Thinking Sanely About the Year Ahead and Behind

Like many others I have been pondering the year ahead and the year that is ending.   I have seen that as I get older, I see more nuances, gray areas, and more potential pitfalls.  With all of the nuances and gray areas, we can drive ourselves silly.

There were changes in the past year and there will be changes in the coming year. We had some good changes and some bad changes in the past year.   What will blind-side us and what will pleasantly surprise us?

General Changes

As I get older, I realize that the biggest change is "style."  What is popular and what is in fashion is going to change.  The more it changes, the older we are going to feel.

Some people try to act younger by wearing younger fashions and taking on the current look.  However, it seems that it is quite unbecoming when a 53-year-old white male college professor goes out and gets a pierced ear. There is something about not embracing age and dignity that speaks volumes about character or the lack thereof.

I especially feel old when my son asked me what 2 Legit To Quit meant and who Hammer was as we were watching the New Year's Rockin' Eve tonight.  Growing old does mean experiencing a different world because our culture is changing with the new fashion that is not meant for us but the younger folk and we may feel out of place. 

Successes and Disappointments

Besides experiencing the culture change, we will find ourselves having successes and disappointments.  Life is a series of successes and disappointments.  We can look back in our memories in a nanosecond and remember the would-have's, could-have's, and should-have's.  We also may not be where we expected to be in our careers, our retirement savings, or in our accumulation of wealth.

Some of the disappointments are very real.  Some of the disappointments have been due to the oppressive unfairness of others. Some of the disappointments are from the out-and-out abuse from people in power.  Some of the disappointments have been due to coincidence. Some of the disappointments are just unexplainable as to what caused them. 

Some of the disappointments are out-and-out failure.  We fail.  People fail.  Everyone fails.  Failure hurts. 

We will feel guilty, sad and/or mad with the disappointments. It is a fact of life that we will have strong feelings when significant disappointments happen. How we get through them is up to us.

The reality of coping with disappointments is that our lives cannot just be put on hold because of a disappointment. Even with big disappointments we have to move on in some fashion. Sometimes the disappointments move us in better directions.

On the other hand, we will have successes.  We will get some things that are good.  Some of them will be gifts, and some of them will be successes we earned.  We will feel good and pleased.  Sometimes the failure helps us be successful.

Not all of the successes will be spectacular.  In fact it seems that most of our successes are small and our larger successes are combinations of smaller successes.   Many times it takes work to recognize our successes when we have made a habit of dwelling on disappointments.

Being Grounded

Accepting the change and disappointment is not always easy. Sometimes we are prepared and sometimes we are slapped silly. Also, how much we cherish what we stand to lose plays into the difficult or ease of handling the change.

I cannot begin to go into the different kinds of changes. There are so many possible changes we can experience.

As I look at 2012, I have seen the change of losing my 101-year-old grandmother. As I look ahead I see the changes of my father-in-law being diagnosed with cancer, and my wife's paternal grandmother continuing to decline into that long evening of Dementia of the Alzheimer's type. I see life taking on more and more complexity with different kinds of emotions that are hard to explain and cope with.

In a more global sense, there have been deaths.  There have been a number of massacres and then some of my favorite celebrities have died in 2012.  I figure that celebrities and notables will die and there may be a few more massacres.

As I think about my coping with the changes, I have decided that it has been a matter of having a good emotional and spiritual grounding. Grounding helps us weather the storms of life and the various changes.

Working on being grounded is a personal responsibility. We ground ourselves by cultivating healthy relationships. We ground ourselves by holding on to what we hide in our hearts. We ground ourselves by pursuing what is meaningful and fulfilling to us. We also ground ourselves by creating resources and saving resources.

Lastly, being grounded means looking at what you can do versus overly-focused on what you cannot do.  For all of us, there is so much that we cannot do because we are limited human beings.  There have been, there are, and there will be tragedies happening around us that we cannot only see and will be helpless to prevent. 

Closing Thoughts

As we leave another holiday season and go into another cycle of a year's time, we do not absolutely know what is to happen.  But I am that thinking sanely is being sure that much of the past will repeat itself.  Hopefully we have learned lessons and have grounded ourselves.  It is part of our experience and maybe how many of us will realize our gained wisdom and experience. 







 

Disappointments and Worry: Reviewing the Past and Looking Ahead

At this time of year all the local television news operations do a retrospective on the ending year.  In other words they review what happened since the last time they did the same type of report.

Many of us do the same kind of accounting in our own lives.  We look back at what happened. We look at what we did.  We also may look back at what we should have done or should have done better.

On the flip side, we may look ahead at our expectations, fears, and goals. 

In these reviews the challenge is not to panic ourselves, not overly shame ourselves and not get consumed in resentment.

The Past Year.

We live in a complicated world and it seems safe to say that the past year was what it was.   What some people see as good others see as bad.  For example, some people were happy that Barack Obama was re-elected and some saw it as a bad thing.  Another example is gay marriage--some people saw it as good and some saw it as evil.   Saying what the past year was is very much an individual matter. 

Hindsight is Not Merely 20-20. 

The old adage is that "hindsight is 20-20."  It is assumed that we look back at the past and can see more than we saw while we were going through something.   I think that is a mistake.  We never look back at the past with 20-20 vision.  We look at the past with a sense of weighted judgment.  

How we look back at the past depends much on our current emotion, and what appears to be a present consequence of the past.  We may be glad we made a choice, or we may be sad or even mad that we made a certain choice. 

I have met many people who admit having been consumed over many years by . . . and beating themselves up over the way things or people have turned out.   Some of these people were sold on these failures as absolute facts. They assumed reality--that something else would have happened if they did something differently.    From this point in the present, it does not mean that the better option would have happened. 

The Year 2013

However, many of us dwell on what we fear the most and if we dwell on it incessantly we can fool ourselves into believing it is a sure thing.    The emotion that we can feel in these cases is tiring. 

Mind you, I have to give some validity to this.  The news media is leading with the Fiscal Cliff in most newscasts.  It is some exquisite political drama, but it is also stressful because we do not know how it will affect us. 

From this point in the present we do not know what 2013 will bring.  While many events are possible,  I strangely take comfort in the idea of economic forecasting, which says the past will happen in the future.    There will be good and bad.  There will be good news and disappointment in our lives.   

Closing Thoughts. 

I think that it is your and my responsibility to take hold and give things meaning as we see fit.   As I get older, I find more and more opportunities to feel disappointment or feel worry.  As we get older we have the chance to see more and more nuances in the different life events which can create disappointment or worry.    Worry has never made me a better person and so the question is whether I will take those opportunities.  Not all opportunities are worth it because they do nothing to make us better.

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Christmas Eve-Seeking and Finding Peace.

Yes it is Christmas Eve.  If you did not get it, you will have to do without it.  If they are not coming then we will not see them.  It is either a matter of feeling some sort of peace or some sort of internal turmoil.

The world has continued to be full of turmoil since Sandy Hook.  Three days ago some suicide bomber went to a political rally in Pakistan and killed eight people with himself.  Today some ex-convict started a fire outside of Rochester, New York and then shot four volunteer firemen--killing two of them.  Here in Louisville, Kentucky a 20-year-old male was shot dead.  Psychopaths and sociopaths do not have empathy and do not value human life.

The World Does Not Offer Us Inner Peace

In this life, I have been hard-pressed to find that the world as we know has ever given a sense of peace.  The phrase that comes to mind is "dog eat dog."  The world that we live is in rough. 

The roughness seems amplified during Christmas time when the Christmas music comes out suggesting peace love and good will.   There is something disingenuous and ironic about Christmas music when the other 10 1/2 months are anything but good and fair.

Many of our workplaces are not fair.  In many of our workplaces we endure cronyism and dishonesty despite whatever policy exists to enforce order and fairness.   In these same workplaces, the grievance processes prove to be a joke because if the unfairness serves the purpose of management. 

