Death Does Not Take a Holiday

Many people who are surviving the holidays have grief and loss issues. This post will explore what the death of a loved one does to the holidays.

The grief and loss issues come up on at least two accounts.  The first account is that a loved one has died on the holiday and the holiday is spoiled.  The second account is that the deceased loved one was a central part of the holiday celebration.  Either case tends to make for a holiday to become a day of sadness and depression.  

Christmas is the holiday that death ruins for the most people.   So much expectation is put on Christmas to be a happy and joyful time, that many people become fatalistic that Christmas is just going to be terrible; in other words they engage in creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
When people keep telling themselves over and over again that Christmas is going to be bad that they indeed make it bad.  They may also dwell on the line "Christmas is just not going to be the same."

Hearing "It's the most wonderful time of the year" on the radio almost makes one want to talk to Andy Williams or whoever is singing the song and tell them to cram it where the sun doesn't shine.  When feeling your grief issues, you are not happy and it seems that there is very little that will change your mood.

Death is a normal part of life.

The reality is that death is part of the normal function of life.  (I realized in the late 1990's as I had one month to wait for my brain tumor to be removed that if I died, the world would go on without me.) Life begins and life ends.  Just as babies will be born on Christmas, death does not take a holiday either.  People of all ages will die on Christmas.  People will die expectantly or suddenly at or around Christmas from all different causes that cannot be controlled by medical science.    
People will sadly die in car accidents at Christmas.   Since I had dabbled in journalism in an early part of my life, I became soberly aware that the common news staple of local TV stations (in the United States) is the story that tallies how many auto fatalities occur on the holiday or holiday weekend.  

Suicide at the holidays   

Besides car accident fatalities, there have been and will be people who commit suicide at Christmas.  There are people who feel alone, overwhelmed and hopeless, who feel that they have no other option.  Some of them have a mental illness and/or are abusing alcohol and drugs--which makes the problem all the more worse.  Having worked in a psychiatric hospital for nearly 10 years, I have noted that ironically--the adult patient population goes down at Christmas and not up.

I hope that if you are reading this, and contemplating suicide, I offer you a message of hope--there are always other problem-solving options other than suicide.   I would hope that you are reading this to help you cope another day or better yet  . . . another holiday season.  

I would trust that you have local mental health services or a crisis line that you can call.  If you are in the United States, you can call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).  It has trained telephone counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take your call.

When the loved one was the host of Christmas  . . .

A complicating factor of grief at the holidays is when the now departed loved one was the Christmas host.  There are many families where one person made Christmas happen: they hosted it, they cooked the dinner, and they were the tradition-bearer of the family by getting everyone involved in the activities. 

With the loved one gone, the traditions that help bind relationships transform into reminders of the pain.  Many families seem to fall apart and lose touch with each other as a result.  Invitations to get the rest of the family members to come for Christmas after the love one passes may be impossible.

Grief at the Holidays is not that simple

Grief is more often a complicated matter than we would expect.  Grief is more than just feeling bad.  There are a number of aspects of grief that I will look at in the next couple of posts that need their own consideration. 

Moving from Surviving to Thriving-- Beginning to Understand the Meaning of Trust

Survivors as a rule do not trust others, and for good reason.  Many people surviving family dysfunction have learned from their families not to trust . . . including their family members themselves. Some people also get brainwashed not trust themselves in the process because none of your caretakers any sense of confidence in you.
If you are not supposed to trust your family nor trust others, you are in a another paradox besides being stuck behind a wall of emotional isolation. . . . you are in a position of emotional abandonment where there is no one you can rely on to the degree of your need.    Similarly to what I have observed in my previous posts, the Holiday Season can make things feel worse--the rest of the world seems happy during this time of year while you feel terrible because you are alone, you may not feel like you can trust anyone, and your family is no consolation to you.

We need other people

Our families never really meet all our needs.  When your family is especially dysfunctional, they create some needs . . . or leave some needs unfulfilled. 

I think that from culture to culture and society to society, people have needed relationships outside of their biological family to meet the emotional needs family cannot need.  When you especially have a toxic, dysfunctional family, all the more it is likely you need friends . . . perhaps to be the surrogate family that your biological family cannot be.

However, if you cannot trust, you will be unlikely to make the friends that you need to help improve your experience of the holidays.  Trust is a glue in relationships.  If there is no trust then there is no relationship. 

With a friend you trust, you have a good sense of what he or she is like.  You have a good sense of what you can tell them.  You can tell that a friend accepts you for who you are, even when you show your fear and vulnerability, and even some stupidity.

Considering the concept of trust

Trust is many things.  I would like to define it as a act based on belief informed by knowledge.  To get trust, someone has observed you over time and has enough information to satisfy their doubt--you are going to be worthy enough to handle something valuable or accept their vulnerability.   A math-like formula that seems to fit is

TIME + BEHAVIOR= TRUST

When you meet someone, you are going to see how they act first. As crudely depicted by the below grid-like diagram, there are a series of boundaries that people have to cross to get increasing levels of trust.

      NO TRUST--------------------------------------------------------------------------------MOST TRUST      A STRANGER------------------------------------------------------------------------------A BEST FRIEND

The people you have met outside of your family all started out as strangers to you. They have demonstrated how trustworthy or how untrustworthy they are by their words and actions. 

The new people you meet now all start out as strangers. Some of them will demonstrate that they are good and trustworthy, and some will NOT.

Here is an example how this grid idea works.  If someone looks appealing enough to talk to, they have crossed the first boundary.  If they are nice enough in that first conversation of "small-talk" or social nice-ness, they get to graduate to the next level.  If in the third conversation, they seem to be accepting of a little more serious conversation, they move on.  The moment they mock you for a belief or view or a preference, a fear of spiders, or that you are going to see a psychotherapist or psychologist, you have learned that the degree of trust you can give stops right there. 

The following triangle diagram suggests how we order the relationships in our life.

You and I only have so much energy and time to have relationships.  We are not going to be able to be friends with everyone.  The majority of people that we know are not going to get the same amount of trust towards the top.  For example, I am not going to trust everyone I know to watch my children--in fact, I trust very few with my children--I do not have the time and energy to get to know whether everyone is trustworthy.

Furthermore,  not everyone has the same interests and attractions.  If I meet someone who is really big into mountain climbing and I am not, and all they do is climb mountains, we are not going to have much of a relationship.   If you do not have much in common, you may continue to have a distant friendship or occasional conversation, but you are not likely to be close.

