While a holiday buffet table can bring loads of fun for some, it can overload stress on others. This can particularly be the case for those suffering from emetophobia who have a less-than-perfect relationship with food. OK, we’ll be honest. For those who have a downright horrible relationship with food.
The Focus
One of the primary issues that can make the situation much worse is your focus on that food relationship, or focusing on the food in general. Stop staring at the buffet table, for starters. In fact, find a perky, populated area far removed from all the edibles. Then switch your focus to everything around you.
“Enjoy yourself!,” urges emetophobia blogger and clinical counselor Anna Christie. “Listen to conversations, play games, catch up with relatives, smile at babies and children’s happiness…. Avoid sitting in a corner freaking out – get out into the conversation instead. Keep busy.”
Another way to busy yourself is asking if you can help the host. Perhaps he or she could use a hand meeting or greeting the guests, taking their coats to the back bedroom, or even simply answering the doorbell when it rings. Perhaps you can help with the music selection, delivering drinks, or picking up the gads of wrapping paper the kids just ripped off all their gifts.
If you have a gift of your own, such an artistic flair for drawing silly cartoons or even twisting balloons, share that with guests who will appreciate it. Although that may typically mean the kids, you could perhaps even amuse an adult or two with your caricatures or creations.
Focus on what’s going on around you, not what’s going on at the buffet table and certainly not what’s going on in your head! See how you can help whoever may need a hand, as helping others has long been a proven way to get out of your own swamp of thoughts and enjoy the actual moment.
The Expectations
Another factor to consider is the expectation you set up in your brain, the one that makes you dread each and every party that may possibly contain a pastry. That’s a whole lotta parties, and pastries, you may be dreading.
Let’s say you know food is going to be part of the festivities, so you automatically label the party as a horror show – before you even get there.
Sure enough, the party stinks, the pastries overwhelm your thoughts, and you have a horrible time.
Try a new way of thinking instead. Erase your expectations, accepting a situation as it is in reality instead of what your mind tells you it’s going to be. In reality, the party is a time to share thoughts, laughs and time with people you love. Sure, food may be in the background, but it does not have the power to ruin the entire event. It’s just a non-feeling, inanimate thing that has no power to do anything other than simply sit there.
You are the only one giving it power. But that also means you’re the one who can take that power away!