Many of our families are not fair.  We have family members who are frauds who hold the power cards.  Dealing with them is like eating a packet of the pink packet sweetener.  We would like to feel closer to them but the price is to do it on their terms where they think they are being nice but their comments are nothing but sugar-coated abuse.

These global and personal factors are not going to give us inner-peace. Thinking about these things creates the feelings of pain, anger and loneliness.  If we are alone tonight, then we run the risk of dwelling on our pain.

Being alone on a night like tonight also amplifies the pain because there is the likely message of inferiority or deficit because if we are alone then there must be something wrong with us.   No one wonder there is more suicides in the month of December and at Christmas.

Finding Peace

Many people think that finding peace is this grand state that is supposed to be once and for-and-for-all.   The reality is that peace is generally a moment by moment matter. 

Finding Peace begins with recognizing you are feeling pain and chaos.  The next step is stopping thinking about the pain.  Stopping may have to be done one moment at a time.  I think that peace is best found when you are doing things according to your religious or moral code.

You may have to do a number of activities or "things" to stop thinking about the chaos and pain.   There are options to finding to peace even just for the moment.   We all have moments of pain and we have moments of peace. 

I had my annual viewing of  Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol  and in the prospective "ghost of Christmas future" portion, I saw a great example.  Bob Cratchitt and his family were grieving the death of Tiny Tim.  Bob was able to look at his surviving children, think for a minute and say "I am a happy man."  I counted my blessings along with Bob and I felt a moment of peace.

Peace Doesn't Have to Be Perfect

Since peace tends to last from one moment to another, it does not have to be perfect.  It just has to get us through.  Many people in AA have to pray the serenity prayer many times a day. 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Many of us not in AA could benefit from such a practice too.  This is a great way of stopping negative thoughts and getting your mind away from the negative.

Final Comments

Tonight, we celebrate the "Prince of Peace."  It has proven to be hard if not impossible for many to think about peace given personal and global situations.  It is a challenge for each one of us to feel or not feel it; it is a choice.

If you happen to be reading this and are feeling hopeless, I suggest you wake someone up or call your nearest helpline.  In most communities, it is 211.  Sometimes a person can be depressed beyond trying to practice thought-stopping and praying the serenity prayer.

I wish you peace tonight and peace tomorrow.



 

Reflecting or Nursing Grudges?

Dwelling on the negative can be what makes Christmas a terrible time.   It can masquerade as "reflection" at Christmas, but it may also be nursing a grudge and self-torture.

We are encouraged to be reflecting this time of year.  Sometimes the reflecting can be on the meaningful and fulfilling, but sadly it can be on the negative and painful.

The Negative Mental Filter

Many people have a "negative mental filter." When you have a negative mental filter brewing between your ears you are not just reflecting on a problem . . . you are dwelling on it.  Many anxious and worrying types are always dwelling on some problem.   Many angry people dwell on past hurts.

When someone has a negative filter, their persepctive gets skewed.  The negative issue, topic, or object makes everything else seem small.  The negative mental filter makes us disqualify the good things. 

The classic example of a negative mental filter is the vain 14 year-old who finds a zit or pimple on his or her nose in the morning.  They dwell and focus on the zit until it feels like the size of a basketball that will break their neck because it begins to feel so big.  They get false validation when an antagonistic peer makes fun of the zit and the 14-year-old will find other negative mental filters to dwell on.

Bringing it to Now

Now that it is getting less than 48 hours before Christmas, there is an opportunity to develop a negative mental filter. Some of us are thinking about the family members we are going to see. Reflecting about them will likely remind us of the past. If we dwell further we start to keep score about what they did and what they did not do. We will think about our previous opinions and hurts.

Many of us will see relatives or in-laws who have been hurtful or abusive in times past.  Maybe they have sleighted us and they have no clue that they have been hurtful.  Maybe they are addicted and have hurt us in their addiction by stealing from us or forgetting important matters.  Then there is the dreaded narcissist or borderline who do not care that they have been hurtful because they think they are the victim and are entitled to special treatment.  

In a bizzare sense those who worried about the end of the Mayan Calendar and the feared apocalypse of 12-21-12 may have been able to take a break from thinking about the family crazies.  However, now that the apocalypse proved to be another false alarm it is back to business as usual and that can mean dwelling on those evil family members and nursing drudges.

There is a valid struggle here. The hurts are real. Some of these family members were and still are acting lame. We think about them and we feel anger and sadness.  With family it is never just one time where there was a problem . . . it is a long string of problems that can include:

• Not getting invited to a wedding
• Someone obviously getting favoritism
• Getting divorced from our mother or father and marryng someone else and getting sucked into that family
• Favoring one set of grandchildren over another
• Unfair criticism
• Adult tantrums that disrupt weddings
• Failing to come to special occasions such as graduations or baptisms
• Humiliation at family events

We can ditch the non-family members who act lame but we cannot ditch the family members.  We are often still encouraged if not pressured to come to family events where we will be faced with these people.

The more we think about them and their behaviors and the pain we felt from their behavior, the more likely we will feel anger. The more we think about that anger we run the risk of nursing a grudge. 

The Grudge

The grudge is not just any kind of anger.  It is a type of anger where we feel self-righteous and where we feel like victims.  It is an anger that tends to motivate us to find justice in some manner. 

The grudge occupies our mind and takes prominence in our mind as a most important matter.  It makes us irritable and more easily annoyed by miniscule irritants around us.

When we are nursing a grudge, it keeps at a simmer in terms of the physical signs of anger.  We stay tense and we risk developing chronic headaches and stomach problems.  We may develop insomnia because the adrenalin produced keeps us awake like caffiene.

The Irony

The irony is that most of us who have nursed grudges feel like we cannot take our perpetrator head-on and say "I am angry" or "I am still angry with you."  We just see too big of a cost.   Instead what we do is continue to stuff it and take it out on other family members or we act in passive-aggressive ways.  Chances are in our anger expressions we become like the family member who we despise.    

It is not necessarily stupid to weigh whether or not you are going to hold your anger or make your statement of anger.  The families that we live in can be complicated.   Sometimes it sill seems to be the wiser option to hold your tongue and your anger because telling a fool you are angry with them only gets you more trouble. 

Possible Options

The best option is to get your mind off of the grudge.  That may be difficult this close to seeing them this Christmas.  However, the more thought you give something, the more important you make it.

I have written on similar issues in earlier posts and I would encourage you to look back at those if you are looking for ideas.  

Maybe reading can get your mind off of your grudge.







 

Perfect Versus Okay

As a school kid and a college student I was excited for the holidays.  I was looking forward to getting out of school for the holidays.  The race was essentially over and it was vacation.

As a working adult, the game is different.  There are demands on me to continue working and make appearances at different holiday gatherings.   With four or five days until Christmas (depending how you count it) I found myself feeling tired and glad that the Christmas Season is almost over. 

I still have Christmas shopping to do.  I am not exactly feeling the pressure yet given that I will have  the weekend before Monday at dusk when all the malls and stores will close.  I found myself feeling a certain grind.

In a post from last year I equated the holidays to be like a hurricane.  Many of us are all in a hurry to get everything we need and go home and lock ourselves in our homes until December 25 passes.  In that case there isn't a sense of grind . . . there is a sense of pressure.

What We Need Versus What we Think we Need

I have decided that the feeling of of hurricane preparedness comes with the expectation of how your Christmas should be.  We want to have everything that we need . . . or think that we should need. 

While we as human beings all have the same physical needs, we have many individual differences that distinguish what you need versus what I need. For example, an introvert needs privacy while an extrovert needs to be around people.  A baby needs to be cuddled with while a teenager needs increased boundaries.  A child needs to play while an adult needs to work. 

