure that everybody lives with this time of year. I know. It's just so much. It's so much. And if you've got little kids, you know, they're being bombarded all year with expensive electronics. I mean, there's nothing out there that a little kid wants that doesn't cost $299. I mean, $299 at least. Oh, yeah. You know? And they want an iVest and an iVapt and an iPhone and an iPad and an iEgo. And an Xbox. Right. PlayStation. Yes. And... And I understand that. There's exciting things for kids to have. And then the parents buy them for them and the kid spends the next six months on them every day, every minute of every day. And the homework goes. And the next thing you know, they're coming to me and saying, what should I do? I think I'm going to take that away from him. So I'll put him on restriction. At which time he throws a fit. So that's, you know, that's just a lot. It really is a lot. Yeah. Well, and then the whole thing is, too, then the parents buy it on a credit card and then they're paying it off with interest because, you know, the five-year-old had to have an Xbox. I mean, really? It's unbelievable. I'd like to reach out to the listeners. If you would like to join us in this conversation, the number is 800-893-9562. Again, that's 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. 800-893-9562. We're talking about getting over the holiday blues. What do you do to keep yourself in check for a good six to eight weeks so you don't blow up and, you know, keep your peace like we're supposed to have in this season, right? Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah, there's some, you know, that volunteer, be with people, watch funny videos, go on a trip. Those are the normal kinds of solutions that people are given. You know, besides the ones we give in the office, take a deep, deep breath and remember what your name is. But like I said, you know, what happens when we get into this holiday time, we upset our equilibrium. All those routines that we get used to, eating at a certain time, eating not too much, watching our diet, getting enough sleep, all that stuff goes away. And we begin to gift ourselves. But remember, we don't gift ourselves with food. For Pete's sake, that's not a good gift to give ourselves. Alcohol is a depressant. Drugs can create anxiety and depression. You know, we want to make sure that we have a plan that we can get out ahead of us. In other words, when I meet Uncle Louie who hates me and I hate him, what do I say? You know, do I get into a conversation with people at the dinner table and say, yeah, well, how about that, you know, whatever it is? And suddenly. And suddenly realize, yeah, I just opened the hot topic of the year, you know, and now everybody's mad at everybody. Oh, yeah. I mean, and it's such predictable behavior every year. If you're getting together with the same set of people, you're almost, again, expecting certain things to happen. So, therefore, you kind of feed into that whole energy of that negativity and the whole holiday spirit just goes down the toilet. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We just, we shouldn't, if we've got people that we're in contact with during this time of the year and not any other time, and we know that there are certain hot topics, for goodness sake, have a plan on what happens if that comes up. Yeah, or just walk away. Yeah, walk away. Walk away. Walk away, play with the kids, go play with their toys or something. You know what I mean? Just something that breaks it up. Yeah, I told you, you know, I have family. I have family that I'm sure don't like me and I don't like them. I had an aunt who, the minute I would walk in the door, would say something really mean to me. And I would get angry and blow up and then I'd leave and everybody say, well, he's so angry. You know, he's just so angry. But nobody heard what she said. And nobody knew that what she said was loaded with some kind of, it was like she had just given me a pipe bomb full of nails. And lit the fuse. I know. It was meant to shred me. Yeah, I know. I had a grandma like that and she was German and she would say something nasty to me about my appearance. And then she'd walk away and start swearing in German. Oh, right. There she goes. Yeah, I learned swearing in German real early. Yeah. I don't know why. I mean, I think I know why she did it. She raised me for seven years of my life and I don't think she ever intended to raise me. And I think we probably conflicted really early because one of my early memories is, in fact, my earliest memory is she slapped me so hard, made my nose bleed when I put it on her sofa. She blistered me with a belt. And I suspect I told her to shut up is what I think. But I was four years old. You know, don't four-year-olds get a break. Yeah, no kidding. They shut up for a while. Old school discipline. Wow. But, you know, I finally decided that if I have a plan, when she says something mean to me, if I work that out ahead of time, then I don't have to leave. Then I don't look like the bad person. And my plan was, I think the next time she says something mean to her, I'll say, that's interesting that you would say that. What did you mean by that? And what do you want from me about that right now? Mm-hmm. And what they did is set her back on her heels. In fact, it upset her so much that she began to splutter and fume and bluster and so forth and so on. It made her look really bad. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I just said, well, that's interesting. That's curious. And I just backed off. I said, well, I'm here to have a good time. And it's interesting you said that. But if you decide what you want from me about that, you let me know, okay? Right. Right. Ugh. It saved my life. But, you know, I think what it does, it takes a plan. And I think that's what people have to do when they're in this holiday season and shortly hereafter as we get this holiday blues thing incurred through the New Year's, is that we've got to have a plan on what we're going to do if we're confronted by too many things, too much food, too much booze, too much drugs, too much company, too much, you know, what? Right. And the cousin who says that mean thing to you, what are we going to do? What am I going to do if I go to the company party and, you know, the vice president of marketing pinches me on the butt? What am I going to do? You know? Besides file a sexual harassment suit. Yeah. You know, what am I going to do to make sure that I don't get myself into one of those kind of predicaments? Yeah. Is it okay for me to say no? Yes, it is okay for you to say no. Right. It's okay for you to have healthy boundaries. People who get depressed and get anxious, the first thing that goes is their boundaries. Mm-hmm. They don't know how to process unhappy and traumatic memories before the big day, before the time they're put into these situations with people, you know. These things that happen to us also, Laura, ought to be. Yeah. And so I'm looking at what happens to the body when the brain gets dysregulated. Mm-hmm. It throws off the mechanism in our body that keeps us healthy, and we get flooded with dopamine that produces a lot more adrenaline, and we get cortisol, and the body just goes wacko. And the next thing you know, we got the flu. Right. Oh, yeah. That's very common. Yes. We get sick because of all the pressure, you know. Right. And plus, we've upset our equilibrium with not getting good sleep, and we're eating the wrong things, and we're not taking good care of us. We're not following normal routines. We've not been wise in our spending. We should on ourselves. We don't identify problem areas. Right. And shortcut them. Prepare for them. Press them, you know. Right. Yeah. Right. Okay. We're going to be healthy. Yeah. Okay, Wayne. We're going to take a commercial break right now. And then we'll come back, and we'll, you know, talk some more about getting over the holiday blues. And again, if anybody would like to join us in this conversation, the number is 800-893-9562. And it's like one-on-one. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. It's really an interesting phenomenon because it's like right at the time when you need support the most and you need some techniques the most, you don't make the counseling available to yourself. And why do you think that is? I think it's people get stressed, and they think, well, for goodness sake, I'm going there. Even people who are insured and they're only paying $20, they're looking at that as, oh, my goodness, here's a chance for me to save $80 because $20 a month, I mean, a session for four weeks is $80, and I could spend that $80 on something else. And people are getting so stressed and so time-limited, so constricted as far as the amount of time that they've got to spend on themselves that they start ignoring and denying themselves. Right. Which is really helping. It's like... People don't understand. This is the time you really need to be getting some help here, and they don't. Yeah, well, like you said, there's that cost constriction. And not only that, I think along with having to do more in their schedule on a daily basis, running around, getting presents, getting things ready, you know, visiting. You know, meeting people, you know, Christmas performances, blah, blah, blah. And then on top of it, if they've had bad childhoods and then have bad memories of the holidays, I think that would just be like overload for some people. Is that right? Well, totally. Totally is. Yeah, there's a kind of a... I think there's a myth out there almost that a lot of people flock to get counseling during these times. Right. But they don't have time. You know, there's the Christmas play and the kids thing and the this and the that and the basketball tournament and the, you know, and it's all crammed into these weeks around Christmas and then the shopping and the prepping and going away and all of that. And again, like I say, they disrupt their routines so badly that they really don't take good care of themselves. They don't budget their time. They don't budget. They don't budget their money. They don't budget their food consumption. You know, and they drink too much and they party too much and they don't sleep enough and all those kinds of things. And those are right at the time when they need to be checking in with the therapists and saying, help me, I'm out of control. Right. Or else checking in with themselves instead of getting consumed by doing. Oh, yeah. They forget how to just be... Yeah. And just take a breather from time to time, you know, and just relax. It's okay. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. I think that's one of the big messages that people forget. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. You just, I think you just need to remember to be compassionate and kind to people this time of the year because there's so many people that don't have other people to reach out to. And they're alone during this. Oh, surely. This season. And that's just, you know, that can be really devastating for some people. Of course. And you want to watch, you want to, I say we want to monitor. I say what I want to do is to take bio slices through myself. I want to monitor myself. And in the 12-step programs, we talk about HALT, H-A-L-T. You want to monitor yourself to find out, am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? And am I tired? Right. That's nice. If you're feeling any one of those things, that's a signal to stop, drop, and roll. You know, it's a signal to say, I'm on fire here at this point because one of these things comes up. Chances are you'll have one or more. You know, if I get hungry, I get angry. It's really interesting how my stomach and my emotions are tied together there. Yeah. And as a guy who lost his wife four years ago, there's a place in me I feel lonely. And it's really interesting. I get lonely, but you see, I'm not lonely for people. I'm lonely for the person I've lost. Yeah. In other words, I'm lonely for her. And I think that happens with all of us. We're not lonely just to be. I just, you know, if I was, you know, I could go to the mall and sit around in the mall. There's lots of people there. I could go to my church and hang around in my church. I go to a church. Just, you know, run an eight or nine thousand people a Sunday. I can go there and sit around in there. And there's all kinds of people there. But I'm not lonely for people. I'm lonely for the thing that I'm missing, the person I'm missing. You know. And, you know, I say hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. I can get lonely, angry, and tired almost all at the same time. And I have to watch out because then what I want to do, I'm going to feed it. I'm going to feed it with stuff. With things. With people. With food. With alcohol. With, you know, like I say, with stuff. And I can get really, really busy. Yeah, or you just get short-tempered and you're sitting in line too long and you start hollering at people or beeping at people because they're not moving fast enough. And, you know, you just get into this almost like the hamster wheel of life, but it's going at, you know, 50 miles an hour. And you can't control it. It's out of control. And you see so many people that that happens with. I mean, look at the shopping frenzy on Black Friday. How many people were killed on that day across the nation? Something like 50 people. I mean, that was because they're stampeding over each other for things. You know, that's insane. Yeah. And, you know, and then we begin to make these grandiose decisions. I'm going to change it all this year. I'm not going to do any of the things that I've done in the past. I'm going to change. Change it and completely change it. And it's funny how at the end of the holiday season, I suddenly find myself feeling really or we find ourselves very, very empty. I'm saying you're right. You don't want to do the same old thing. I don't want to. But I don't want to overdo anything. I want to take control. And what I've decided to do and what I think is a good idea is I'm going to change one little thing this year. And then I'll change one little thing next year. And I'll change it slowly over time, over years. I can change these things without feeling deprived and angry and hurt and alone and so forth and so on. I think it's a good plan. You have to have that plan saying I'm going to change things, but I'm not going to change. I'm not going to decide, for instance, this year I'm just not going to be with any of my family. I'm just going to go. I'm going to go up to Pismo Beach and hang out. I'm going to go up to Pismo Beach and hang out. And the next thing you know, I'm going to jump in an ocean and drown myself. You know, I need to be with people who love me and people who I care about. But I don't need to be with people who I don't and that don't care about