I find it liberating that I do not have to try and be friends with everyone.  It is also liberating to see that there are different kinds of friends and I do not have to trust everyone the same. 

Family relationships fit in this triangle too.  The reality is that some people in families will burn bridges between each other, and then rebuild bridges, and the burn bridges again.  Family members can move from one level of trustworthiness to another and then back again. 

Trust is a great experiment

As noted above, good friends make tolerating the holidays more possible than being alone, but if you have been an isolationist, you are going to choose whether you are going to try the experiment of trust.   

Trust is still very much an individual choice. I can tell you how it happens and how it is formed, but I cannot get you over the hump of inact. Either you will do it or you will not do it.

I assume that if you have been surviving for a long time, and not just at Christmas, it has satisficed that you have not trusted.   People who have been surviving are sadly tolerant of the discomfort they feel in isolation.  It is not really contentment, but it is a perceived amount of less pain than if you were getting hurt in the worst way imaginable by other people.    

Beginning to trust is daunting and scary. Many people beginning to trust as adults think in black and white terms that we have to trust everyone all at once. With this mindset, those survivors show that they are ambivalent about changing and trying to trust and be more social.   The good news is that we do not have to (nor should we) trust everyone to the same degree.

If this has hit home for you today, this season of Advent and the holidays is an opportunity for you to trust in many ways.  I would like to think as a human being, your trust means something to you.  Your trust is valuable because it is not coming cheaply, whoever gets your trust will hopefully have earned it. 

As I consider the core of the Advent and Christmas Story, I find that we are called to trust  someone who came to earth in the most humble of ways to live a sinless life, and give up that life for the whole world that whoever believes will not perish but have ever lasting life.   When we believe, it does not matter how much education we have, how much money we make, how many bad things we have done, or even how old we are--the trust of anyone who has the ability to trust is valid and valuable--whether it is in a new friend or a savior.

Vulnerability in the holiday time--an inevitable paradox

If you have been following along (or are catching up) and identified yourself as an emotional survivor and that you are surviving this holiday season, an inevitable paradox is that we survivors are vulnerable. 

A survivor is about looking, sounding, and presenting as anything but vulnerable.   The survivor wants to look invincible wearing inpenetratable armor for fear of ever getting hurt again.   Some of the armor includes:

• Your pulled-in feelings which you are no longer willing to share with others lest they take advantage of your vulnerability.
• The insecurity and lack of trust you exhibit to others who reach out to show interest or concern to you.
• Your lack of tolerance and apparent lack of empathy for the feelings of people who have their own problems and are in pain. This is especially true if you think their problems compared to your past ones are trivial or less severe.
• The competitive way in which you deal with people always looking out for “who is the winner or loser” in each human transaction you encounter.
• Your inability to warm up to people and your shy and retiring ways whenever you are in a new social situation.  
• Your fear of speaking up in a group of people lest they not accept or approve of you.
• Your desire to be invisible so as not to be hurt or abused in any way.
• Your guardedness and watchfulness in your interactions with people lest they get to know too much about you for fear they take advantage of you with that information.

http://jamesjmessina.com/toolsforcontrolissues/tempersurvivalbehaviors.html

Reviewing the selected items from Messina's list, it is clear that the survivor separates themselves from others by wearing an armor of emotions, space and information.  A survivor looks tough, maintains his or her distance, and intentionally acts like a stranger.

The armor of a survivor is heavy to wear.   While everyone has to put on this armor at one time or another in their lives, it is not healthy to wear for long periods of time.  Long term use causes emotional and even physical damage.  If you go to the above link, Messina has a very well-thought-out list for the long-term consequences of engaging in survival behaviors as a lifestyle. 

While I am not a medical doctor, quite a few of the survivors I have served in the psychiatric hospital presented with Fibromyalgia.  I think that if good epidemiological research was done studying whether there is comorbidity of Fibromyalgia with chronic psychological stress, I would bet they would find quantifiable and statistically significant evidence.  

Nevertheless, this armor that survivors wear can feel heavier at the holiday season.  The holiday season is supposed to be a time of happiness and joy.  If someone has made a lifestyle out of being fearful and guarded, they are very unlikely to warm up and start being joyful at Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas or even Kwanzaa.  The opposite happens instead--and people feel dreadfully worse.

The reality is that the armor of a survivor corrodes from the inside and not the outside.  Eventually, the reality that we are vulnerable and have needs eats away at us.  We are going to get the picture and make changes to meet those needs or we are going to wrecked by the unfulfilled needs.

Loneliness

The biggest complaint at the holiday season is loneliness.  Some people do confuse loneliness with privacy.  We do prize the right to privacy in the United States, and a survivor can hide behind the claim to privacy, but nevertheless feel painfully lonely.   

Aloneness is a state.   There are times when we need to be alone and have our privacy.  When we do not have any needs and are content, we are ambivalent--it does not matter if we are around people or not.  When we are needy we hate being alone.

The continuum of being alone 

Privacy---------------------------------Ambivalent-------------------------------------------------Loneliness

(Need to be alone)                                 Content with situation                                                      (Need to be with others)
 

I think that when a survivor is lonely, he or she is especially vulnerable.   Staying to yourself while in emotional pain can exponentially increase your pain.  We become strangers from the rest of the world and we lose touch with reality.

The experience of family continues to be the set of eyeglasses through which you and I continue to make emotional judgments and set expectations.   If one believes: I am supposed to have an intact and happy family at Christmas, then that person puts themselves in an unrealistic and irrational place when they do this, and will stay there because they are surviving.  It is my opinion that many people feel lonely and act as survivors based on the standard of family. 

The Challenge of Beginning to Be Vulnerable

After awhile, surviving becomes woefully unfulfilling, and I think that loneliness is one of those cues that tells people that surviving is not working very well . . . or working at a cost.   I think that regardless of who you are, the feeling of loneliness tells you that you are vulnerable, you have needs.

Going back to the heart of the message of Christmas tells us that humanity has a larger need--humankind is sinful and in of a gift in the form of a savior.  Human beings cannot do it all by themselves--that includes saving themselves from their sins.

Whether you consider the Christmas story to be a Joseph Campbell-type myth, an archetype in the theoretical framework of Carl Jung or a theological truth, it goes back to a need and a gift to meet that need.   We as humans are all vulnerable or there would not be the need for the gift.

In my next post . . . 

I will discuss resolving loneliness if your family continues to be unavailable to you.

Survival and Hope--the First Sunday in Advent

Today is the first Sunday in Advent which focused on the theme of "Hope."

