Episode #52: Holiday Horror Stories: How to Recover from the Holiday Season, with Maddie Upson

Happy New Year! We hope that you had a safe, peaceful, and festive holiday season with family and friends!

For most of us, this week will be about transitioning out of the excitement and chaos that comes with the holiday season and into the rhythms of everyday life. That transition process can be really challenging on individuals and relationships.

To help us, we invited our marketing and communications extraordinaire, Maddie, to be our first guest of 2024. Maddie talks with us about:

Reverting and Growth (7:00): Maddie describes, “I think it's like universally accepted that when you go back to your family, you revert to your angsty high school self." She reflects that she's asking herself questions to engage with her family more as an adult: "Going into this situation, how can I address this as it comes up, not just being from a reactive place?”

Applying Growth to the Relational System (11:00): Julia discusses the importance of communication: "When I don't communicate what is wrong or what my needs are or what I would hope to be different, people don't know. And then they see a negative response, or what they perceive to be a negative response. because I haven't taken the individual growth and applied it to whatever the relationship is.”

Deconstruction Culture and Antagonism (17:00): Jeremiah explains, "Deconstruction culture, if we're not careful, sets older generations up in this antagonistic way … I also think that there are some people in the deconstruction community who can move into a space of avoidance and cut off the process prematurely. I think it is a really good reminder, at least for me, to be a little bit more brave, to be a little bit more courageous this holiday.”

Engaging in Conversations about Deconstruction with Religious Family (21:00): Maddie continues, "“If you attack someone’s beliefs it feels like an attack on you. And that's true in the deconstruction world, but it's also true for people who aren't going through deconstruction. You're coming in here saying, I don't believe this. This hasn't worked for me. This is harmful. This is disgusting. Well, they're going to feel attacked, obviously. And I think having conversations like,  Hey, listen. We don't agree on this, this, and this anymore. I love you. And our relationship is more important to me than crapping on everything you still believe in.”

Recharging (24:00): Jeremiah discusses the idea of ramps and off-ramps. "It's also the transitions. It's moving in and out of those static spaces. Introverts tend to have longer on ramps, longer transition times than extroverts do.”

Little Ways to Reconnect (28:00): Maddie talks about her methods of reconnecting and creating space during the holiday season: "Having support and having my updated book list.”

Holidays as an Adult (33:00): Maddie discusses the values of, "realizing that no one is trying to take anything from me, or take my autonomy, realizing that I'm an adult who has made adult decisions. And I can stay strong in that, even if I am with a bunch of people who disagree with me, that has no impact on myself or my beliefs or my lived experience.” 

Managing Conflict and the Pressure Cooker (44:00): Maddie shares her theory of what traveling with someone during the holidays: “Traveling for the holidays, and just traveling in general with another person, is like a pressure cooker to really get to see how you act together, who they are, therefore how you handle things. I think you learn more in like six days and you would in six months."

Relationship Anarchy (46:00): Julia highlights the importance of relationship anarchy, which is the practice and belief that different relationships meet different needs within your life and not one relationship can fulfill them all: “It really debunks the idea that romantic partners or sexual relationships are the most important. And so I'm very passionate that the close friends in my life are not less valuable than my relationship with Jeremiah or less valuable than my family of origin.”

Sexting in Church (50:00): Julia shares a fun way to cope with entering traumatic religious spaces this holiday season: “Just let them know that if they get a sext, you might be in some sort of traumatically religious space. But you're going to reclaim that and you're going to make that a space of sexuality.”