and don't love me. And I don't need to be spending and spending and consuming and consuming. I say me and I think that's we. We don't need to be consuming and consuming and spending and spending. It doesn't bring happiness. It does not bring joy. So I'm going to change one little thing about that every year. Yeah. And then something that puts you more into a place of control where you're like, okay, I don't need to be doing this certain thing because I understand this certain thing that I do every year stresses me out. I know it. And instead of going into autopilot and doing it, just step back. Step back. Yeah. Because it's the thing we always do. And it is tradition. I, you know, I say, you know, I'm very poetic right now because I'm publishing my poetry. And, you know, one of the little sayings I always say is, you know, a red barn is tradition. So is warring on the innocent. You know? And sometimes I do traditional things that really is a war against myself. Yeah. I know. And then we always think, well, like you said, it's tradition. We just do it this way. And that's the way it's always been. And then they don't question it. But it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, drop it. It's dysfunctional. I think everybody knows that old story about the person who said that, you know, they always cut the end of the ham off, you know. And somebody asked the person. Why do you always cut the end of the ham off before you put it in the pan? They said, because we've always done it that way. Always cut the end of the ham off. And finally said, well, why? I don't know. I still don't understand why. I said, well, my grandmother did it that way. She said, I think I'll call my grandmother and find out. And so she called her grandmother and said, why did you cut the end of the ham off? She said, because the ham was too long for the pan. That's right. It's just the right size right now with the end of it on. Right? It doesn't have anything to do. How you cook the ham. It had to do with the utility of getting it in the pan. Right. But because it was done that way, every time she saw her grandmother do it, she repeats it and repeats it. We do that over and over. In fact, this is a time for tremendous, a whole lot of different traditions that we do. Yeah. And some of them are just downright silly. Right. Yeah. I remember one year, somebody, one of my friends decided to get in. She said, I'm going to get into this Christmas pickle thing. And she's like, oh, this is traditional. We've always done this. And this is from Europe somewhere, from Germany or something. And I asked my friend from Germany, what about this Christmas pickle thing? She says, I've never heard anything about Christmas pickle. So I'm like, okay. So we got to hear the story of the Christmas pickle. So if anybody ever knows that, please send me an email on it. Okay. Email about the Christmas pickle. Well, you know, it's a tradition. We have turkey, right? At Christmas. And one of the things that I changed about three years ago was, you know, I don't like turkey. I have never liked turkey. I don't eat turkey. When I go and the turkey is cut up, I'll fix one. And I'll fix it and, you know, cook it and I'll carve it and get it on the plates for everybody. Everybody can just glom down on turkey. But you know what? I don't eat it. I tell everybody jokingly, I said, it tastes like cat. They say, well, how do you know? I don't know what cat tastes like. I said, I've tasted turkey. But, you know, everybody's saying, well, you just, you know, it's just tradition. We have to have turkey. And I'm saying, I don't have to have turkey. I'm going to go get a standing rib roast and that's what I'm going to fix. Anybody wants to join me, they can have some too. That's what I'm going to fix. I'm going to fix a standing rib roast and bring it. I'm not going to do without protein. Protein simply because it's tradition to eat turkey. Don't like turkey. Doesn't seem to agree with me. Yeah, it's so dry. Something I decided not to do is to just choke down some white meat because it's tradition. Yeah, and everybody else is doing it. So you don't want to be left out, right? Yeah. I determined that, I guess it was about five years ago, actually. Because my wife and I, after we did the turkey, we decided what we were going to do is to make a turkey barley soup. And so I spent the day after Christmas making this huge, big pot of turkey barley soup. And I got it all done and I said, there, the turkey barley soup is all finished. Do you want some? And she said, no, I don't like turkey barley soup. I said, you don't like it? She said, no, I don't like it. I hate it. And I said, then why did I make all this soup? I don't eat it and you don't eat it. What are they going to do with them? We put it all up in jars and gave it away. Well, at least it didn't, you know, pour it down the drain or anything. So it wasn't a waste, but right. You know, and that's a great point, Wayne. I mean, we're