Advent is part of the church year that consists of four weeks.  It is celebrated in many high-church traditions that include the Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.  If you want to learn more about Advent a basic Google query will give you a number of great websites with more information than you can shake a stick at.

While I did not grow up with Advent, I do see it as a season of the church year that invites me to look at myself, and find renewal as we look to celebrate the earthly birth of Jesus Christ, God-incarnate.  We see how we are sinful people in need of God's grace and salvation as revealed and accomplished in Jesus Christ.

I recognize that many rationally-thinking people struggle with the concept of a God.  For them they further have problems wrapping their heads around the Christmas story that at times can be compared with a movie plot by George Lucas.  Christmas does call for faith, and whether you have it is up to you.

Hope and Survivors

Regardless, hope is something that many people are looking for in this world.  If you admit to being an emotional survivor like I discussed yesterday, hope may be a problem. 

Survivors live behind emotional walls.  They dwell on what is bad about themselves.  They are afraid to come out and be who they really are because dwelling on the bad points has tended to reduce their self-esteem to close to nothing.   They do not trust anyone and suffer in self-imposed isolation.

A person's emotional walls tend to get built in childhood by family dysfunction and abuse.  The dysfunction demands the adherance to rules which build the walls--we don't trust, feel, or talk for fear of the family's secret sins getting out.

Children growing into adults continue those traditions which bind them to the family dysfunction.  However, they are at the same time repelled from wanting to be around more of the same that will be reinforced at dysfunctional family gatherings.

However, family power through the threat of ex-communication or being cut off from the will compels survivors to go to the family gatherings and survive some more.  The hope of Christmas here is that it ends for another year on December 26. 

When people stay behind these emotional walls they tend to get more and more isolative.  Both adult and adolescent patients who evidenced to be survivors have said to me: 

If people only knew about the real me, they would reject me.

These people have in essence rejected themselves and believe that other people will reject them too.

Changing how one hopes.

I presume that some reading this blog are looking for hope.  They are tired of just surviving and are looking to thrive. 

• They want to be who they really are.
• They would like to accept themselves (although they have problems expressing that)
• They want to feel their feelings and feel okay that they feel the way they do feel.
• They want to feel normal.  

If you admit that you have been acting as an emotional surivivor and are looking for hope, I think the change to head in that direction starts with belief. 

I propose a secular option and a spiritual option (both can work together just fine)
First, the secular option . . .

If you have related to the material I have discussed today and in this blog as a whole, I point out that none of my ideas are absolutely my own.  I have borrowed from other theorists and authors--many other professionals have figured this stuff out too.  The hope and good news, is . . .

that how people are, and how they tick is pretty evident to therapists and you are not that freak of nature that you fear. 

You only feel like it and feelings are NOT facts.

The secrets you claim to have are had by other people too.  The reality is that you likely need to take risk and believe me and the other professionals.  Your problems have been dealt with over and over again and again. 

If you are willing to make changes to stop surviving and begin to thrive . . . you can.

Now, the spiritual option (and my preferred one) . . .

God as a personal God is well acquainted with pain and knows what it is like.   God knows our pain.  God knows our past.  God knows what we are thinking even behind our emotional walls. 


God knows our weaknesses and our sins and despite God's knowledge of those things, God still loves us behind our emotional walls.  In God's great love God sent His son to come to earth and in Jesus there is both a present and future hope.

In light of God's great love, we are accepted as the sinful and broken people we are, even if we have felt like we have been behind a wall and separated from the rest of humanity.   The gift of God can only be accepted by you whether you stay behind that emotional wall or not.

Your family members cannot accept it or reject it for you.  Faith is a choice that someone can only make for ones self. 

Yes, we find hope in the original reason for Christmas and sometimes, and it can help us begin to break down the walls in our lives--starting with the one between us and God.

Backing up a step--considing the meaning of the word survival

Since my blog is about surviving the holiday, I thought I would back up and look at the concept of survival.

Canadian Les Stroud is the “Survivorman,” and a master of wilderness survival. Stroud does a show that I enjoy that comes on “The Science Channel” in the United States and the OLN Channel in Canada.

The usual format of the show is that Stroud goes out alone to some different wilderness area for about one week with his cameras, a few odd items and fewer legitimate survival tools. He must be creative in making a shelter with whatever he can find.  He also must go through humiliating and desperate measures to get food and water which can mean eating weed roots and bugs.

As he talks to the camera, Stroud will lecture about various subjects related to survival including the psychology of survival. A lot of it is keeping a level head and not getting anxious. After one week, Stroud is able to go to a rescue spot or zone where he is picked up and the show ends.   I watch the show and repeatedly think that Les Stroud is a better man than I am when it comes to survival.

A laundary list describing survival behaviors

However, when it comes to the matter of emotional survival, you are not eating roots and bugs like Les Stroud, but you are likely engaging in a number of emotional gymnastics or behavior patterns as identified quite nicely by James Messina Ph.D:

• Those behaviors you needed to exhibit in order to survive in an abusive, neglecting or ignoring environment in your family of origin, marriage, work, or school setting. 
• The walls or barriers which you have built between you and others so that you will never be hurt again like you were in the past. 
• Your pulled-in feelings which you are no longer willing to share with others lest they take advantage of your vulnerability. 
• The closing off of your vulnerable side for fear of being hurt again. 
• The insecurity and lack of trust you exhibit to others who reach out to show interest or concern to you. 
• Your lack of tolerance and apparent lack of empathy for the feelings of people who have their own problems and are in pain. This is especially true if you think their problems compared to your past ones are trivial or less severe. 
• The competitive way in which you deal with people always looking out for “who is the winner or loser” in each human transaction you encounter. 
• The coldness and “detachment” you display as you describe your problems from your past. 
• The often hostile, negativistic, sarcastic, and cynical attitude you hold towards life. 
• The often bitter, acrid, and biting comments you make about aspects of your life. 
• The often uncontrollable anger, rage, and hatred that you exude as you speak of past hurts.
• Your unwillingness to consider that there might be more viable options for you to cope with life than your “tried and proven” self-defensive model. 
• Your defensive and “closed in” attitude when others suggest to you a constructive criticism over something you have said or done. 
• Your inability to warm up to people and your shy and retiring ways whenever you are in a new social situation.
• Your fear of speaking up in a group of people lest they not accept or approve of you.
• Your desire to be invisible so as not to be hurt or abused in any way.
• Your guardedness and watchfulness in your interactions with people lest they get to know too much about you for fear they take advantage of you with that information.

http://jamesjmessina.com/toolsforcontrolissues/tempersurvivalbehaviors.html

I think that we all engage in survival behaviors from time to time.  We are going to be in unpleasant and abusive situations at work, church, in court, school and family situations. 