I am leaning to the idea that the more we are focused on making something perfect, the more we pile into the "need" category. "Need" is really a subjective concept.   Perfectionism tends to breed anxiety and anxiety tends to create a sense of more need.

Getting to Okay

"Okay" or "Ok" is not perfect, but it is "all right."  With being okay, things are satisfactory.  We have what we need.  We may not be in a sense of perfect peace but we are not in despair.

How do we determine if we are okay?    I think that a good place to start is asking the question:

Will it be a total disaster if something is missing?

I think that we usually are missing one or two things at the holidays.  We tend to be able to make due with the one or two missing things and we can look at the good and not dwell on the missing items.

If we are stuck in a fit of perfectionism we can make the missing seem like things are a disaster.
However being okay generally does mean that we are in a good emotional place and not a bad emotional place if something is missing.

Closing Thoughts

Being "ok" has a wide range of meaning.  It is neither perfect nor a disaster.  It is an individual matter.   You and I have a choice. 

I hope that things will be at least "okay" for you.

By the way, feel free to go back to the older posts to find something that may fit your needs today.  I am a therapist who likes to write and I hope I have something to offer you.  If you want me to write on a subject (or at least try), feel free to make a comment that includes your request.





 

The Mayan Calendar and Considering the End

It has been a most interesting if not leery Christmas Season in the United States.  Before the Fiscal Cliff and the Sandy Hook School shooting, people had concern about the Mayan Calendar ending and have been interpreting it to mean that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.

It just goes to show that humans are interested in spiritual matters.  Over the course of human history, when there is something that challenges one's existence, people will mull over the spiritual--especially when it has to do with the end. 

With specific concern over the Mayan "Long Count" Calendar cycle ending, officials in Argentina have cut off access to Uritorco Mountain through December 22 to prevent people from committing suicide because they would be interpreting the end of this cycle to be the "apocalypse." Uritorco Mountain was apparently a sacred spot for the indigenous (Mayan) people.  Although this will be dated quickly the following site was full of good information (http://www.news.com.au/features/mayan-apocalypse-2012/argentina-shuts-uritorco-mountain-for-fear-of-maya-linked-suicides/story-fngjq0bi-1226540067814)

I am sure that people all over the world are asking: What if they are right?   It is only human.  The good news is that I have not met anyone who is freaking out over this.

However, the end of the world is for the most part a spiritual matter.  It makes us ask significant questions about who we are in this world and what we believe.

Dancing with Hopelessness and Meaninglessness.

When people consider the end of the world, it can feel stressful.  Thoughts are not sterile--they bring feelings.   People can feel panicked or despaired.  The end means that what you have is gone.  The end means you and all you value are gone.  The ones you love are gone.  By about this time, someone will likely begin to dance with hopelessness and meaninglessness.

We go back to the power of thoughts.  They are merely our mind in action but they can motivate us to act in strong and maybe permanent ways.  Some people contemplate suicide as part of the hopelessness and meaningless when the mind goes there.

Hopefully we find ways not to dance in that spot for too long. Most of us seem are able to move our mind out of that zone.

Perspective: Not the First and Not the Last

However, we in western society (maybe more North American society) seem to visit this fairly often.  From time to time we learn about "doomsday cults" who get publicized either before or after they act. 

Some of us older people will remember the Jonestown mass suicide in 1978 where Jim Jones convinced over 900 of his followers who went down with him to his utopia in Guyana to commit suicide because of expected doom, and the term "drink the kool-aid" took on a new meaning.

More recently, the "Heaven's Gate" cult committed suicide together in 1997.  They were worried that the earth was going to be wiped clean and they apparently believed that they were going to be transferred to some extraterrestrial body.

Christianity has had its share of dwelling on the end. There are a number of "televangelists" on TV who spend all of their air time talking about the end.  The Left Behind series sold millions of books and spawned a number of movies.    Harold Camping, founder of Family Radio was the last major figure to make a public prediction when the rapture was supposed to come and the world was to end (and he was the brunt of jokes for it too).

There have been many making predictions and there will others making predictions as to the end. While I think Harold Camping made his erroneous predictions out of conviction, I think that some people saw an opportunity to sell some books.  There will some other milestone in the future that some will see an economic opportunity to make a buck.

Seeking Meaning and Peace

In a generic spiritual sense, we hopefully look at the end as a way of measuring what is meaningful to us.   Pondering the end of your life is a very good barometer of what you value and see as important in the here and now.

I have heard this over and over again, if you were going to die, I am inclined that you would not ask for someone to bring you your gold and valuables to take with you.  You instead would ask for your loved ones to come to see you.    Why not make plans to see the people you love at Christmas?

We feel peace when we do what matters to us.  We feel a sense of fulfillment when we are engaging in what we value and when we hold to our values.

If you are feeling anxiety about the Mayan Calendar, I cannot get you over the hump, but I would encourage you not to dwell on it.  My favorite Wayne Dyer quotation that comes to mind is:

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.  (Your Erroneous Zones)
Getting Biblical

If you will allow me to get Biblical here, as a Christian, I hold that it is fruitless to try and predict the end of the world or when Jesus Christ is coming back to earth.   Jesus told his disciples before his crucifixion that

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32) (NIV)

Jesus told his disciples to continue living godly lives in preparation.  What matters was how they  lived. 

We at Christmas are remembering how this Jesus came to earth as a Baby.  Sometimes we forget that the baby grew up and did incredible things for the world . . including us.

Concluding thoughts

Yeah, the Mayan calendar had me review what I believe about the end. 

Here is what I have concluded:  My life is in God's hands.  If God doesn't come back I expect to be alive and I expect to finally get to that Christmas shopping I have been putting off. I also figure that I will come up with something else to write each of the next three days.

I wish you peace and fulfillment in what matters to you now.

LIVING COURAGEOUSLY WITH CONVICTION AT THE HOLIDAYS

Over the past couple of days listening and watching some of the deluge of news stories, I have noticed that 1) many pundits and critics in the media are no longer shocked but now angry over Newtown Connecticut.; and 2) many people are scared and wondering how much more stringent safety measures should be?  It sounds like a form of grief to me of a very strong kind.

Collective Grief and the Energy it gives us

I think that we do experience grief collectively as a society and as individuals.  It seems to me that the media has this ability to connect us emotionally in a very strong way.   Other than the media we seem to experience it collectively as we disclose our feelings in the small talk we make in churches, barbershops, in grocery check-out lines.  We also seem to be grieving collectively in our facebook posts and comments.  We experience it individually as we feel our feelings looking at news aggregating websites.  We feel the energy that emotions stir making us feel like we should just do something.

Anger

Anger is a large energy generator.  At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems that much of the “empathetic” society including the fourth estate of media has moved into the anger stage of grief over Newtown.   They are looking for causes and some are making wide sweeping conclusions that there needs to be more gun control.   Some of the news analysis and opinion is focusing on the mentally ill in his country as the problem.

The energy that anger stirs is also manifested in the extra-large letter to the editor section of my local daily newspaper.  It is stirred in the late night comedy show I usually watch where the comedian came out and made a statement that recognized the tragedy.  It is present in the emotions of people who are critical of gun control laws and how something should be done to keep mentally ill people from having them.  The anger motivates us to stand and protect ourselves.

Fear

However, fear is also an energy that makes us protect ourselves.  Fear tells us

“run stupid there is danger!"

This appears to be showing up also in statements about making schools safer.  As I have heard the fear at my place of work, I have heard people go into laborious detail about what all the possible risks are in a place.

It is hard to say whether the fear we are feeling is tangled with the anger or whether the fear is a logical reaction unto itself, but there is talk about giving teachers guns to protect themselves and the students. There is talk about how things can be made more secure in schools.   This fear still may be part of the societal shock.  