doing autopilot and we go into, again, we do these silly things and we don't even question it sometimes. And I think. We need to just slow down a little bit and say, do I absolutely need to do what I'm doing? Make new traditions. New traditions. I love that. Exactly. Pour it down. Figure out what's going to work in 2013. Right. I mean, this isn't the 19 whatever, whatever is anymore. This is 2013. We can make new traditions. Something fun. I know. Part of it is really hard because, you know, we're. You know, some of us have got great families and everything is wonderful. But I think the most terrible time I had ever had in my life was. Was that the failure of my first marriage, my marriage failed and. Alone came Christmas and basically, you know, I said, well, gee, you know, I've got presents for the kids and. You know, can I can I come over and so forth? And. And so on. They said no. And I went, I can't come. I said, no, the kids can come by and pick them up. And but you can't come to the house. And all in my house now, you know, and all that stuff. And I tell you what, I felt really, really, really terrible. Really awful. And I went to my family's house and so on. So on. My aunt said something really mean to me. And I I just said, well, I just came over just to say hello and I'm leaving. And I left. And. And I went home and. You know, I've I've kind of fell into my own into my own depression. I think at that time I was very, very, very, very suicidal. I became very, very depressed. And I didn't help situations anyway, because I went home and I got drunk. And I stayed drunk for clear through the holiday season. Now, I don't. I don't even begin to tell you what that does to you. It it further depresses you. Yeah. And I thought, well, if I get drunk enough to just pass out, then that's going to make me feel better. It didn't make me feel better. It made me feel awful. Right. And, you know, it's just really, really. It was a kind of a fallback position. And I know people today, your audience, people in your audience, they're alone. They're divorcing. They're they're alienated from people, from their friends. They're family, maybe even alienated from their children. And these times, these times are very, very hard on them. Very hard on them. You know, it's really important that you set some new routines and you get your rest and you eat well and you stay away from those things that are addictions that you just kind of fall into these coping mechanisms, strategies that you have adopted to make you feel better. They will not make you feel better. Yeah. Well, and then the next day you're feeling much worse because you're hungover. And regretful. It depends on what happens when you're when you're under the influence. But, yeah, I know. So it's a challenge. I never did let myself feel, you know, in that time. I didn't never did let myself feel hungover because I got up the next morning, started drinking again. That cures a hangover, I guess, in an odd way. Yeah, I know that that's really rough. That is just that is the challenge. Yeah. This time of the year is, you know, not. You really don't know how destitute you are until you look around and see everybody else having a good time. Yeah. Or pretending they're having a good time for some people. And you're around people and they're laughing and joking and they're having fun. And it's just everybody's and you're just you're living inside your own head in this world that is just just shattered. You know, I know that happens. It's for people. You know, four years after that or five years after that, my girlfriend stepped off a curb and was run over by a car. The girl I was planning on marrying and she was killed on, you know, on a Saturday evening. She stepped off in a Volkswagen bus, ran her down and killed her. And so I guess what I did, I went right back to the same coping mechanism, same coping strategy that I had had before. Only this time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that's going to help you. I really want to encourage people. If you get into those kinds of spots like that, it messes you up, and you really need to get yourself in and get yourself some help. I'm not just promoting psychology, but goodness sake, get with somebody to help you get some kind of direction going. You've got a new plan for your life going. Don't suffer for Pete's sake. Oh my goodness, don't suffer. Support, yeah, yeah, because you're right. Why suffer needlessly? When you get to the point where you're going, okay, I'm feeling whatever is fill in the blank, lonely or sad or whatever, and just go. There's so many places to go and get support. Now, hopefully you have some supportive friends or family or somebody that you can just say, hey, I just need to talk for a little bit, and let's just spend some time together. Sometimes that can be so curative right there, just spending time with somebody that you care about and somebody that you know is going to listen to you