Celebration + Reflection Season Dialectical Dilemmas
Oversubscribed Newsletter
Season: Q5 2025
Reflection + Celebration
By Megan Hughes, PhD & Amanda McGovern, PhD
The holiday season can bring up many competing demands for our time and focus. We can use the concept of dialectical dilemmas to frame these opposing forces and work to find a synthesis.
What are dialectics?
Dialects are two seemingly opposite things that can be true at the same time. It’s useful to find a middle path that incorporates both. The classical dialectic from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is between acceptance and change. As Carl Rogers stated, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." When presented with a dialectical dilemma, the goal would be a middle path that incorporates both. Here are some dialectical dilemmas that may be especially relevant during the celebration and reflection season.
Holiday “Productivity” vs Simplicity. Tis the season for the pull of an instagram-worthy picture of children sawing an evergreen tree or a carefully curated holiday card with personalized written messages to your whole address book. Holiday productivity may be beautiful and appealing to some part of us AND feel completely overwhelming. For those who highly value making holiday cards as a memory or to share with friends and family, it may be worth the time investment. For others, it is completely overwhelming or a difficult reflection on a painful year. There are many middle path options from a New Year’s e-card to your closest friends, a Happy Holidays text, or setting a boundary and saying “not this year, holiday industrial complex.” A middle path is to be thoughtful about what holiday traditions are meaningful and reasonable for you to do this year and then skip the rest.
This dialectic can further be applied to our work demands during this time. Intentional values-driven planning and SMART goals will actually enable you to adjust your expectations and increase productivity related to work. For instance, upon entering the holiday season, I know that it will be a busy clinical time and I want to be more available to my clients. Therefore, I adjust my expectations related to my timeliness on paperwork, prevent myself from taking on new projects, and even schedule blocks of time to handle work-related tasks. Trying to hold both productivity and simplicity related to work during this time may lead to less overwhelm and more meaning in our work.
Independence vs connection. The holiday season can bring up some challenging emotions, particularly if you are in a period of relationship transition: the first year of a new relationship or after a break-up, a new baby or a new boss, or after the loss of a loved one. Consider how you want your holiday season to reflect the changes in your relationships. My family-of-origin celebrates Thanksgiving on Saturday to allow us to spend the Thursday holiday with our partners’ families. For the years that I was single on Thanksgiving, I would sign up for holiday coverage at work. I didn’t have a partner’s family to celebrate with and it was a highly meaningful day to be at work and help out when staffing was low. Personally, it also helped me emotionally to be busy and engaged in meaningful work on what would have otherwise been a lonely day. I felt empowered by being independent and creating my own tradition.
Boundaries can also be a helpful tool to help achieve the dialectic of independence and connection, and thus, improve self-care and create healthier relationships. Setting boundaries can consist of communicating proactively with others regarding your own wants and needs, setting limits around holiday-related activities or traditions, making decisions related to time and space, and planning strategically with your needs in mind. Specifically, boundaries at work may involve communicating planned time off, saying “no” to additional tasks, holding to being “out of the office”, and protecting your priorities.
Planning ahead vs go-with-the-flow. With the busy travel season, consider how you would approach potential bumps in the road and practice flexibility in the face of cancelled flights or sicknesses. Last year, our immediate family had several illnesses that led to the cancellation of Christmas, New Years, and Easter get-togethers with extended family and friends. I had a tough time accepting these changes and found myself fighting reality, getting stuck on how it just wasn’t fair that this kept happening. DBT has a lot to offer in this situation, including the concept of non-attachment to outcome. The idea is to work toward the goals you have (make those plans!) and all the while accepting that it might not work out (radical acceptance and the flexibility to pivot if needed). By holding the outcome more gently, especially with holiday plans, we can be more able to manage the disappointment that can come from a delayed or cancelled flight, an illness that cancels a favorite holiday tradition, or a comparison to previous holidays when circumstances were different. See the resources below for a video on how to practice radical acceptance.
Furthermore, this dialectic may also be applied with our work. Holiday time often coincides with end-of-the-year deadlines along with planned time off. It can be helpful to work backwards, keeping in mind what is feasible with a more limited frame. However, practicing flexibility is also helpful as unexpected circumstances arise and we are often required to pivot to get a task completed.
Considering these dialectical dilemmas may help you approach this season with more intention and meaning.
Want to learn more about applying DBT skills related to dialectical dilemmas and radical acceptance? Here are some helpful explainer videos:
DBT radical acceptance explainer video
DBT dialectics explainer video