I see many people in my current situation who are survivors, and many people in my past who evidenced to be survivors.   I will be cautious in my examples.

Going back 26 years ago, I recall the residential director (RD) at the small college I went to for my first two years of undergrad.  The RD was a patronizing stick in the mud when it came to ALL the rules.  He made enemies among the male students, but the adminstration liked him because he was strict.   I remember seeing an interaction between the RD and a guy I knew named Tom.  In this encounter in one of the dorm TV lounges I observed that Tom barely looked at the RD and was guarded and angry.  The RD snapped at Tom.  I look back and saw that Tom was surviving the interaction with the RD and neither Tom nor the RD had the emotional intelligence to understand it but Tom told me later that he merely thought the RD was a jerk.

More recently, on the American version of the TV show, The X Factor the young rapper that goes by the stage name Astro demonstrated survivor behaviors when he was one of the bottom two and had to perform well enough to stay on the show.  Judge Simon Cowell confronted him and told him that he had a bad attitude.   From my perspective, Astro was demonstrating that he was still just a kid with limited poise and surviving the pressure of being under the gun on national TV.

Surviving should be a temporary situation, but there are occasions when it seems to become a enduring way of life.  If someone is going through a messy divorce, they are likely surviving for a longer period of time.  If someone has ex-spouse who is a borderline personality or narcissist (like two of my friends have) the surviving can go on for years whenever it has to do with the kids and child support.   If someone is a caretaker of a loved one with a chronic and terminal illness, survival seems to become the norm.  I do recognize that there are some people who have to survive because of their settings.  

Surviving or Thriving?

I have no doubt that many people are surviving this holiday season because they feel obligated to endure abusive and judgmental family members.  They are surviving the memories of the past abuse and their imagination predicting more of the same.  As a result they are engaged in survival behavior patterns.

However, I have concluded that too many people make surviving a way of life when they do not have to.   The survival situation has long-ended but they continue to go on in survival patterns because it is what they know.   Some people go on surviving because they are not aware they can be different.  Some people have some irrational beliefs about the world.  Too many people continue to act as if they are surviving when there is no danger evident. I have seen people carry on too long with the above italicized list.

I have to ask the question: are you really only surviving the the holiday because you have to, or do you have a bad habit of surviving instead of thriving? 

I plan to visit this later.  Tomorrow happens to be the first Sunday in Advent.  

Black Friday and its discontents

Due to its economic importance, the fourth Friday of November has spontaneously been christened an institution unto itself as "Black Friday."  It is the biggest shopping day of the year.

Retailers have been advertising to pump this day up as the day to go shop by offering super deals of  the hottest stuff at great prices.  I think that it is metaphorically becoming a circus with competitive retailers having opening hours starting on Thanksgiving night or at midnight.      

I think that many people go shopping on Black Friday as a way to get into the Christmas spirit. It is a very intense day and maybe its intensity will rub off as peace on earth and good will towards others. 

What I see instead is that the intensity often breaks out as anger, violence and indifference.    I still remember the fights over Cabbage Patch Dolls in 1983 and more recently over the Tickle-Me Elmos. Last year I recall seeing the security video of someone getting trampled by all of the frenzied shoppers running into a big box retailer at 4am.    Today there were shots fired at the mall in Fayetteville North Carolina, and one lady in Los Angeles pepper-sprayed a crowd at a Walmart to beat the others to get the "X-box 360" she wanted.

It's the Economy--warning possibly boring and dry material

Despite my disdain, Black Friday is a symbol of how the economy is the most important paradigm in this country if not this world.  There is an economically-based evolution where much is re-interpreted in terms of its relationship to the economy.  For example we are known as consumers. Because of the   economy is debt-based, our anxiety or lack of anxiety to incur debt to get things is often called "consumer confidence." 

Living in a market economy that is full of currency means that if there is something that can be legally exploited for a necessary profit . . . it will be.  Livelihoods are built on the expectation that there is a profit to be made on something--this includes Christmas.  Retailers and financial analysts on Wall Street expect retailers to get the major amount of retail revenue and profit during the holiday season.

This amounts to an economic dependence on the profits of the holiday season. Because of this dependence I think that there will continued inching forward of what is being called the holiday season in that push to maximize profits.  It is likely that retailers will put out the Christmas merchandise earlier and earlier.

Taking the recession into account
Four three years now--since November 11, we have had in essence a recession with a high unemployment rate.

I know that for the economy to be in recession there must be two consecutive quarters of official recognition of a decline in the economy.  I recognize the official pronouncement is that we have been out of a recession since June, 2009, but in my opinion--if people are not working--the official pronouncement is worthless.   

Nevertheless, many people are still unemployed or under-employed this holiday season. They cannot even begin to afford Christmas presents let alone paying all the regular bills.

Not being able to afford Christmas hurts

I go back to the wrestling team at college.  I remember Steve, the 142-pounder talk relate his mother's announcement of not being able to afford Christmas presents in 1983 during the pre-practice huddle.  I think it had to do something with his tuition cost in addition to the family economic issue.  I remember Steve crying in front of the team over that reality.  It is significant when a 19 year-old male cries-- they like to look and be tough.  I admire Steve for being real, and I hope that he has always had good Christmases since. 

Steve's story reminds me that being able to afford Christmas is part of self-esteem right up there with having a job.  If you cannot afford Christmas presents for the ones you love, there is the likelihood that you feel inadequacy and embarassment; you feel there is something wrong with you.

Those ***** holiday ads on TV

Many TV ads depict happy families on Christmas Day opening presents and acting surprised by the gifts they get.  While it is fair game that these ads are on TV and are effective in bringing consumers to the store or website, they  perpetuate feelings of inadequacy and guilt and embarrassment.  If you don't have the money . . . your Christmas is not going to be as good as the illusion you see on TV and something is wrong with you.

Coping with it all

I think as I continue this journey to develop this blog and think through the different topics and issues, I will have more suggestions. The following suggestions are a start, but for right now I admit that there are no easy solutions and we can diminish the pain of not having enough money to get things, but the pain will still be there.

I think that at Christmas we are living in a state of psychological warfare.  The commercials and displays and are everywhere.  The music will be playing everywhere.  People are going to be talking about Christmas.  If we are not mindful of matters it seems only natural to be overwhelmed and depressed. 

