Coping with Advent Overwhelm: Trauma Recovery and Faith

EPISODE 107 | COPING WITH ADVENT OVERWHELM: TRAUMA RECOVERY AND FAITH 

There is never enough time to do everything that I think I need to do, especially the things that my scripts make me think I need to do. And just trying to run faster just makes me more and more tense, more and more overwhelmed, which usually leads to the inevitable kind of like explosion at some point near Christmas.  

[00:00:21] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:58] Hello everyone. So, I have been sitting with my growing sense of overwhelm in the last few days. As Advent began, and I just thought I'll pop in and do a live and which will probably become a bonus podcast episode for this Advent. So, I think this sharing is going to be especially relevant for those of us. 

[00:01:28] Those of you who know you are in trauma recovery, okay? So, as in you, you know a little bit about complex trauma, the things that I've been sharing on my account. you are someone who takes your Christian and Catholic faith seriously as well. Maybe, you know, in your own way, you understand why this season of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas, is particularly overwhelming.

[00:01:54] Alright, so I'm just going to delve in and just share about my experiences in the past and, and present, what I find particularly difficult to manage and maybe some tips, okay, that have, that have helped me and maybe will help you if you also find yourself, overwhelmed.  

[00:02:13] THE IMPACT OF TRAUMA ON ADVENT EXPERIENCE
So, Advent and year end coming towards Christmas is a time when I think so many of my scripts all get activated, right? 

[00:02:24] So I talk a lot about scripts, kind of like the, the programming that I've been accustomed to, to run on often in, I think they are coming from trauma responses in the past is how I've learned to cope is how I've learned to, to live and get along with, you know, my family and the people in my lives. So, in this time, the year end, both family scripts and my religion scripts both come into play and there are multiple scripts both on the family front and on the religion front that make me feel, now I'm a lot more aware of how I feel my body, breathless, okay?

[00:03:05] I feel breathless just when we step into Advent. Even if I'm not consciously thinking or planning anything, there's this sense of breathlessness. not enough time, overwhelm, that I need to do something. I need to get things done. And sometimes it's not even advent specific things. I find my thoughts racing even about work, about what I haven't done yet, even though this is supposed to be a time that I'm trying to slow down for work.

[00:03:36] I start thinking about the deadlines that are coming up for early next year. So, in general, my system just goes into this, overdrive. Okay, and I think when our nervous systems go into this kind of state, it doesn't differentiate between the different compartments or, you know, categories in our lives. Just everything just kind of goes into overdrive, right? 

[00:03:58] RECOGNIZING OVERWHELM AND TRAUMA RESPONSES
So, if you notice, if you notice your, your thoughts starting to run faster, and if you notice your, your body's, your body getting more tense or your temper getting more short, these are small signs, but big indicators that you are feeling overwhelmed. 

[00:04:23] Now My script in the past is, you know, when you feel overwhelmed, do things faster. Right. As in like do things faster because there's so many things to do and there's not enough time, do things faster so you can get them done. There's this sense or this assumption that if I move faster, I will clear the things that I need to do, which isn't true because it never happens. 

[00:04:45] There is never enough time to do everything that I think I need to do, especially the things that my scripts make me think I need to do. And just trying to run faster just makes me more and more tense, more and more overwhelmed, which usually leads to the inevitable kind of like explosion at some point near Christmas.

[00:05:08] So within my own history, this is often a very tense time. I haven't had many honestly really happy experiences or memories of Christmas and Advent. This has always been, in my memory, a time of stress. Because I think that's how my caregivers felt like the energies that they animated, that they gave out, exuded during this season was also always one of stress and tenseness. 

[00:05:37] And often on Christmas Eve or Christmas itself, when, you know, we're supposed to be celebrating the birth of Christ, there will be some kind of conflict, some kind of explosion, and yet at the same time, you know, we're supposed to be celebrating Christ. So, it's just, all that's part of my history and part of, I think, my traumatic memories in my nervous system and body, which probably also accounts for why, automatically, as we near the end of the year, I already begin to feel tense. 

[00:06:08] THE ROLE OF FAMILY AND FAITH TRADITIONS
Speaking of scripts, we all have family traditions, and everyone's family traditions could be different. But often, traditions also have this sense of you know, we do this every year. whether it, maybe it's a gathering that your family hosts every year, or a gathering that you tend to, your family attends every year.

[00:06:32] Or some kind of practice, right, to prepare for Christmas or Advent, whatever it may be. Whenever there is a sense that there is a, a practice that we need to do when it comes to Advent, those of us who, are recovering from complex trauma, I think we'll immediately feel that overwhelmed because we feel like there's no choice.