and is going to love you and just hold you for a little bit. That can be just so important. Yeah, and there's so many opportunities. I say the common thing is volunteer someplace, but, you know, there are, at the holiday time, there are lots of opportunities to be with people, with children and group homes and elderly and various facilities around the countryside. Listen, there are people in those rest homes who nobody ever comes to visit. And the only people who touch them or talk to them are nursing facility people, you know. But you say, well, they have dementia and they don't know who you are and stuff like that. Listen, they need... They know that they have dementia. They know that there's something wrong. And when you go in there and you talk to those people and you sit down with them and you play checkers with somebody and you take that time to, you know, what a joy that brings to their lives. It just really does. Yeah, and it's just such a win-win situation to be doing some volunteer work this time of the year. You know, it makes the other person just feel, you know, noticed. And then it makes you, as the giver, it makes you walk away and go, wow, look what I did. I just gave some of my time. That's it, you know. Or just, you know, when you're walking past somebody that looks really down and out, if you just say hello or Merry Christmas or something to them, just to say, hey, you know what? I recognize that you're also a human being and you have needs. And once, just like I do, and just to spend a little bit of time doing that with people is just so incredible. Absolutely. I suggest that people be selfish at this time of year. Do things that make them feel good. That's a selfish thing. Good for them. I want to do things that are selfish for me. And sometimes when I help somebody else, that's a selfish thing, you know. I get as much out of it or more than the people get. Right. But it makes, I walk away, I help somebody. Not ultimately, not forever, ever. But in that brief moment in time, I walk away feeling I did good today. Yeah. I really did good. And that's all we have is this moment. That's it. Once it comes down to it, this is it. This moment, I'm an existentialist in philosophy and I basically think, you know, that today, the now flows in tomorrow. And flows out of the past. The past is kind of the, we go in two directions from the now. Into the past and into the future. The future is full of uncertainty. The past is full of guilt. Don't live there. Those are traps. They're fantasies. They're not real. The only thing we have right now is right now. Make the best of now that you possibly can. You know. And be realistic. Don't try to create the ideal holiday for Pete's sake. I know. I know. They only create those first 60-second commercials anyways, right? And that's all staged. Right. Yeah. Everybody's smiling and happy and it's a, oh, and it's just perfect and the commercial's over and we go back to watching some tear-jerking thing that, you know, it's a, you know, or Home Alone. We go watch Home Alone. You know. Those kinds of things. They're fantasies. That's not the real world. We have to live in our real world. In our real world, we have to stay connected. Right. First of all, with ourselves. And then with others. And if I had somebody say the other day, it's really a shame that I have to hire somebody to be my friend. Yeah. I said, well, you can get to feeling guilty and bad about that or you can say, you know, Wayne Brazil likes me. I mean, if I want to talk to somebody, I can call Wayne Brazil and he will talk to me. Yeah, okay, so he's my therapist and so forth and so on. But I want people to know I don't see people I don't like. I mean, it's true. I mean, I'm not obligated because somebody comes in to pay me their, put them on the insurance plan or whatever it is that pay me. I don't have to see people I don't want to see. Yeah. And if I don't, if I'm seeing you, it's because I want to. Right. And you're also getting something out of the therapeutic relationship too. Yeah, I know. I have one of my therapist friends said that every time she sits down with a patient, she also learns something. And I love that. I think that that's what we should all be doing with each other. What am I getting in this interaction here? Whether it's good or bad. What am I learning? What am I learning from being with this other person? Right. Right. Right. Yeah, that kind of connection. And so as you're taking care of yourself, it makes you better at helping and taking care of others. I mean, I don't mean just the guy who's saying, you know, we'll work for food and he's standing on the street corner down there at the end of the freeway off ramp. I mean. I mean, look around. There are places and there are people out there in desperate need today. Right. You know, I've got a guy in my practice who's been out of work for six freaking years. Wow. I know. That's rough. That's definitely rough. You just say, what do