I think that for some to cope it may be be necessary to make a daily commitment to the belief and thought that we have the power to decide what the holidays are going to be for us.  This is one of those methods that is clearly easier said than done.  Such a commitment will have to be made over and over and over again as necessary.

Next, some of us may need to think through how we can give to others (especially children) without spending much money if any money.    This could be an opportunity to pass down family heirlooms of significance to more mature children or demonstrating creativity in our gifts to others.  Some of the homemade and creative gifts done on the cheap can be cool and I think can be greatly appreciated.

While it is trite, it is still the thought that counts--yeah immature children may still whine that they wanted the cool toy that you couldn't afford, but in their cases something is better than nothing.  However, I have definitely came to believe personally and professionally that part of parenting and raising children means tolerating their emotional distress in these occasions to drive home a greater lesson of meaning and create emotional development. 

Sometimes the kid gets the meaning and sometimes they don't, but there is a good chance they will see it   On the other hand, mature adults get the meaning of the creativity and are usually most grateful.

A Thanksgiving wrap-up: the project idea worked but wondering about Black Friday

At the end of this American Thanksgiving Day I am listening to the online version of "The Link" from Radio Canada at http://www.rcinet.ca/english/program/the-link/home/ and taking inventory.

The coping strategy results

While it was not a perfect day,  it turned out to be a good day with some satisfaction.  The strategy worked: a project that occupies your mind and that you can get excited about helps makes a holiday better.  My strategy for Thanksgiving Day was to make bookshelves in the garage workroom. 

Despite  the warped wood from a reputable national chain of building supply and do it yourself stores, the two book shelves look decent.  My wife and I have already cleaned up the cluttered sides of  our bed and put our book collections (previously on the floor and under the bed) on the shelves.  There was a double supply of satisfaction: the shelves are done and my bedside if clean.

The family factor

It seemed to be good that we were by ourselves.  My wife and I called our sides of the family and both had a few good chuckles, a few scoffs, and a few sad head-shakes.  Being far away helps you see things within the big picture of the rest of your life situation instead of getting caught up in it because it is up close and dominating the landscape.   If we had been with some of those people we would have endured some drama and headaches.

Traditions--They come and go and we grieve when they stop

Yes, had our nuclear family traditions as we watched the Macy's parade (the NBC version) and had to deal with some boredom by the kids. They would have preferred to watch Phineas and Ferb or something else on Disney Channel, but we stood our ground and had to tell them to share the couch and keep their hands off each other.   However, it was cool talking about Scotty McCreery not catching his cue and whether Kermit the Frog was one of the Muppets when the Sesame Street Float came on the screen (Scotty--I think I would have downright embarassed myself if I had to sing there--your still a far better man than I when it comes to public performance).

We had the dinner as planned and talked about our blessings amongst other subjects around the table.  Later, we made good on our six-year-old tradition and went to the nearby convenience store and tried some strange "Apple Cider Cappucino." 

I was mindful that tradition is part of the relationship that binds people.   A tradition in this context is a repeated activity that provides a sense of belonging and connection.  A tradition is a positive activity. 

Without the relationships, a tradition otherwise tends to be empty and meaningless. Some people  hang onto traditions believing that they hold the meaning to the holiday.   They may engage in the tradition alone, and it may bring some satisfaction, but it is unlikely going to be as good as when they kept the tradition with family.

No, I think that traditions will come and go.  I am becoming of the opinion that it is important to grieve the loss of the old traditions that no longer are.  If we do not grieve the loss of those traditions, we continue to stay in the pain that the holidays are not the same.   

What this is going to mean is that there may be a day when some or most of our family traditions cease.   We will feel sad because we will not do them anymore.

There was a day when my grandparents stopped hosting the large Thanksgiving meals.  They started going to Florida before Thanksgiving,  then bought a mobile home trailer, and then sold their home in Des Moines.   My mother was not one to make Thanksgiving Dinners like my grandmother did and we had an electric stove so there was not the smell of a gas stove.  She also was averse to making stuffing/dressing, baking pumpkin pies, and potato soup Thanksgiving night with the leftover mashed potatoes.  As a teenager I thought that Thanksgiving was not as good anymore--I was grieving and of course I was not realizing it.

There will be a time when the simple traditions of my little family will stop too. They will stop for whatever reason like my kids moving away and not coming home for the holidays.  Maybe we will grieve or maybe we will simply have other traditions that replace them.

Changing gears: Black Friday

Given that we had stayed home I read through the paper and its glossy inserts.  I noted that there were 56 glossy inserts for "Black Friday" retail sales.  The paper was as big as if not bigger than the Sunday paper! (Of course two advertisers had two different glossies.)

Black Friday is statistically the biggest shopping day of the year.   Retailers are enticing us to go out with special upon special.  The question to me is "Are they really special?" 

Retailers have put so much expectation into the holiday season.    There will be an almost weekly news story telling us whether or not sales forecasts are being met.  

Retailers have sent out a not-so-subtle message of guilt that it is your and my patriotic if not religious duty to go out and spend money.  That message of guilt to me is irrational because it is neither a relgious violation nor a violation of the law if you do not go out and spend your money.

However, there can be a blurring of the guilt.  Many of us feel inadequate because we cannot afford the things we want . . . or feel that we should be giving to others.  There can be a sense of inadequacy seeing all of that cool merchandise and know we cannot afford it.  Some people try to ease this sense of guilt by pulling out the credit card, but then they also face a sense of guilt and increased vulnerability because they spent money they really did not have.   It can be a never ending cycle.

Many people are still unemployed this holiday season.  They cannot even begin to afford Christmas presents let alone paying all the bills. That could make the feelings worse.

I am going to be exploring coping with the lack of money in light of the psychological war of the retail and advertising sectors in the next posting.    

Thanksgiving Eve at home:Nostalgia is a lot like the pink envelope sweetner

It is on cusp of the first of the holidays of the holiday season of 2011. 

We are staying home this Thanksgiving.   We found it most practical to stay home because of the current situation at my job--lots of staying late.  There is some thankfulness that we stayed home because of one of the main freeway bridges over the Ohio River being shut down due to cracks. The closed bridge has has caused significantly more congestion going out of Louisville. 

We have our plans.  It will be a simple dinner.  We have the turkey breast versus the whole turkey.  There will be no pumpkin pie because I am on a diet and I have not convinced my wife and my children that it actually is quite good.  I expect we will watch the Macy's parade and eat after the parade while the dog show is going on.  We will go to one of the local convenience store and have hot beverages in the afternoon to get out of the house so we don't go stir-crazy.