[00:06:54] Okay, we will feel like there's no choice. And for someone who is in trauma recovery, The sense of agency and choice is very important because anything that comes too much, too soon, too fast, which we cannot regulate, which we don't, we feel like we don't have a choice in, in regulating according to our capacity is itself traumatizing.

[00:07:20] All right, so, traditions, in that sense, if it comes with, A felt sense or your own life experience is that it has to be done. And if it's associated with a sense of, I should do this and if I don't do this somehow, I'm letting someone down. that's going to put you into fight or flight. At least in my experience, it already gears me towards into that fight or flight. I feel like I don't have a choice. And I begin to feel very stressed.  

[00:07:48] THE CHALLENGE OF TRAUMA RECOVERY DURING ADVENT
[00:07:48] Now layer onto that in terms of let's say whatever your family, your own family traditions are. Now let's layer on faith traditions or religious traditions, right? Because Advent is a really rich liturgical season. I mean, rightly so. I personally love Advent for its meaning because I'm always very in touch with that sense of yearning and longing. 

[00:08:11] The parts of me in darkness yearning for the light, you know, for Christ to come. the, you know, the diaspora within me, all the scattered sheep, you know, in me longing for the one who will gather all of them back and give them a home. So, I really, really resonate with Advent at the meaning level. But as with all scripts or traditions, you know, and scripts, there's also all these shoulds. 

[00:08:38] What would it mean for me to celebrate Advent in a meaningful way? Right? So, there's the liturgy, there's all the readings, there are all the other additional things on top of mass. It's very rich. It's very rich, right? Those of us who have ever experienced wanting to delve further into, let's say, the Advent liturgy or scripture or traditions, there are so many. 

[00:09:02] And I'm not going to name them because right now I'm trying to deal with precisely that we don't We don't have to occupy ourselves and preoccupy ourselves with all these things if we're feeling overwhelmed. Because there are just so many, and it's wonderful, it's like a buffet, right? But they're not impositions.

[00:09:24] Now here's the thing, for those of us who are trauma survivors, it often feels like an imposition, even if intellectually we know. We don't have to do everything. We don't necessarily have to do an Advent retreat. We don't necessarily have to purchase an Advent devotional and journal every day for the four weeks of Advent that we don't necessarily need to join our cell group or community to do Advent Reflections.

[00:09:51] There are many ways, right? There are many things that can be meaningful and helpful for us to make Advent a meaningful season. But they're invitations. Technically the invitations, right? But for many of us who are used to being ruled by our scripts, these are not invitations. They are almost like commands.

[00:10:12] It feels like commands in our body. It feels like, again, I don't have a choice. And especially if we still have this need to be. To be good, right? To be a good family member, to be a good Christian, a good Catholic, or a good member of my community. I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want people to think that I'm not taking my faith seriously.

[00:10:32] Or I don't want to set a bad example, whatever it is. All these are our scripts at play. They interfere with our actual ability to discern. This year, this Advent, how is the Lord inviting me to be with Him? 

[00:10:50] THE IMPORTANCE OF AGENCY AND CHOICE IN TRAUMA RECOVERY
How is he wanting to encounter me? And what do I actually need to be in a better state to receive him?

[00:10:59] So, all those traditions and practices, whether it's from the family, or from our church, or from our religion, they can, instead of a help, they can actually become a hindrance to us being able to have the capacity to actually meet Christ, let him meet us. And that's a real challenge. And I just want to say that, intellectually, I think many of us know we have a choice, but I really empathize with you. 

[00:11:33] If like me, the truth in your body, right? Your, your body actually is bracing and just thinking there's just so many things I need to do. I have to do. I just want to remind you that that sense of not having a choice could be your trauma speaking, okay. and so here are some things, some suggestions.

[00:11:56] I don't think we can just fix it depending on where we are in our recovery journey the latitude and the sense of agency will be different. Okay, so if you've been healing and integrating for a while you may find that Compared to a few years before you have a lot more agency now, right? It's easier for you to get grounded back in that sense that I do have a choice.

[00:12:19] This is just one Advent out of my life, of many, many Advents. I'm in a different place, different season in my life every year when Advent comes around. And what the Lord invites me into will be different every year. It doesn't have to be the same thing every year. I don't have to do the same things every year.

[00:12:39] That the expectations that I feel are weighing on me, they could be It could be coming from my scripts, could be society scripts, my family scripts, my, my religious scripts, but that I am made to be free, right? And God invites me to live from that freedom, from the inside out, not just living on the surface to do everything I think I should, but to live from the core, from my core, my identity of being beloved, right? 