you say to somebody like that? Oh, it's going to be okay? It's not okay for him. Right. And you say, well, this is a guy. You'd say, why can't he get work? Why can't he find something? Well, he's, you know, $180,000 a year executive. Could he go to work someplace? He has been. He's been working, pick up jobs as best he can. But he's lost his house. He's lost his car. He's lost, you know, it's really, really hard. He's got two little kids. Yeah. That's horrible. Guys like that. And will he ask for it? No. No. He won't ask for help. Yeah. He's too proud. Well, that's a good point, Wayne, as we're wrapping this up. And, you know, the listeners out there, seriously, if you're feeling like you are lonely and you need some help, there are places to go. There are websites that you can, you know, at least do a little bit of research. Find out what. What kind of help do you want? Do you need? Or what kind of support? But don't suffer alone. Do not be isolated during this time of the year. It's especially important. And don't put huge expectations on your head. Just let some of it go. Let some of it go. And just relax and feel some of the happiness and joy. I mean, just even if you just drive around and look at Christmas lights and, you know, feel like a kid. And feel like a kid again for a little bit. I think that's, you know, it's kind of a magical time of the year and stuff for getting some of those good kid vibes going again. And reconnecting with peace and joy. Absolutely. And help yourself by helping somebody else. I mean, there are those, the listeners out there, I'm sure, who are lonely themselves. And yet there are people out there who are even more lonely. And more lonely than they. Yeah. And they can move toward people who are hurting and in pain and so forth and so on. And they can pay it forward. They can, you know, you're driving through the McDonald's line and the car behind you is pulling up. You don't know them. You don't know their situation. Don't know anything about it. But when you say, what is their bill? Six dollars? Pay for this. And drive off. Yeah. You know, and you pay back. You pay back and pay forward. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to make a difference in people's lives today. Yeah. And it helps you. It helps everybody. It's such a win-win situation. Totally. Yeah. So definitely, that's a great idea. And also, again, you know, watch your intake. Watch how much alcohol you're drinking and how much sugar you're having and how much food you're eating. And don't feel like you have to stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff, or buy, buy, buy. Just step back from that. Step back from the craziness of the holidays. And like Wayne said, just start creating your own new traditions. What works for you? What works for you and your family? Write a different chapter and have a different Christmas and have a different New Year's. And, you know, and just be realistic about things. Maybe you can't buy that. Yeah. You know, diamond jewelry this season or something. But maybe you can, you know, go buy a beautiful little $10 ring or something that can mean just as much to somebody because you gave it with love. You gave it with intention. And just step back. Well, I think my wife always said that the best Christmas she ever had was one in which we were totally broke. And she had a baby rocking chair that belonged to her father. And I put that back together and put a cane seat in it. And made a rung for it and put it in the living room. And she got up on Christmas morning and there that was. And she said that was the best Christmas she ever had. And with all the things we were able to accumulate, years after that, we were married 30 years. That was our first Christmas together. And it was the best she ever had. You know, it's not about the thought. It's not about the things. It's about listening to what somebody else needs and trying to provide that. Right. And creating beautiful memories. Oh, totally. Wayne, yes. Wayne, I want to thank you so much again. This is Wayne Brazile, marriage and family therapist from Fullerton, California. Could you give the listeners your website real quick? Sure. Well, we're Pacific Coast Psychological Associates. It's pacificcoastpsychological.com. And you can find us there. And I'm Wayne Brazile. And you can call us. And we're glad to do that. We're at pacificcoastpsychological.com. We're at pacificcoastpsychological.com. 714-992-4240. And in Fullerton, California. Great. Thank you so much, Wayne. You're awesome. And Merry, Merry Christmas. And you're a wonderful person. Thank you so much for being on again. Blessings to you and to your audience. Thank you so much. And thank you, everybody, for joining me. This has been Julie Ann Good for Psych One-on-One. Have a wonderful holiday season. Be good to yourself. Take care of yourself. Be good to yourself. And take care of each other. Bye now. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.