Thanksgiving 1968

Today I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings my grandmother hosted in the late 1960's and early 1970's.  In my nostalgia, I do miss them because they appeared to be where the action was.   I remember the smell of the gas stove and the cooking stuffing/dressing and turkey. I remember the sound of the electric beater whipping the mashed potatoes. I remember seeing my grandfather carving the turkey with the electric knife and getting greasy hands.

My grandmother and grandfather would have 15 to 20 people in the house and they were not all family.  There would be people at the main table, side table and then me at the coffee table eating on my knees with the second cousin a little younger than myself.

I would see the picture of the crowd of people who attended Thanksgiving 1968 whenever I went to my grandmother's house in Des Moines, and then at her mobile home in Florida.   I always looked for me in the picture off to the side where my mother was holding me tight to keep me out of trouble (they tell me I was quite the active toddler). It was the "glory days" of my grandmother's hosting, and that large photograph was the trophy.

I kind of miss that kind of gathering, but then in my nostalgia, I was only a young child and I had no earthly clue about the drama that was going on amongst the adults.  I did not have an understanding of the criticisms my grandmother had made and my mother's reactive defensiveness.

While my mother continued to rail about during the rest of my childhood about the criticisms, it was not until I was into my teenage years and started to feel my own exasperation about my grandmother's incessant and insatiable need to talk about her perception of what was wrong with me (my teeth, my hair, my face, the college I was going to go to).   The yellowing photograph in the same picture frame over 40 years does not tell the whole picture of what went on.    

Nostalgia can be a lot like the "pink stuff" or Saccharin-based sweetener that a lot of people still put in their coffee and other beverages.  It has the worst after-taste if you partake in too much of it and maybe with just one packet.

Nostalgia versus grief and loss

Mind you we do all have our memories.  Nostalgia aside, some of our pasts are better than our present currently is.  I think that grief often accompanies nostalgia because we often have to endure the thought and emotion that we no longer have that which was good or at least that we remembered to be good.

With the grief accompanying nostalgia we may have a variety of feelings: sadness, anger, and depression.    I would like to offer that this is a situational depression versus a clinical depression because we are having a feeling that is a reaction. 

The grief can be worse with the passing of a loved one that was at the last Thanksgiving.  It can be worse if you depended on that loved one to organize and host the meal.  Thanksgiving indeed will not be the same.

Changing your frame of mind
Dwelling on the losses of the past is like sitting on a tack.  You can get up and remove the pain from your derriere or continue to sit, bleed and hurt.  You have a choice.

The choice is that you are going to choose whether you dwell on the past or focus your mind on something now.  I think that having a variety of distraction options to occupy our minds on may be necessary.  Some of the options involve mind and body.

I am working on taking my own advice this year and my options for this four-day weekend include the following:

1) A project of building two small bookshelves for the bedroom so I do not have such a mess by my bedside.

2) Switching off between four different books including two Edward Abbey books (I have recently discovered Edward Abbey and his personal history of being a national park ranger to be just fascinating)

3) Helping my son with his Pinewood Derby car.

I have found being busy in both mind and body are often necessary.  I have decided that is why many like to go serve meals in missions and soup lines at the holiday (an excellent perception correction).

I have a colleague that has frequently suggested to others that they go and make some new memories. That can be a good option--your present does become your past. Why not make it something that you can remember with pride instead of just another day of sitting and moping over what was?      

I will be the first to say that it is all easier said than done.  Sure you may be alone with your thoughts and not have money to do anything.   But I think that it can be a lot of little activities that are not going to cost you anything instead of one big activity.  What can you do now that you can afford?  Pick up litter in your neighborhood, serve in the serving line at a mission?   Go for a walk (weather permitting)?

I hope that your fourth Thursday of November is better than you expect.

Focusing our thoughts on being thankful aka choosing to look at the bright side of life.

The first holiday of the American holiday season is Thanksgiving and it is less that 48 hours away.
The Canadians had their Thanksgiving the second Monday of October.

A little bit of meaning is supposed to be added by thinking back to what was alledgedly the first Thanksgiving in or about 1621 where the puritan pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in Massachuetts had a meal and gave thanks for the provisions they had for the long, hard winter. There is some patriotism involved in the remembrance as those pilgrims sought to flee persecution in England for their way of believing--one of the cornerstones of the freedoms we have in the United States.

However, the first Thanksgiving was officially celebrated in November 1863 and not 1621. On October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the national holiday of Thanksgiving to occur on the fourth Thursday of November. 

Expectations

Thanksgiving has become known for the traditional feast and watching football games on TV.  The feast traditionally consists of turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and other trimmings depending on your family traditions.  It is an expensive feast where a family is supposed to gather together and be thankful and reflect on their blessings and then gather around and have some kind of good time.  Those traditions tend to have meaning in that they bond us together in our relationships with family members. 

If it is going to be a good time, family members will tolerate the lousy and worn mattresses in guest bedrooms and air mattresses set up on the floor.  Also, there is tolerance of the lack of privacy and inconvenience of sleeping out in the living room or having to sleep on the floor of your parents's bedroom.   If family members love each other, the inconveniences and bad backs are worth it.

The problems in 2011

In 2011, many are not going to be able to afford the food thanks to the ongoing recession. The economic numbers are alledgedly suggesting we are no longer in a recession, but the 9.0 percent-plus unemployment rate (http://www.bls.gov/cps/ on 11/22/11) still gives the feeling and air that we are still in a recession. Many are not making the money they would have to spend on the lavish meal.

The other half is the timeless reality that many families are toxic and dysfunctional to the point that gathering together would be futile and painful.  Sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, unresolved conflict, and alcohol/substance use all contribute to the perpetuation of anger and separation.  Regardless of how good the economy is, there is the pain that a family cannot be together and love and accept each other unconditionally.

The toxicity can extend to the reality that family members do not call each other nor want to call each other and even disown each other.  Phone conversations and e-mails can be painful if not abusive.  Some people who have made allegations of abuse get ostracized by the rest of the family as a liar who is not to be trusted.  Some abuse survivors are essentially are forsaken by their families and are practically orphans (denial in the family is a strange phenomenon).

Less dysfunctional is the economic evolution where family members move away from each other to attain economic opportunities that do not exist in the town or city that used to be home base for the family.  There is nothing particularly wrong with individual interests taking priority over family interests, but one consequence is that family members cannot conveniently get together.  It is harder when the economy is down as the money may not be there to make the trek.

