Holidays can be joyous or miserable, depending on your experience or mindset.
The media likes to sell this time of year as a time of comfort and togetherness, but unfortunately for many it’s the opposite.
This year has already required so many of us to try and handle life in a new way. The restrictions have left many with low-level depression or deeper depression than when this all started. The normal coping mechanisms for many don’t seem to have the same effect. Maybe because the continued onslaught of stressors feels insurmountable. From fires to Covid, to restrictions of so many normal activities, to political platforms.
This time of year that is traditionally set out for gatherings; and being with loved ones can bring up many feelings of joy or sadness. These feelings are all seen through our own personal lens. It is important to understand our feelings and learn that in time we can make peace with them; instead of harboring feelings of confusion, resentment, anger and hurt only to be dragged around by them and avoid a time that might be experienced differently, if we had a clearer lens to look through.
These unmet or often avoided areas of low level frustration have the potential to arise when it is evident that the time of the season is sold as a time of reverence and gratitude. Not only for a god that you might pray to but for people that are deemed blood relatives. Many personalities in one room does not mean that love and good times are always to be had. Especially if there is history with these people and their impact has never been fully confronted.
This year as the holidays are quickly approaching, how are you going to handle them?
One thing is for sure, with fewer people traveling many homes will probably not be filled with the usual guests. There will most likely be more people left alone during the holidays.
While this further isolation from friends or loved ones becomes more visible this holiday season, or the pains of missing those who are no longer with us come closer to the surface, it is important to remember your place in all of this.
If you feel isolated, reach out to the nearest friend or relative. Make a zoom call or Facetime a planned event. Share a meal together through the screen or better yet, use this time face to face to express what you’re grateful for in the other person. Allow it to be a two-way share.
2020 has allowed the time for many of us to slow down. If it hasn’t allowed this, especially if you are an essential worker, then maybe this holiday season you carve some time for yourself and spend it with those you choose to be with; virtually or not. Allow yourself the opportunity to settle into your own rhythm. This will be important especially given that this year has required so many of us to shift into more roles than we ever considered possible or necessary.
If you are facing the anniversary of a loved one’s death or the first holiday or birthday without them, be gentle with yourself. Have a special celebration honoring their memory or set a place for them at the table. Just because a person is no longer with us in physical form, does not mean they are not around energetically. Don’t fool yourself to think it’s any different when a religion can ask us to pray to our God or take in the body and blood of Christ through communion. This is a person or entity that we are to revere and “make space” for, even though they are not in physical form. A loved one who is no longer here is no different.
Try it this year. Have the intention of honoring their absence by creating a space at the table for them. It’s simply an observance of someone’s energy who is no longer in physical form.
If you’re curious how to feel more comfortable with the unknown that might arise during this holiday season, you may schedule a FREE CLARITY CALL with me.