Fear and Anger are Powerful Emotions

It is in times like these where we may realize again that anger and fear are very strong and powerful emotions or energies in motion.  I have to use the word “may realize” because both rage and panic short-circuit common sense.   The energy of the emotions often bypass the rational thinking part of the brain where you and I think through the facts and look at things in a problem-solving fashion and makes us impulsive. 

I am mindful of mob behavior.  Mobs of people can run for their lives together and then they can get angry and become a lynch mob or start a riot.  The one commonality is emotion—they all share it despite what they are actually thinking and act impulsive in unison.

On the flip side, people can be paralyzed by their feelings.  To see someone having a panic attack is like watching someone stuck in their seat on a roller coaster or like a victim in a horror film in terror just before the villain is about to attack.    When someone (whether adult or child) is having an angry tantrum, you cannot get them to do anything else until they have gotten over the emotion.   Emotions can be like G-forces that push someone back against a wall to the point where they cannot move.

One of my favorite shows is Survivorman with Les Stroud.  Again and again throughout his shows, Stroud will talk about staying calm if you are stuck in a survival situation.  Staying calm can mean the difference between life and death.

If you are reading this, you are not likely in the Arboreal Forest of Northern Canada or in the Amazon Jungle or in the swamps of Southern Georgia, but you are probably in an emotional wilderness where the pressures of the holidays are combined with the added emotional stress of the Newtown CT school shooting.   The feelings are powerful and perhaps are making you feel like you are beside yourself and frozen in anger and fear and feel like you are just surviving.  I think when we are stuck in such situations we need courage and calmness because we just cannot stop life as we know it just because of the Connecticut school shooting

Courage

Without looking at a dictionary, courage is essentially going along with the conviction of what the right action is despite the fear and emotion.  It seems to me that courage is romanticized through the movies and TV as big gestures of one hero fighting an army or the hero making a daredevil move for whatever reason.  (My favorites models of courage were John Gage and Roy DeSoto from the TV series Emergency who climbed up in high and dangerous places to rescue people.  John admitted he was scared in a few of the scenes.)  

In our real world, courage is not that exciting or suspenseful.  Courage can be:

• telling someone no. 
• walking away when they want to fight you . . . and maybe you might be called chicken by the bully,
• saying enough is enough to one relative badgering another relative at the family holiday celebration,
• buying yourself a present because you would like it despite having low-self-esteem telling you otherwise,
• doing the right thing at your job when others are not,
• going out to the malls and sending your kids to school despite the fear of what happened in Newtown CT
• going to that holiday family celebration and trying to patch things up with that estranged relative
• finding joy at the holiday season in some fashion or form

Courage is based on your context or situation, and it may be going against some crowd or “grain.”  Typically, you do not have courage without some type of conviction where you believe that some value or principle is worth the cost.   Usually the cost is someone calling you a fool—the vast majority of our risks in the world are not ones of life and death.

 One does not always act tough when showing courage.  When you are showing courage it can feel like the wind is blowing in your face at hurricane-force speeds.  Courage does not feel good until after you look back at it from the future.

I hold that there are people of courage everywhere that go on living and doing what is needed because it is the right thing to be doing.  I'm trying to be one of them.

I hope that if you are feeling paralyzed by your feelings that you can find courage to start moving again.  and do something in the spirit of the holidays.       

Pondering the Reality of Evil at the Holidays

While in my last post I called what happened in Newtown Connecticut an unthinkable tragedy, I have been pondering it the last two days as "evil."  A public official in Connecticut called it evil.  My pastor called it evil in his sermon today.   Yes, 27 people including 21 first graders being killed in an elementary school by a shooter who then killed himself is evil.  How in the world do we comprehend such evil happening at a time where people are supposed to be nice to each other? (You know peace on earth and good will toward men.)

For all practical purposes we are entering a theological and philosophical discussion here versus one of self-help psychology.  Part of emotional journeys often mean considering philosophy and theology.  In a sense everyone has both a theology and a philosophy.

Definitions

There are different theologies and different philosophies so, let me be precise here in the definitions of what I am aiming to discuss.  For the purpose of this discussion:

• a theology has to do with how you see things regarding God (or God as you understand him, her, it) or as God pertains to a subject and    
• a philosophy is the system by which you order your thoughts and view the world.  

I am quite sure that there will be people who have a quibble with the definitions, and if you do, you can comment (it is about time someone commented).  For some of you this will sound like philosophy and for some of you it will sound like theology--it is your choice.

How Can a Loving God Allow Such Evil to Happen?

When it comes to theology/philosophy, people tend to ask how a loving God could allow such evil to happen?  It is a fair question and one to which there has been so much written that justice could not be done.  It serves to say that there is a continuum of views that go all the way

• from Atheism (God does not exist)
• to hyper Calvinism (God sovereignly made it happen for a purpose). 

In between the two extremes are a variety of views that go (I am not listing all of them)

• from a distant God who is not involved (Deism view)
• to a God who is in process and not all powerful (Process Theology view)
• to a God who allows free choice (Free will defense view)
• to a God who has created the best of all possible worlds (Theodicy view) 

The Free will defense and theodicy views are not exactly in conflict with each other.   It all just depends on who is talking to whom when the discussion is happening. 

As a Christian, I prefer to think that a loving and all-powerful God has given us choice.  He (I do prefer the male pronoun) will allow choice and stay out of the way unless he sovereignly decides to get involved according to His will.  He will allow people to choose and he will allow people to choose evil.  Sometimes that evil is horrific.

Mind you, it is not exactly easy just to make academic, theological/philosophical statements about evil to someone is hurting.  Theological discussions like this about the presence of evil in the world are just not something you are going to have when you are talking to a bereaved person.  We only have academic philosophical and theological discussions when we are in a good spot.

When talking with the bereaved who lost someone to a violent crime, the common sense option is to have little to no such discussion about such matters.  People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care!

Our Theologies and Philosophies are Challenged by Life's Collisions

Regardless, some of us have faith and have been regularly interested in spiritual matters and can fit life's pain into where it in our theologies and philosophies.  When I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor over 16 years ago and faced the reality that I could die, I was able to choose how to think in detail given that I had a seminary education (to me the fallen nature of human bodies means some people are going to get brain tumors--me included). 

However, not all of us have the interest and time to put into theological education beyond our attendance at church.    We are usually intensely involved with the day to day affairs of life and we only stop and think about God when we have a collision course with death and tragedy.   The times of tragedy force us to usually call us to times of reflection about what we believe and how things fit together.

Evil has happened in this world, is happening in this world, and will continue to happen in this world. Most of us deal with evil and horrible bosses, neighbors, co-workers, school-mates, professors, and family members every day and it will not make the news.   Many of us think about evil people who have abused us in the past and it will never make the news.  Many of us will have to endure evil family members at family celebrations in nine days and our suffering will be discounted and brushed away by codependent family members who say "It's just them."    However, only when the evil is catastrophic does it seem to shake us up to think about it.

So Where is God? Jesus?  The Babe in the Manger?

In a somewhat abrupt closing to this post, I think the Sandy Hook School shooting two days ago in Connecticut may challenge what significance Christmas will have for you and me.  Did your expectations and views get shaken and changed because of Friday?   I think that it is okay if they were.  You are entitled to question as it is a human trait to question. 

To me God is bigger than Christmas and I pray that God will be a very real and present comfort to the people of Newtown Connecticut.

Unthinkable Tragedy Happens Whenever and We Just Cannot Stop It.

Today in the state of Connecticut the most unthinkable happened.   Twenty innocent and precious children sent off to Sandy Hook Elementary School by their parents or guardians are never coming home. 

The unconscionable act of a young man took the lives of his mother and the students before taking his own.  Several other adults were killed in the massacre. Including the shooter, 27 people are dead.

The cold reality is that this happened.  There is no good time for tragedy.  It is especially painful when it is supposed to be the most wonderful of the year.  It is especially awkward when this coming Sunday is the Third Sunday of Advent--that of Joy. 

Reactions

There are no words that are going to fully convey the full impact of this mass-murder suicide.  People all over are in shock, reportedly even President Obama even was nearly moved to tears.  Many people and corporations have made comments on their Facebook Pages.   The few people who I talked with about this are all in shock.   It appears that people all over have been glued to their televisions or the news websites, and all of the major U.S. networks are doing hour specials tonight on the tragedy.

As for me, when I first learned about the tragedy when the nurse on my unit was watching the web-based coverage, I immediately felt tense.  I immediately remembered when my kids were five years old.  My mind immediately imagined them being dead.  I am pretty sure many other parents were feeling the same way.  It is called preparatory grief. 

When I came home tonight, I hugged my kids.  In a sense I hugged my kids for the people in Connecticut.   I felt thanksgiving for my children. 

Oh Yeah.  This Sunday is Supposed to be The Advent Sunday of Joy

I bet that the clergy in Connecticut and adjacent states who have already prepared Advent sermons on the theme of joy are in the process of changing them and preparing funeral sermons. They are going to have to harmonize the day of joy with the tragedy.   My prayers are for them too because they are going to be some of the rocks that the parishioners will be leaning on in the days and weeks ahead.

How Do We Even Begin to Cope? 

Right now, I think that we will begin to cope by recognizing that we are grieving.  Coping will also mean taking care of ourselves by doing what we know to do: limit media consumption, spend time with our kids in some form, pray if  you are a praying person. 

We are grieving

The way I see it that for those of us who have been touched by this, we will have some form of grief and we are going to have to cope as we would with any other grief.  We are going to have feelings and the beginning of coping is recognizing what is happening to us.

Right now it is a very good bet that we feel shock.  We are feeling the pain while our imaginations are exploring possibilities of the horror and empathizing with the devastated parents and caretakers, and the children who were nearly missed by the shooter.   We may even imagine what kind of dreams have been shattered and how lives have been indelibly changed.

It would not surprise me if people are more guarded at the shopping malls and department stores.  We will be looking over our shoulders to see if there is going to be some copycat psychopath who was perversely inspired to act out some twisted fantasy.  I will probably be a little more alert than usual like I was back in 2001-2002 after 9-11.

We will then feel anger.  We may be angry at the shooter.  We may be angry at the shooter's parents. We may be angry at the school officials for not having security.  Some people may even be angry at the parents for sending their kids to school today--they should have kept their kids home. 

Some may be even bargaining out of the futile hope that it is all a dream.  Some may have a hope that their little kids are still alive and law enforcement made a mistake.

The depression will set in when we realize that it is not going to change and it really happened. We will feel stuck.   However, for the majority of us in other parts of the country, we will likely get through this fairly quickly because we are not that close to it.  We will get through it and we will be getting back to our lives because the events of our private lives and our needs will call us to move on and take care of what we have to do.

Acceptance means that we find a way to begin to heal and move on.  We will pick up and move on as a country. 

It is okay to be where you are now

As I have written this, I still feel some shock that the tragedy has happened.  I can be as academic-sounding as anyone but it does not make me any any less human. 

It is okay if you and I are still at the shock state or if you are at the anger state.  You and I are human beings and that will not change.

The hope I offer is that you and I as human beings are surprisingly resilient.  We can and do recover from a lot of trauma and bad news in our lives.  If you think about it, we are exposed to all kinds of bad things in this world and we keep going and eventually find something to be hopeful about.

Consider Limiting Your Media Consumption

At this time, it is unclear how much media coverage there will be over the next week.  I am sure that the cable all-news channels will be covering the tragedy aftermath non-stop.  It is a fair bet that they will repeat the same facts over and over again.  There will not be any new information of significance.

Exposing and re-exposing yourself to the information will re-traumatize you and keep you in the pain.  It can distract you from moving on and taking care of your personal needs and your family needs while simultaneously keep you tense and in a bad emotional place.   We do not necessarily become hardened and used to bad things as humans. 

We learned from 9-11 that we cannot watch the news non-stop.  As humans we have our limits and we cannot just sit and listen to bad news non-stop without breaking down.

Practice Thanksgiving

Tragedies like this help us to refocus on what matters.  For me I think that instead of watching TV news coverage tonight and tomorrow, spending time with your kids (if you have them) is a far more quality activity than trying to be informed.  Make Pancakes or go for walks or play board games or give them a phone call . . . do something that affirms life and the relationships that you have.


Pray if You Are a Praying Person

I believe that when you feel powerless, praying is something that you can do.  Mind you I am a religious person and I believe in an all-powerful God who loves us.  While I am not even going to begin to get into an defense of how a loving God can allow something so horrific to happen, I believe that God is close to those who are suffering (Psalm 34:12) and He knows what it is like to feel pain and suffering (Isaiah 53:3).  Praying for the suffering parents to feel the arms of God is something you and I can do that is meaningful, and real. Prayer has a way of helping us center ourselves too.

Closing Thoughts

These have been some very imperfect thoughts for those people who are looking for ideas on coping with today's tragedy.  I hope that these have been helpful in giving you ideas to you in your search for peace.  I have a feeling I will be writing more on this subject in the days and weeks ahead.  If you have subjects you would like me to write on, feel free to put your questions for requests in the comment section.



 

Dwelling on the Past: Good and Bad.

Tonight I went to my daughter's middle school for a "winter" concert.   It is a very plain school with white hallways and very bright fluorescent lights. I smelled the cleaning solutions that the custodians/janitors used only a few hours before.   

It took me back to to my days in school.  The junior high that I went to had similar features and it seems that over the years, a school still smells like a school.  It took me to times in my youth where I performed in choral and band concerts.  It took me back to all of those days I smelled the cleaning solutions and felt nauseous.

Christmas time as most any other time is a time for reflection on memories.  We tend to be reminded or triggered regarding the past a lot during the holidays.    

Memories Considered

Our memories essentially come back when someone brings something up or we get triggered.  The most useful concept in understanding triggers is what another author called "The Trauma Wall."  Our our traumas get permanently engraved  in our mind and when we encounter the trigger or something like it, we have flashbacks.

I actually think that we have a wall where all of our memories are engraved in the granite of our minds and there are good triggers and bad triggers.  If the memory is good then it is good.  If the memory is bad then it could be just an unpleasant memory or a flashback.

The good triggers lead us to remember pleasant memories.  We remember the easier times in our past with nostalgia. Nostalgia usually happens when we are thinking about times when we did not have the problems we have now.

However the flashbacks are very shocking to our systems.  We experienced terrible things and they remain terrible things to us.  When they come back into our conscious and we think about them, we feel all the stressful and desperate emotions and are energized by the adrenaline the emotions signal the adrenal glads to produce.

A flashback can be so horrific that it disorients us from reality.  The more trauma we have experienced, the more flashbacks we have.   I have found some people who lose touch with the fact they are having flashbacks either dissociateor have mood swings that they cannot account for. 

When people dwell on the past, they often waste the present.  In the here and now we only have so much energy and time.  How we occupy our mind can mean the difference between distraction or focus and satisfaction.   Dwelling on the past has rarely made anyone a better person.

Memories Only Matter as Much as We Want Them to Matter

I think that it is human to dwell on the past. We all have these past experiences that captivate us in that we cannot get them out of our minds.  Usually it is the pain.  Our minds want to rewrite the past. We may get mad at ourselves

I have decided that many people with low self-esteem dwell on the bad things in the past because they believe they are too stupid to make a better decision now or in the future.  They just do not have faith in their capabilities to change.