The economic evolution and family dysfunction often go hand in hand.  Why would someone want to spend the money to travel a long distance to sleep on a lousy guest bed and suffer the abuse of a brother, sister or other relative who you haven't seen in a long time.  In these cases you are reminded why you haven't seen them in a long time and don't want to see them again for a long time.

At least one more problem that fits in here is divorce and death.  Many people have lost someone in the past year and the holiday is just not going to be the same without them.  Many people are reeling from divorce and have a large black emotional hole within themselves that just steals the joy of the holiday.  

For many people, Thanksgiving is likely going to be a lonely and empty day of sadness and depression because of the lack of money, the distance from your family, or the inability to cope with your dysfunctional family, or the grief that a loved one is no longer there.  It could also be the doorway to another 37 of days of misery expected to end January 2, 2012.

Getting back to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving may be easier than Christmas to cope with.   Thanksgiving can be a mindset that someone can buy into.   As I have discussed in my earlier posts, we have thoughts, and those thoughts will produce feelings.

Thanksgiving can be made out to be a warm and fuzzy concept connected with earth tones and romantic themes of the courage and bravery of the pilgrims.  However, like the Christmas music that has been playing already for about three weeks, it can get thin, meaningless, and be easily forgotten when compared against the pain we may feel for whatever reason.

A relevant question here is "What if I have questions about the existence of God or I have problems with God given my abuse?" Why should I be thankful for something I am not sure I believe in?  Many of us are therefore faced with a challenge or maybe a number of them. 

Given all those challenges I think that Thanksgiving can be defined simply as

Looking at what is positive in your situation 

 or

 realizing what could be worse

 and

taking note of it

and

repeating as often as necessary.

   

I think that there is always the possibility of finding something positive and meaningful about your situation.  On the flip side I think that there is also the possibility of finding something negative and meaningless about your situation.  This is akin to the old adage:

Is the glass half-empty or half-full?  

I caution that practicing Thanksgiving is not necessarily going to make you happier.  It may only make you less miserable; it is no panacea.

I am mindful of my college wrestling practices at a Christian college I went to.  There was a circle before practice and my coach would go around the circle and ask was good with the different guys. I realize in my preoccupied mind, I was not thinking about what was good, but about that 10-page paper I had to type with a manual typewriter.  When myself or one of the other team members drew a blank, my coach would then chide with his usual sarcasm:

"You woke up today.  You're breathing aren't you. That's good isn't it?"  

To which I stupidly said, "Yeah."

Thanksgiving is not a past action of nostalgia

I realize that in this intense world we live in where we are focused on the demands and requirements, thoughts about what we are thankful may be foreign.  We easily get preoccupied with the demands of our lives and our perceived deficiencies in meeting those demands; we obsess about what is wrong versus and forget what is right. 

The holidays and the idealism of what they should be allow for few gray areas.  Idealism demands that holidays be all or nothing matter.  We look to nostalgia to make things better. 

Nostalgia is a selective look back to the past when you did not have one or more of the problems that you have now. Nostalgia sells lots of over-priced and cheaply-made retail items in the holiday aisles of discount retailers, but it blinds you to the reality that the the past had its problems too.  My grandmother's nostalgic stories of the Great Depression seem a little far fetched to me now.

Thanksgiving is a present action of choice and not being

I hold that thanksgiving is a present action.  Thanksgiving is in the here and now. Thanksgiving may include remembrance of what has happened in the past, but it should have meaning for now.  For example, I am thankful that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins.  I am saved because of his past action.  Being born again does not make me or my life perfect, but like Zig Ziglar has said, I have one less problem because I know my future is secure.

Looking at the bright side and practicing thanksgiving is a commitment. For some it may necessitate frequent reflection on what you have to be thankful for. For many it may be looking at the tiny items in your life that are good. 

Thanksgiving can be hard work, especially if you are so used to looking at what you don't have.  Depending on your situation, you may have to think about those tiny good things again and again throughout the day.  You may have to read a list of what you are thankful 100 times a day if that is what it takes to ease your pain and give you perspective.

Another day if you want to look at it that way.

Even if the above thoughts are a little bit weak for your needs and Thanksgiving Day is still going to be miserable,  I fall back to position that how you spend those 24 hours on November 24, 2011 is your choice and only your choice.

You have the power to decide how you will spend it with the resources and abilities that you have. 
After awhile in the mental health business, I realized that some people are miserable because they choose to be miserable and no one was going to tell them to cheer up.  They were survivors who wanted to be in control and being miserable was their way of control.

If you are wanting to be thankful, then choose to practice it--you are not necessarily going to be it because you want it, but because you DO it.

If you just want to be miserable on Thanksgiving Day, have at it. Control is like a stale potato chip.  It may be stale and unappealing, but at least you have it.          

Thoughts and Feelings

We have a lot of feelings every day.  The feelings vary from negative to bland to positive.   The feelings get worse for many at the holiday season.

I think as we approach the holiday season we are likely to have more negative feelings in part due to the lack of sunlight on top of the feelings of inadequacy and emptiness.  I wonder how many people have "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD) in addition to having a negative view of the holidays.   I think that some people benefit from medication to treat SAD and that they do better.  (If you cannot get into seeing a psychiatrist on short notice, you could go to your regular physician to explore if this could work for you.)

I think that during the holiday season there will always be the temptation to let your mind wander and be anxious and depressed. We get the temptation from the messages, sights, and sounds of Christmas.

TV and radio commercials throw out the subliminal and not-so subtle messages that if you do not do what they suggest, your Christmas is going to stink. TV commercials also paint scenes of happy families giving each other really cool gifts  that you probably can't afford to get and are not going to afford to give. Furthermore, if these hurt, you are probably mindful that your family members cannot stand to be in the same room with each other.

We also hear the same secular Christmas carols and religious carols suggest that we should feel fulfilled and happy and that all should be right because it is Christmas. After all one of the sounds of the season is Andy Williams singing "It's the most wonderful time of the year." It is especially worse because Toyota has bought the song and converted it to "It's the most wonderful sale of the year." I expect to hear "Jingle Bell Rock" about 200 or more times.

It is impossible to escape from the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas. Every locale is going to have some Holiday item or decoration. The possibility for pain is everywhere.

If someone lets their mind wander, they risk letting their thoughts go to the worse possible situations and think nothing but the worst thoughts. They have the potential to maximize their distress possible over how their holiday is terrible and that all is meaningless and that all is futile. Throw in some alcohol and the judgment goes down the tube.

