There’s a meme I’ve seen floating around the internet a bunch that says “Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.”
Around the holidays, tradition is peer pressure from the living too, as any deviation from “the way things are done” can be responded to as if you are out there desecrating graves.
I left behind a faith community that is so obsessed with tradition that they regularly make teenagers re-enact the most traumatic events in our history at summer camps. We dressed up in pioneer garb and pushed wooden handcarts around a field to “honor” our ancestors. My great great whatever grandparents pushed those handcarts through weather so adverse their children froze to death and they had to bury them by chipping away at the earth with spoons. I have always, even at my most indoctrinated, found this practice totally bizarre. You don’t see many other victims of tragedy out there dressing up in costumes and doing skits. Personally, I don’t think I would feel honored by my descendants choosing to cosplay my deepest traumas.
There were many reasons I left that faith behind, but it all kinds of surrounds the issue of how harmful it is to turn epigenetic trauma into a religion and how much harm is perpetuated by trying to control and constrict and command your way to security.
I come from a faith tradition and a family tradition where toxicity is celebrated, but I hear that’s not the norm. Especially around the holidays where we try to be ourselves at our best. Holiday traditions often revolve around faith and food and heritage that celebrates and honors the people we come from, so making changes to that is incredibly fraught. Making a change from “toxic to good” people often understand. Making a change from “good but not good for me” is much harder.
The point of having traditions is to bond over shared experiences and reinforce values. Rituals, food, culture, holiday, they all exist to feel closer to the people we celebrate with, and to remind ourselves of what is really important. The resilience of Hanukkah. All the Christmas movies that teach the “true meaning of Christmas.” The seven principles of Kwanza that emphasize unity and community accountability. The optimism and new birth of Tet.
So if those traditions revolve around bonding with people who hurt you, or reinforcing values that perpetuate harm, it is OK to reevaluate which ones you participate in and which ones you set boundaries around. You do not have to obey traditions. Traditions exist to serve you.
If any tradition, even ones that hold special memories, don’t fit in to the life you are building for yourself, you not only have the right to protect yourself, you have the obligation. You are accountable to yourself, so you have to take care of yourself even when others may not understand. If someone isn’t willing to understand that a tradition isn’t good for you, they care about obedience, not holiday joy.
You don’t have to eat the thing or not eat the thing. You don’t have to see the person or not see the person. You don’t have to go to the place. You don’t have to go to the service.
Even better, you can make up your own traditions. What rituals, food, or celebrations make you feel closer to the people you are celebrating with? Especially yourself. What traditions could make you feel closer to yourself?
What rituals, food, or celebrations reinforce the values you believe in? The actual values YOU believe in? Not the “should’s” but the “do’s.”
One of my values is that it is good to get through the dark and dreary winter alive. So that means my traditions don’t include any shame around food, or how I spend my time, or creating obligations that make me feel more depressed and isolated. This value supersedes most other values.
Another of my values is that people should be treated with dignity and respect. So if my family or community requires me to participate in something that doesn’t treat me with dignity and respect, I set boundaries. In my new customized tradition, body shame, food monitoring, and critical comments are against the reason for the season.
Some people get very uncomfortable with other people’s autonomy, but that’s their issue to resolve. You are responsible for choosing for yourself, even if people you love very much try and tell you otherwise. Just as you have your autonomy, they have theirs, and if they want to stay stuck in their food shame/body shame/controlling behaviors, you don’t owe them your company there.
Healing your relationship with your body starts with building trust in yourself. Prove to yourself that you are trustworthy by showing up and defending yourself. Even when it’s hard. Even when it means renegotiating long held traditions and values. Even if people disapprove. You can offer other people kindness, but please don’t offer others more kindness than you offer yourself.
Happy Holidays. <3