[00:13:12] MANAGING OVERWHELM: PACE, SPACE AND GRACE
So, just three. Easy words that rhyme, I think to help us remember how we can help ourselves to be more integrated this Advent. PACE, SPACE, and GRACE, okay? So, I want to suggest, remember PACE, SPACE, and GRACE. So, depending on the state you are in this year, the season of the interior journey you are in, okay? 

[00:13:40] So I've spoken in the past about four different seasons of the interior journey and we're always moving through these seasons if we are in a season of healing or a season of deepening, we're in a very different kind of um place than when we are in the season of equipping and sending, okay.

[00:13:59] So if you are happy, if you happen to be in a season of equipping and sending right now, you might have more energy to pour outwards. You come alive, doing more things, planning things, because your energy is meant in this, in this season of equipping and sending to go outwards. And that's great. I think today's sharing is really more for those of you who find yourself in a season of healing or deepening, or just feeling overwhelmed. 

[00:14:22] Okay. You're not feeling very equipped and you're not, you don't feel that you have much to send. Then the pace that we need will be very different than if we were in a season of sending. So, pace really, literally, how fast or slow are you going? If you're in trauma recovery and especially if you're in a season of healing and you're feeling overwhelmed, you need a slower pace. 

[00:14:49] Slow down. Whatever you have on your plate, you probably need to remove more because you need, you need to go at a slower pace, okay. That's pace. Second, space. It's linked. The more space we have. that we clear in our schedule, the more we will have the ability to go at a slower pace, right? So, talking about white spaces, one of my earliest podcast episodes was talking about the need for white spaces.

[00:15:20] This is so important in, especially in seasons like Advent and year end when usually, even though for many people, this might be a slower time for work, but we more than make up for that slack and pace at work with. Social obligations with maybe vocation, social plans, church plans, and everything else. All those count too, and they take away our capacity to be present. 

[00:15:47] Right, so, see how you can create more space, and maybe even back out of, back out of commitments you've already made. I know that sounds, that sounds like so, impossible for those of us who are trauma survivors and who are people pleasers and who have this very strong sense of responsibility. Like, it, it feels like, you know, to back out of commitments that we've already made.

[00:16:18] It feels, I don't know what's the word, like, it, it, it feels so wrong, right? But think of it. If. You know this is necessary, not only for your well-being, but for your capacity to be present to the people who are in your lives, you know, during Advent, for your capacity to be present to God.

[00:16:41] This isn't a good to have. This is actually a necessity. It's a necessity to ensure as much as you can, right, that you build capacity. And oftentimes that means creating space. And that isn't just about saying no to things that you haven't said yes to. A lot of times, for many of us who are compulsive people pleasers, we already, we already would have overcommitted.

[00:17:05] This is the time to pray and discern and ask for the grace to be able to back out of commitments that we have already made, okay.

[00:17:16] This will go against a lot of our scripts. I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm suggesting that you consider the possibility. Because when you can, it's very empowering. And when you can, you always reap the fruit of being so grateful afterwards that you did that because you are more alive, you can be more loving and more present to the other people that you love.

[00:17:37] You are going to be with okay, even if it's just for yourself So that's pace that space and the third one is grace Okay, so grace really in two cents The grace that you offer yourself Be rich, as rich as you can, in the grace that you can offer yourself for the ways that you will fall short, for the mistakes that you will make, even for the ways that maybe you aren't able to slow down your pace as much as you would like, and you know, or to create more space, offer yourself grace as well, right?

[00:18:11] We need that so much, so much, and secondly, in a sense, you know, really, the grace we can offer ourselves comes from this, which is Avail yourself to God's grace and remember that we have agency, we have choice, right? So, in that sense, we, we, we have the ability to respond. 

[00:18:32] Now, there's a difference between trying to respond the way we think we should and in responding the way that we would like to; truly, freely, okay? Of course, in both sense, whether you are finding that you're powerless to respond in the way you should, which actually I think is a good thing, because sometimes that's the kind of powerlessness that helps us to enter into our true inner freedom, because that's not what we really, freely want to choose to do.

[00:19:02] But even when we want to do something that we actually would like to choose to do, like for example, I would like to slow down more this Advent, I would like to maybe be able to cancel an appointment, but then I find I can't, right? So even when I can't do what I freely would like to do, because I find that I'm unfree, so many layers to this, right?

[00:19:26] Remember God's grace covers that too. It's like we, this is the mystery, right, and the paradox of faith and why it's so important to go beyond just very binary, dualistic, intellectual, rational kind of thinking, which cannot hold paradoxes and opposites because there's so much truth that is paradoxical.

[00:19:49] So in this sense, for example, let's pray for the agency and the freedom to be able to act, you know, to choose for. our healing, to choose for our freedom. But we will probably fail. At least some of the times. And then, when we do, we can take comfort in the grace that God always lavishes us with when we fail.

[00:20:15] Because He has anticipated what we cannot do. when we are in a very binary kind of mindset, we think that because it is good for us to choose What is good? Then when we fail to choose what is good, oh, you know, the only option is shame and disappointment in ourselves and self-criticism, right?

[00:20:30] It's very, it's very either or. No, no. In the beauty of the paradox of God's love of faith, both, both can be true. Both can be true. So, we do what we can, softly, right? It's like try, but let's not push ourselves too hard. Let's honour our limits. Both in terms of what we cannot not do because of our compulsions, as well as those that we, the things that we find ourselves, you know, just not able yet to choose, even though we desire to.

[00:21:13] So where we can, let's slow down our pace. Let's, you know, create more space. But for all that we cannot do, let's fall into grace.  

[00:21:27] PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND REFLECTIONS
And really that's the reminder I wanted to, to offer, really for myself first of all, because like I said, this is always a stressful season for me and I need this reminder every day and probably several times a day, several times a day.

[00:21:46] And maybe I'll just end with a little sharing. A little story that I may have told before, you know, but I always tell this, even the same stories, differently. So, when I was working in the parish full time, Advent was a very conflicting season for me because I want so much during the season of Advent to slow down. 

[00:22:10] I want so much, to be able to be attentive, to be still, to prepare my heart for more contemplation. But because Advent is such an important season, I mean, there, there's a lot of activity that happens in the parish during Advent, right? Because I had to be organizing and planning events like Days of Recollection, Advent Days of Recollection, Advent Retreats, Advent Prayer Services. 

[00:22:34] I was involved in, in maybe leading, you know, some groups or my leaders through preparation in Advent. So, there was so much doing that. Really in a sense as part of my job or was part of my job that I cannot get out of. I didn't know or I didn't have the understanding back then about trauma. I didn't really understand about, what this feeling of overwhelm that was always building up in my system was telling me.

[00:23:05] But I was, I was a praying person. I've always been in that sense. I lean into my prayer. My time with the Lord. And what was very clear was that my soul really needed and desired stillness and silence. And because so much of my time at work, in church, meant that I couldn't slow down.

[00:23:30] One powerful way that, that I made a choice in. was, which at that time felt very countercultural for me because it went against some of the more, I guess, the social scripts within my church community, my parish, and especially since I was staff in the parish, was the event, right? I mean, since like, you know, at the end of Advent, the event was like midnight mass. 

[00:23:56] Right? I mean, even in church, that's kind of like often the happening mass where People would get dressed up, you know, turn up, you know, with their families, maybe, you know, with their friends, and that usually, that particular liturgy, which was the most, well, I don't know what the word would be, but, like, maybe the most dressed up, the most fancy, or the most beautiful, depending on what is, what you find beautiful, but a lot of people, many, many people enjoy going for midnight mass, because, you know, that's the most, kind of like, celebratory, right, you have.

[00:24:30] amazing choir and all that, I opted for several years, when I was working in the parish to not go for midnight mass. It seems like a small thing, right? But you know, it took me a, it took me quite a lot of effort to feel okay, to, to let myself choose not to be present. At this event that was like the highlight at the end of the, you know, when Advent comes to a close and the celebration, even though I was staff. 

[00:25:01] I made a choice to go for the next morning mass and usually like kind of like even the earliest or, you know, the one where it's usually quieter and, you know, not as crowded. It's still pretty crowded where I am in Singapore. Usually the masses are full, but, there were two years in particular, where I was actually up at midnight when, you know, it crossed into Christmas but my husband and I spent an adoration hour in a 24 hour perpetual adoration chapel instead of at Mass because my soul so needed and so yearned for stillness and silence, which I didn't have during the day, didn't have during the weeks leading up to Christmas because of all the work that I had to do.

[00:25:49] You know, being in full time ministry in the parish. That, that one hour, and I remember that Adoration Chapel was close to a parish. It's not in a parish, but it's close to a parish, and usually at midnight, you would hear the bells, and we would hear the, the chorus, the singing, and it's beautiful to kind of like hear it from a distance because it reminds me also of the first Christmas, right?

[00:26:12] You know, Hark! The Herald, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, when the angels burst into song. But it felt right for me to have that hour of solitude and silence in adoration and not in community, not with the parish. In fact, I would say this chapel that I was in is far away from the parish that I worked in, right?

[00:26:34] Sometimes we just need, like I said, space. And my longing for space led me to a chapel that was not where I usually go to spend an hour in silence. And those two Christmases that I did that I remember felt really, really, very restorative, okay? It allowed me to exercise some agency and give myself permission in a season where there was very little leeway for me, very little space for me to have options and to choose.

[00:27:11] So that's an example from the past. And for me, for this year, something that's, that I've decided is that I won't really decorate my house, my home for Christmas. Again, this is something that I had to go through a lot of healing in because I had so many painful memories of Christmas when I was growing up that I never felt like decorating for Christmas until after I got married.

[00:27:42] Slowly, with my husband, I think we've rebuilt. Like some new, new memories and over time I came to enjoy even and look forward to Decorating the home for Christmas But this year because it's been an overwhelming half a year with one parent going in and out of the hospital and just lot of things that are taking up my capacity, and plus the fact that as a trauma survivor in recovery, the circumstances that are happening around me require me to be in closer contact with the very people that often trigger me.

[00:28:22] So learning to be present and to try and be loving to myself and to the people that I have to be in touch with, and still work. And all that. It's just a lot. It's just taking up a lot of my energy. And when I was wondering, and when I thought to myself, what is it, what's, what are things that I can just drop, right?

[00:28:46] that I may feel like my scripts tell me I should do, but I actually don't have to do. The very first thing was, you know, I really had a lot of fun the last couple of years decorating for Christmas, but this year I think I'm going to let that go. There will probably be some, because my husband really looks forward to bringing things, you know, the decorations that we do have.

[00:29:04] But I'm not going to put in the extra effort. And I'm just going to be a lot more mindful also about let's say, who I'm going to even prepare, let's say a card or present for. That's a script that I let go many years ago already. There was a time where I had a long list where I would write Christmas cards and send Christmas cards every year.

[00:29:26] And at one point I realized that it was, it just was meaningless. if I felt so obliged to do it and that in the grand scheme of things. Because, you know, I can love people without having to send all these things, and I'm just a lot more mindful as to who I feel prompted to reach out to, right? So, this year I got a very simple Advent devotional that doesn't require daily journaling. 

[00:29:55] It just looks at certain key passages in, in the, in the Gospels and have like, I think three, just three simple reflections per week. I really didn't want something that I feel obliged, you know, that I have to follow through.

[00:30:11] I know me. I know myself. I will feel obliged to follow through. And also, reading. The Myth of Normal by Dr. Gabor Maté has become unexpectedly a very good Advent reading for me. Even though it is a secular book, you know, when you, when you read anything through the lens of faith, or when you invite the Lord to speak to you through whatever you're watching or reading, right?

[00:30:38] Even, especially I'll say secular things, it's incredible how moved in the spirit and in the heart you can be. That's what I've been experiencing. I've really been encountering God in that book, The Myth of Normal. So, you know, I'm just allowing God in a sense to show me the advent that that I'm meant to experience this year.

[00:31:04] I'm letting go of any thoughts or, or, or compulsions that Advent would be less meaningful or less good if I don't do certain things. You know, it's just really surrender. And whenever we do feel overwhelmed, really, a wonderful thing to be able to do, a wonderful grace to be able to ask is to surrender, you know, kind of like lie down.

[00:31:29] It really is a way of kind of like just lying down. Tired? Are you tired? Lie down and rest because the Lord will carry you and remember This is just one Advent out of many in your life Let God, let Christ meet you where you are. So, your pace may you Slow down to the pace your nervous system needs. May you find the way to create the space that your soul needs in order to breathe.

[00:31:58] And you will know because your soul can't breathe if your body can't breathe, okay? So, slow down to the pace and create that space where you can breathe. And then relax into the grace that holds you and holds all that you can do and cannot do. And draw from that grace from Christ. to offer yourself grace, okay. 

[00:32:24] FINAL THOUGHTS
And no matter how Advent goes for you this year, how well or badly, may you truly, truly experience being held and that Christ is very present even in the messiness and chaos of our lives. And may there be peace in your chaos. May there be healing in your woundedness this Advent, remember that paradox is okay.

[00:32:54] All will be well, as the Lady Julian of Norwich said. All is well and all will be well and may that hold you this Advent. Take care, and God bless. Bye!

[00:33:09] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive. 

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