For us who have a problem with the holiday season, I think that it becomes a series of some very simple and basic choices. I think that those choices are about how we are going to feel.

Throughout history humans have had the tendency to let their thoughts wander all over the place. All of the different religious traditions have a lot to offer in the way of exhortations and suggestions of how to control what one thinks. However, people still have the problems with negative thoughts.

I think that it happens a lot at bedtime when the day is winding down and the worries of the day and night come crashing like a wave. Many people dwell on things that they cannot change or do anything about at bedtime. When this happens, people get depressed and anxious and often develop insomnia.

Taking control of thoughts

In the book Your Erroneous Zones  Wayne Dyer discussed something of what I believe is a "Syllogism."  It is as follows:

My feelings come from my thoughts.

I can control my thoughts.

Therefore I can control my feelings.

If feelings come from our thoughts, I think coping through the holiday seasons means making lots of little choices about what we think every day.   I think that the possibilities of choices are endless.  We can be creative in how we focus our minds on healthy thoughts and subjects.

I have thought of some alternatives that could be useful:

1) Get yourself a number of non-holiday audio books and listen to them on your MP3 player.
2) Check out or get some non-christmas music of your favorite genre or a different genre.
3) Get yourself involved in some private projects that have nothing to do with the holidays.  

These types of alternatives take your mind someplace constructive.  They help you think about things other than your holiday blues.  They are not perfect, but if they help you control your mind in thinking about something other than the holiday, you will have had some success.

Tomorrow, I plan to discuss going one step beyond thoughts and feelings and look at "meaning."

Beginnings: It is okay to have feelings

Welcome to my holiday journey for 2011. 

If you are reading this, you likely are either wanting to cope or wanting to help someone else cope.   Either way is fine.   Let me begin with a story.

A beginning tale . . .

After having lived off the North Carolina coast, I have come to view the Christmas holiday to be like a hurricane for many people.   North Carolina is known for its hurricanes to the degree that its NHL team took on the name. 

In 1998, Hurricane Danielle was bearing down on North Carolina.  We heard over one week in advance that one of the projected tracks was for us in Fayetteville.  Since Fayetteville had been hit badly in 1996 by Hurricane Fran, the remembering people of the traumatized city were getting everything they could need to ride out the storm and then they were mostly going to lock themselves in their homes to wait for the storm to pass.

There was a lot of hurricane-related commerce.  People were creating their hurricane survival kits which included water, ice, batteries, canned food, and fuel (portable generators were not quite in vogue yet).   The lumber yards were selling plywood for people to board up their windows. 

Talk about the hurricane was everywhere . . . on the TV . . . on the radio . . . and on the street. Every where I went strangers would make small talk about the hurricane and the latest forecast.   On the day the actual hurricane was hitting the coast, the local morning radio announcer was on the air the whole day whining about buying a certain type of portable radio that required "D" batteries and not being able to get "D" batteries at 5:30 in the morning and again at 6:00 pm at night.  He wanted to know why he could not find "D" batteries? (Someone finally told him at 6:00 pm that they were the most common flashlight battery and thus likely snatched up.)

On the day of the hurricane, people were indeed closed in their houses or the hurricane shelter.  The hurricane-force winds made the rain horizontal.  You were sure to get soaked if you just stepped outside your door for even one second when the storm passed.  I had some concerns that I would return home from a 12-hour shift at a hurricane shelter to find my apartment destroyed or damaged (fortunately it wasn't) or my wife hurt (she was fine).

For many of us, the holiday season is indeed like a hurricane . . . an emotional hurricane.  For one  . . . or many reasons we do not expect a happy holiday season.   We instead expect a miserable holiday season.  We are going go ride out the storm . . . an emotional storm versus a meterological event.

The emotional storm for many can be overwhelming.   Either an individual is depressed because they are not happy and feel they should be, and/or they are depressed because their family is a train wreck and family gatherings are like watching professional wrestling on TV.

Many people take their own lives because they are depressed at Christmas time.  My leaning (not actual knowledge) is that those who did take their own lives were clinically depressed (a medical condition treatable by medication), and became even more depressed because of the holiday.   I hope that this blog can help someone hold on . . . feelings do not kill us . . . however our negative or unhealthy choices that we make in response to our feelings could.

If you are reading this for your needs, you are likely already having distress about the holiday season.  Thanksgiving and Christmas and even the Advent Season are distressful for people.  Many expect to find fulfillment and contentment in these holidays, but there have been disappointments, and hurt and pain in the past and we are expecting the past to repeat itself in the form of a hurricane.  

A starting point of change: It is okay to have feelings

One of my life journeys is to be okay with the feelings that I have.  I grew up with family members and acquaintances who told me  . . .

"You really don't feel that way."

It took me years to tell people politely . . .

Excuse me, I do feel that way.

I honestly think that I have probably chased a few family members away with that line, but I felt better and I did nothing wrong.

For many people, it can be a radical enough change to accept that they will have sad and depressed feelings and that it is okay that they do. 

• They are not sinning by having these feelings.
• They are not committing a crime by having these feelings.

What are Feelings?

John Bradshaw calls feelings or emotions a types of energies that tell us that we have a need or our needs are met (Bradshaw on the Family). Anxiety motivates us to get moving because there is danger we don't know how to handle. Anger moves us stand our ground and protect ourselves when we feel the need to fight, confront, or argue. Happiness tells us our needs are met for the present.

Feelings are powerful

The energy that feelings provide work with our impulses.  We can snap at people against our better judgment when we are pushed and we are already angry about other things.  We can get panic attacks that resemble heart attacks when we are too anxious.  I just have to watch toddlers take things in anger for no reason to be reminded of the power of anger. 

But, we are going to feel bad at times in this life. We will have sadness and grief in this life. We are going to have disappointments in this life. Things are not going to be what we want at times in this life.    

I hope that it is perhaps a message of relief that there is nothing defective about a person just because they are having sad and depressed feelings.  

In the Bible, my namesake (King David) had many feelings including fear and sadness and the Bible reports him having cried on a number of occasions despite the guy being a battle-hardened soldier and King of the nation.  What is even more crazy is that he danced in public like a dancing fool when the ark of the covenant came back.  I look to those stories that feelings happen and I feel a bit more normal.

The Challenge

There are four days until American Thanksgiving, 36 days until December 26 and 42 days until January 2, 2012 when the storms will have passed.  We will have feelings.  They are normal.  Their power may be very strong at times, but there is hope that we will be able to cope.