With a few exceptions, the majority of people in our lives could care less about our screw-ups and mistakes in the past.  Many of us hold our painful past behind a wall of shame and continue to say "If you only knew." 

The few exceptions usually include family members.  We cannot shake the family members.  Some of our family members seem to have this impulsive urge to bring up the past at the most awkward and bizarre times and they will ruin holiday celebrations.   This is one of the reasons why the relationship problems people have are predominantly with families.

However, for many of us the non-relative people of the past have moved on and the current people in our lives have no clue or interest in  our past accidents and embarrassments. They do not read our minds and they are not looking to learn all about our past problems.  They only care about who we are and how we treat them in the present.  What this means is that we are making a choice to dwell and hold onto the memories.

We make a choice as to how our past affects us today.   We decide how much we will dwell and how we will dwell.  To stop dwelling on the past is to make a change within us and only within us.

Some people say that they just cannot help it.   They will continue to dwell on the past.  They only will stop when they find the motivation for change.   The motivation often is a spiritual-like realization that dwelling on the negative past is neither making you feel good, nor is it making you a better person. 

Concluding Thoughts

People who tend to isolate and stay to themselves are more likely to dwell on the past.  Getting active and being around people is often a better bet to reduce dwelling on the past.  When you are doing things with people, you tend to be more present-focused.

To stop dwelling on the past can be very liberating.   It is not always easy, but it is fruitful.  People who do not dwell on the past tend to sleep better and enjoy the present. 

This Christmas, I hope that if this is your deal, that you can be focused in the here and now and how you can make this holiday a good one. 

 

The Bizarre in our Families at Christmas

Right now in my life, I am dealing with some bizarreness.  I cannot go into details about it here, but it is reminding me of past bizarre times at Christmas, and it does make me think about how surreal and weird, our own families can be.  Coping with the bizarre can make or break a Christmas.

In my field, when people think of bizarre, they think of a psychotic person either displaying disorganized thinking or verbalizing their delusions.   Maybe someone is angry for something that you cannot put your finger on.  However,  without the clinical psychosis and neurosis, there is enough bizarreness in our families to make us feel uncomfortable and disappointed that Christmas wasn't perfect.

The Frog in the Kettle

As members of our family, we typically either become numb or used to our families.  We are like that frog in the kettle.

Frogs can tell the distinct difference between hot and cold temperatures, and so if you throw a frog into hot water, the frog will jump out immediately to escape.  But if the temperature is gradually raised from cool to boiling, the frog will be boiled to death because it does not have the ability to distinguish gradual temperature change.

In this case our families get a different look from us because they are our families.  We wonder why something is strange and we cannot put our finger on it and we blame ourselves for making our family members mad.

A Personal Experience

We typically see the weirdness or strangeness in other families or new family members.  I remember going to Christmas Dinner 17 years ago at the father of my wife's great uncle. 

The great uncle was remarried after being widowed.  His wife's family sat there playing their hand-held video games and totally ignored us as we sat there waiting for dinner.   They just stayed to themselves and made no attempt to introduce themselves or be social.   I made one attempt to introduce myself and it was like talking to a wall as they said NOTHING.

I and my wife's side of the "family" ate in one room and the other side of the family ate in the other room.  While there was a "honey baked ham" and some other fine food, it was kind of like eating gravel because there was no sense of love and belonging.  I do not remember us staying long because there was just nothing in common to talk about.

I made a comment to my wife about it later.  My memory is that my wife just said "well, that's just her family."  In all honesty, it was weird, and I have no grief over having not seeing them again.  

Circling Back to Your Own Family

If you have not seen your own family for a number of years and you are getting back together with them, there is a tendency for feeling awkward and bizarre.  If you are the frog, then you are jumping into a boiling hot kettle and you can discern the difference immediately. 

Depending on how much bad blood and unresolved conflict there is in the family history, there will be guardedness and cautiousness.   They just don't know you anymore.

Combine this estrangement with realizing you have self-absorbed people in your family, and you will see that a lot of their behavior will be all about them and their insecurities.  They may make accusations that seem to come out of left field. They might accuse you of thinking thoughts that you haven't thought, and then judge you for those alledged thoughts.  They will then throw a childish tantrum and then storm out of the room . . . whether or not they have had too much Gin or Whiskey. 

Some of the family member tantrums may be rooted in some event or problem that happened decades before, such as how someone behaved at a wedding or funeral.  It can be stupifying why they are dragging something up from that long ago.

Coping with it all

Coping with the weirdness of your family or maybe your new in-laws is not exactly a simple task.  It is a vague task.  It means you have managed your feelings and perhaps have a good sense of humor about the experience.

Our families can be weird

If you are returning to see your family after a long time, it will probably serve well to accept that in the least Christmas will not be perfect.  Our family members will be who they are with their quirks and stupidity. 

There are family members who get drunk and do stupid things.  Alcohol has this way of peeling away judgment as simply as peeling away a banana skin.  

Furthermore, there is a good chance your weird family members will not care what you think after being away for so long.  You are like the prophet returning to the hometown and you will not have the credibility you think you should have (trust me on this one).

Hopefully most of your family members will be well-mannered and civilized but there may be a few who live for the drama and love for things to be stirred up and shaken up.  This is surprisingly normal behavior for families.

You don't have to be right

I have finally understood the significance of Leo Buscaglia 's use of the term "You may be right."  Too many of our family members (including us) have the need to prove ourselves and will not admit that they are wrong.   They will argue their point to the death and will drag up the shameful past to punish you for challenging them and their point of view.   The more insecure the person . . . the more vicious they are, and the more disruptive they are.

There are some people in this world who would rather be right than be with family.  They have strong control needs and will actually run from family because they cannot control.  They will do some weird things in their need for control because it is all about them. 

If you have one of them in your family . . . or several of them in your family, a good deflecting move is to frequently and politely say, "You may be right."  Many times they only hear "you" and "right."   In reality you are not conceding anything because you only said they maybe right.   There is no guarantee that this will work, but it can buy some time.

Have a sense of humor

It seems to me that some of the situational comedies also called sitcoms have some of the most dysfunctional families.  The characters get into each other's business and they do some of the stupidest things.  The difference between us and them is they are in front of a studio audience or have a laugh-trac imposed over them.  Some of our families are like American Dad, Family Guy, Al and Peg Bundy, or The Nanny, or even more like Bob Hartley Ph.D's patients on The Bob Newhart Show.  Laughter can soothe some of the tragic pain.

Keep it clear that you are only responsibility for your feelings and your behavior.

This last skill is a philosophy or belief: Everyone is responsible for their own feelings.   It is a total cop out to say to someone "You make me mad."  The person who blames others for their feelings is shirking all responsibility. Chances are, they will be too "pig-headed" to hear from you that you are not responsible for their feelings. 

Beware, if you are holding to this belief, you will have to be responsible for how you react when the relative brings up something from June, 1987 that is totally ridiculous and insane.  I recommend in these cases having a rule of waiting three (3) to five (5) seconds before responding each time you talk.   Anger has this way of making us impulsive and we need to be thinking before we speak.

Closing Comments.

Well, I hope that your Christmas will not be bizarre, but if it is,it will not last forever.  If you want to read more about this, I have written on family dysfunction in earlier blog posts.  If you have the time and want to read even more, I suggest reading Kaplan's  When Holidays are Hell.  You can likely purchase a copy online at Amazon.Com or other online booksellers, or check your own public library for a copy.
 

Feeling Intimidated at Christmas and Fighting Pretentiousness

Christmas as we know it is a feast.  It is made out to be an extravaganza.  It is after all, as the late Andy Williams iconically sang "the most wonderful time of the year."  I have decided that for some it may be intimidating . . . I'm kind of feeling it.

Tonight is a Christmas banquet at our church.   I have previously avoided going to this dinner for various reasons.  Since I happen to be on the Deacon Council I was recruited to buy a table and invite some new church members to be my guests.

However, one of the other deacons who appeared to have sympathy for me told my wife that she would decorate it (we have women deacons at my church--no apologies).  Yesterday, we were not sure if she followed through.  Well, she followed through and she made the table look as extravagant as a charity gala that guests pay $1000 per table to attend.

While my wife and I are thankful, I speak for both of us to say that we are intimidated, which brings us to the subject of this blog.  Christmas and the holidays appear to have become vehicles for showing off your status and wealth, or maybe your pretentiousness.

The Meaning of the Word

Pretentiousness--being or trying to look like something you are not--is a a human temptation.   In our search for self-esteem, we may act like something we are not under the guise of "fake it until you make it."

It seems to me that many of us are frustrated that we do not have what we believe we should have.  Many of our bosses and professors were abusive and stupid and held us back from graduation dates and promotions we felt we were entitled to.  We suffer from having to work for cronies and younger proteges who actually know less than us.   We have been abused and we hurt and one our responses is pretentiousness to soothe our bruised egos. 

However, pretentiousness in the end will likely lead to disaster or a breakdown.    It seems that in the United States the complaint year after year is credit card debt where people will buy stuff (and I do mean stuff) beyond their means and will spend most of the year paying off the balances.   I have seen a number of people on the narcissistic side who bluster and bloviate and after awhile are rightly recognized to be all flash and no substance . . . and no character. 

Regardless, there is such a temptation in the United States to present as more than you are.  Sometimes people feel they have to be pretentious to get ahead in life.  They will buy cars, homes, and clothes beyond their means.  Divorces and bankruptcies are often the humiliating consequences from trying to be more than you are.

Humility Now or Humiliation Later

As I think about the matter of pretentiousness, I am called to be honest with myself and surrender to the truth.   Life is going to be painful at times when you do not have what you think you should have. Other people are going to have more than the rest of us.  Most of us are never going to be part of high society, and we will watch them in the society papers and on the red carpets smile in their fashion and formal wear. 

Reaching a state of contentment may often take a grieving process. We may cry that we do not have what we think we should have.  We may deal with anger over and over again at those people who we believe are the criminals in our past who cheated us out of what we felt we were entitled to.  We may be angry at those family members who favored others over us.   We may cry and feel stuck.  We hopefully can feel our feelings, put the grudges and sour grapes in the cellars and closets of our minds and get on with life. 

Coming Back to the Idea of Christmas.

We come to this holiday as we are.  We come with our feelings and expectations.  We often feel complications in our emotions--after all, life is complicated suffering.   We often wonder where God is when we are feeling so miserable and complicated--I ofter that God is still present.

Christmas in its essence requires only one gift.  It is the gift of God to the world of life.  One of my "Facebook" friends (who is also a professional, stand-up comedian) posted yesterday that he did not believe that God is 100 percent pro-life because Jesus came to earth on a "death mission."  I think that my friend stopped a little short in his analysis as Jesus did not just merely come to die, but also to be resurrected and live again and defeat death for us.  This gift just has to be received through belief.

Regardless of what we do not have and who we are not, God loved us by giving us  the greatest gift of Jesus.  Jesus was born in a barn and his cradle was a feeding trough.  It is a gift worth anything more than what is in the mall, and we do not not have to buy it.  

However, despite the gift of life, it is still difficult at times to fight pretentiousness because we are still in human bodies.  It will probably always be a fight because we are human.

Shopping: the Myth of Just the Right Gift.

Today was a day where my wife had a shopping agenda.  We were going to go to the mall and buy stuff.

We went all over the mall. It had a full parking lot and lots of people. 

In the average metropolitan shopping mall in the United States there is a lot of merchandise you can buy. They make it very attractive for you to part with your money and they offer you lots of choice . . . too much of it.

I think that one of the messages that the retailers at Christmas is that you are going to get that special person just the right gift.  You could spend hours and hours looking with all of the choices present in the mall.

Me, I still do not know what I am going to get people for Christmas. 

Today I go back to the thought that nothing is perfect.   I think it will make it easier looking for presents.

 

Where is Your Head?

Today was a very challenging day. It was hectic in terms of handling some personal matters and it was hectic at my job at a psychiatric hospital.   I also started thinking about finally getting out there and buying Christmas presents.   Going back to bed sounded like a good idea but I was almost to my work.  

Tonight we put up the Christmas tree. I was tired as I rooted around the attic in my garage looking for the plastic tubs.  I put up the crumpled, artificial Christmas tree and did my best to get the lights hooked up.  I found myself feeling apathy because I did not care to look in the tubs at the different ornaments we had.  I found myself saying : at least the kids were enjoying it. 

As I reflect tonight, I find myself doing a Zig Ziglar "check-up from the neck-up."  I have said to myself: "Where is your head."

As I have noted elsewhere the pace of life for the average person in the western hemisphere is intense and hectic.   It is especially so for those living in urban areas.  We spend a lot of time commuting in cramped subways, trains and buses or we are stuck in heavy traffic.  We are pressured to do more with less at our jobs.  We have information coming at us from all directions that requires our response.  We get worn out and burned out and many of us value the weekend to get caught up on our personal matters and business.  Our heads are often tired from all of the intensity.

Then let us top if off with all of the holiday events and expectations.  We have to spend money on gifts to show we care.  We have to go to Christmas events to be sociable.  Combine the additional holiday stuff with our usual intense life and we are overwhelmed and probably think that going back to bed sounds even more attractive.

Let us kick it up another notch.  What if you are not feeling particularly joyful and happy this Christmas due to grief or loss?  What if you are feeling the guilt because your money and credit is tight and you cannot buy the type of presents the way you want to?   Going back to bed sounds even more attractive but it is not exactly a healthy coping skill.

Silence

In light of that, one of my favorite coping skills or coping activities in this time of year is sitting in silence and doing nothing.  While it does not solve the problems, I have found that a time of silence and stillness can be soothing.  

The problem is that it requires you to actually sit and be still.  Sitting still can be a challenge because the intensity and anxiety makes our bodies produce adrenalin which juices or energizes us and we are restless and fidgety.  Furthermore, being silent can be scary because our minds are moving really fast and with rapid thoughts can come anxiety.  Silence is essentially a discipline that has to be practiced . . . and practiced . . . and practiced because you think it holds something for you.

Forgive me for sounding like the late Henri Nouwen, but when I sit silently, I take some control of the moment. Some level of calmness happens. I feel the tension in my back and arms that I had not been in touch with because of my busyness and preoccupation and I can do something about it. I can also think spiritual or mystical thoughts or pray a different kind of prayer. I can be in the moment. I can focus.

Being in Touch with Ourselves.

I think in the rush of the holiday, taking time to be silent and ask ourselves where our heads are can be of great benefit.   But it can also be a risk. The answers to the question are not always pleasant because we might think about the pain, the grief, the loss, the regrets, and the 'what could have been's."   But it takes risk to make gains.

Where is my head now?  Hopefully in a more peaceful place than it was earlier in the day.  

Holiday Illusions: Things Are Not What They Seem

It does not seem like the holiday season here in Louisville, Kentucky USA.  It was in the 60's (Fareinheit) and it was rainy.  Yes, there are 21 more days until Christmas and it looks like a late February/early March day in terms of weather.  But it is the holiday season, you cannot judge by the way things look outside.

All of the man-made trappings are out.  Many people have decked their houses and yards in "Christmas" lights.  People are trying to get the Christmas Spirit listening to the music and watching old Christmas movies, and wearing festive holiday clothing.

The music is probably the most powerful of the different aspects of the Christmas season for most people.  The music goes everywhere and can be heard .. . in stores . . . the malls . . . and on the radio.  People sing it to themselves as they drive, and wash dishes.

I'm dreaming of what?

As I think about illusions at the holiday, Music comes to mind.  One of the all-time best selling recordings is that of White Christmas  by Irving Berlin.   The opening line is about someone dreaming about a snowy Christmas like the ones he used to know.  

The irony of it all is that Irving Berlin was jewish.   He did not keep Christmas as a child . . . he kept Haunukuh and even while as a secular jewish who was not observant, he did not keep Christmas during that time either.   From the different sources I could briefly piece together, he wrote a song for the Christmas market because it would sell.   Yes, he made a lot of money off of it. 

Don't get me wrong, the song was a morale booster to American troops during World War II. It made them think about getting home for Christmas.  However, the point is, at its basic nature, the song is an illusion--the composer simply composed something and it did not appear to be from his heart.

Music has this surprising power over us to change our emotions.  We get sad with songs and we get happy with sons.

Considering Hope: Real People Do it.

In keeping with the first Sunday of Advent, I have been mindful of the concept of "hope."   Hope is one of the themes of Advent.   I think that "hope" is rarely something contemplated or reflected upon the average person's life.

The meaning of the word.

I am not being original in this but according to Webster, hope is a feeling that something wanted is possible, and confidence.   Hope is looking forward to the future and does not look backward to the past. 

When Do We Hope?

It seems that we hope when we are not in a good spot.  We tend to hope when we are not feeling good, miserable, or are anxious.  Maybe something bad is predicted or expected to happen (such as a employer laying off workers or the "Fiscal Cliff") and we desire an exception to occur.  Maybe a loved one just died and a piece of us hopes that we are in the middle of a bad dream and we will wake up and the person will be there (this is part of the denial stage of grief).  

We tend to engage in hope when we are not in control.  We hope when an object, outcome or action is to happen sometime in the future.  We do not control what happens tomorrow . . . no one knows what happens until it happens. 

Sometimes we hope for something that we cannot get a clear timeframe on when something is to happen.  Many hope and wait for the love of our life to come.  Some of us hope for a job.  Some of us hope for the promotion we have worked so hard in our current employer.  

Sometimes we hope for the impossible against our better judgment.  This usually includes hoping for acceptance from your critical parent.  Maybe it is hoping that Aunt Phyllis will at least smile and be nice at the holiday and not find someway to make a scene at your holiday gathering. 

When Do We Give Up Hope?

People give up when they are depressed or when they feel that they have been hoping for the wrong thing.   It can be bad and then again it can be good.

When someone is depressed, they feel stuck and possibly suicidal . . . and give up hope.  Only when they start to feel hope do they recover.   I have had many depressed patients who had given up hope and feel that they were up against a big black wall.  By accident, years ago I told one patient that I offered them a message of hope and that they could get better.   When that patient was being discharged from my program, they said that my offering of hope helped them begin to recover.  (You bet I started making that statement a habit.)

On the other hand, sometimes we discover that we are hoping for the wrong things.  We find that we are waiting for something that is not going to happen.  We then surrender to the reality that it is not going to happen.  We grieve and make a choice to move on.  (I wonder how many people have gone to Hollywood and then went crawling back to their hometown in humility that their dreams were dashed?)

In reality, many people still keep some of their unrealistic hopes in corners of their minds.  Many hope that the estranged family member will return and apologize.  Many hope that they can become a celebrity.  Many hope that their lottery numbers win.  I think that it is part of human nature. 

The Spiritual Hope of Christmas

While I have not particularly sought to proselytize, I will say that if you are looking for hope in Christmas, then you probably need to examine the situation you find yourself in.

Christmas is a celebration that is more theological at its core than anything and part of the theology of Christmas is the spiritual hope for the world.  In making a general, theological statement, the world is a fallen place where bad things happen, and Christ is the redeemer to save it.  Jesus Christ is the hope of the world.

Sometimes we become mindful of how bad we are as people. We think about all of our bad points and how evil and rotten we can be . . . and have been.   That is when we can be open to looking for hope in deliverance.  The Bible tells us in a number of places within its pages that God loved us first in sending Jesus to earth to be that deliverer, and in him we can have hope and can be made renewed and clean. 

It is challenging to look at spiritual matters.  Life in the 21st century does not lend itself to spiritual reflection.  We are very busy people in the western world who tend to be driven to produce and be busy and not think about the spiritual.  We become numb to most matters of hope, and we only end up hoping when our expectations crash.   It is usually when our expectations crash, and when logic fails that we are open to the spiritual and the miraculous.  We hunger for something that knowledge just cannot fill, and that is the spiritual part of us.

Hope.  Real people do it.

I'm Dreaming of What?

It does not seem like the holiday season here in Louisville, Kentucky USA.  It was in the 60's (Fareinheit) today and it was rainy.  Yes, there are 21 more days until Christmas and it looks like a late February/early March day in terms of weather.  But it is the holiday season and you cannot judge by the way things look outside.

Despite the weather, all of the man-made trappings are out.  Many people have decked their houses and yards in "Christmas" lights.  People are trying to get the Christmas Spirit listening to the music and watching old Christmas movies, and wearing festive holiday clothing that sits in their storage tubs the rest of the year.

The music is probably the most powerful of the different aspects of the Christmas season for most people.  The music goes everywhere and can be heard .. . in stores . . . the malls . . . and on the radio.  People sing it to themselves as they drive, and wash dishes.  Music has a way of bringing on feeling and emotion and can make people laugh or people cry.

I'm dreaming of what?

The power of  music leads me to think about how powerful illusions and false appearances at the holiday can be.  One of the all-time best selling recordings is that of White Christmas  by Irving Berlin.   The opening line is about someone dreaming about a snowy Christmas like the ones he used to know.  

The irony of it all is that Irving Berlin was jewish.   He did not keep Christmas as a child . . . he kept Haunukuh and even while as a secular jewish who was not observant, he did not keep Christmas during that time either.  Christmas Day was actually tough for him because his son died on a Christmas Day in the 1920's.    From the different sources I could briefly piece together, he wrote a song for the Christmas market because it would sell.   Yes, he made a lot of money off of it. 

Don't get me wrong, the song was a morale booster to American troops during World War II. It made them think about getting home for Christmas.  However, the point is, at its basic nature, the song is an illusion--the composer simply composed something and it was not real or personal.

Being Real

I think that coping during difficult holidays means looking at what is real and what is illusion.  I am not suggesting that everyone be skeptics, because if someone is not having a hang up  about Christmas and the holiday they should continue doing what they are doing.  However, checking out whether or not you are chasing an illusion can be of value if you are dealing with pain, so you might feel less pain or maybe even feel good. 

The primary Illusion in this case mean that Christmas is supposed to happen in such a way also known as

perfect. 

 In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy it means that a person suffering such distress in such a way is focusing on the "shoulds," "musts," and "oughts."    Perfection is unattainable and does not happen.

Who says that things should be a certain way?  Sometimes it is a powerful person in our life.  But most of the time it is us and what we are choosing to think.  We have the power to say what should happen and what should not happen.  People judge themselves needlessly against the illusion. 

Giving up the "should" often means surrendering and grieving that the illusion is not going to happen.  But giving up the "should, must or ought," can also be liberating.  The liberation comes from not feeling that the holiday has to meet a standard that is merely an illusion and not real.

If you are grieving a loss this holiday, your holiday does not have to be perfect.  It may feel numb and surreal.  Things may not exactly taste as good as they would other holidays.   You may choose a scaled down menu. You may turn on other music instead of listening to Christmas music, and it is all okay because you are grieving.   Grieving is a necessary part of life so we can move on.

For many, Christmas will still be painful and hopefully there can be less pain when people get real and stop chasing illusions that things should be perfect.