How to Cope Ahead for Pesach

I wanted to share a short blog post that I’m hoping feels relevant, with Pesach just days away (eek).

We talk a lot about the anxiety, stress, and dysregulation that so many of us as Jewish women experience as we get ready for Pesach cooking, cleaning, shopping, watching our kids, running to the bomb shelter (for those in Israel), and then doing it all over again. It’s hard work, and every hour we don’t “lose it,” for lack of better terminology, is a win.

And then comes Yom Tov itself, where all your hard work pays off and you get to experience the joy and holiness of Pesach. It’s beautiful - we’re passing on our mesorah, spending time with family and it’s also really challenging. Whether it’s the kids misbehaving at the Seder that you worked so hard to plan, your mom or mother-in-law saying just the thing that makes you lose your ability to self-regulate, or the serve-clean-entertain-kids cycle that feels never-ending.

And it’s in those moments that we often fall back on our ineffective patterns of doing or saying those things when we’re overwhelmed that we end up regretting, because they don’t actually reflect the type of people we’re striving to be. But it’s hard. The kids are screaming, the comment is irritating, and let’s face it - you’re tired.

But it feels almost automatic and so ingrained in you. It’s what you do, and on some level you’re already planning for it, expecting it to happen.

And that’s exactly the point of this blog. There's a DBT skill called Cope Ahead that was made for these moments when you already know a challenging situation is coming, and you want to respond in a more skillful way than you have in the past.

Before we get into the skill, just a clarification: it’s not about hoping things go smoothly. It’s about preparing yourself ahead of time for when they don’t and deciding, “How do I actually want to handle this when it happens?”

So let's break it down:

Step 1: Come up with a scenario that you anticipate will “trigger” you, like the kids misbehaving at the Seder or that unsolicited advice (you get the point 😉).

Step 2: Decide how you would like to respond. In other words, if you were the ideal version of yourself, how would you respond skillfully and effectively? Make sure you have it really clear in your head. I’m talking about a step-by-step plan, such as I will take three breaths, practice tensing and releasing my muscles, then notice my thoughts, urges, and emotions, and respond with the following statement. I’ll hold grace and sensitivity and kindness. I’ll feel immensely proud of myself.

Step 3: This step is about prep, patience, and willingness to follow through. Here you’ll  rehearse the foreseeable scene in your mind over and over again. Sit down once or twice a day and imagine the scene happening in real time. Picture the event, experience the emotions coming up, and then, in your mind’s eye, see yourself responding in that ideal way.

Practice this repeatedly and you’re going to be much more likely to actually follow through with that effective behavior when the moment comes. 

When you mentally rehearse a situation, you’re not just “thinking about it”- you’re actually training your brain. You’re giving it a practice run of how to respond. The more you rehearse it in your mind, the stronger those pathways become. So when the real situation happens, you’re more likely to follow through because your brain now has the capacity to respond differently. It’s not figuring it out from scratch because it’s already been there before.

So take a few minutes during these days leading up to Yom Tov to imagine yourself in those high-tension moments, and picture yourself responding in that calm, effective, and skillful way. And by doing that you make it so much more likely that you actually will.