How to Lead Through Trauma During the Holidays
Leading through trauma is tough even at the best of times — at the holidays, it can feel overwhelming. As a leader or manager, how do you support yourself and your people through the holidays? In organizations where trauma is a routine part of the job, work can’t always stop for the holidays: healthcare professionals, first responders, journalists all continue to work through their holidays. So in addition to the complexity the holidays bring to you and your people, there is also the need to keep the work moving forward.
It's important to recognize that everyone comes to the holidays with their own history and meanings. Holidays are embedded with triggers and explosions of memory. They’re a direct hit on our senses: tastes of food, visual reminders, songs. This is exactly what rituals and traditions are supposed to do. They create a kind of time travel where you can be transported from 2024 to 2004 in a second. If the memory is good, it can leave you feeling stronger. If the memory is traumatic, it can feel like you’ve lost your footing.
Holidays are stark reminders of presence and absence. For trauma survivors, holidays often require that they live in two worlds at once. The world of the present and the world of the past seem to constantly collide, with the past feeling as present at times as the actual present. Perhaps memories would be easier to hold if there wasn’t constant holiday pressure to be happy the whole time. It’s this awful juxtaposition between the memories you hold and our culture’s holiday expectation of fun, fun, merry, merry.
But it’s not just the presence of trauma that can be hard. Holidays may in fact be joyous times, but what if this is the first holiday without a loved one? Or what if your people are working their shifts and not able to spend holidays with their loved ones? What can you as a leader do to lead through the tricky terrain of the holidays?
Here are three things to try:
1. Prioritize self-care
First, you need to take care of yourself. Remember that self-awareness is the foundation of both self-regulation of yourself and empathy of others. Take a moment to reflect: What’s my relationship to the holidays? Am I excited about them? Am I dreading them? Being aware of your own feelings can help you better take care of yourself — and it can serve as reminder of what your people may or may not be holding.
2. Lean into connection and community
Celebrate or honor holidays in your organization by emphasizing connection and community — not the specifics of the holiday. One of the ways that people strengthen their resilience and heal from trauma is through relationships. Ask yourself: If I were to help my people feel connected to each other at this time of year, what would I do? And if I were going to help my people connect to their loved ones and communities, what would I do?
3. Practice holding both
Leading through trauma, whether at the holidays or other times, is about developing the capacity to hold both. To help your folks hold the sorrow that can crop up at this time of year and the joy. To help people hold the important work they are doing on behalf of others and the losses they may be experiencing while doing it. To hold the trauma they may be witnessing in their work and the places in their lives that are full of peace and love. To hold their past and their present simultaneously.
Keep in mind there will be a broad range of experiences people have about the holidays. Allow each person to feel what they feel — inquire, be curious, and compassionate. Remember to treat yourself with that same curiosity and compassion as you lead through trauma during the holidays.
© 2024 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD