Take a Break from Holiday Worrying by Being in the Present

As I have written in one of my first blog postings, Christmas is like a hurricane where people are dreading the storm that is to come December 25.  This hurricane effect includes

• some people are dreading the future
• grieving that the holidays are not going to will be the same
• some people are lamenting that their families are so toxic and dysfunctional that they just cannot get along. 

All of these mental actions are future oriented.   These are negative thoughts and they produce negative emotions and physical stress.

If someone is isolating and staying home and doing nothing at the holidays, they are running the risk of  letting their imagination run wild and creating mountains out of mole hills about various fears or griefs they have about the holidays.  The longer someone dwells on these negative thoughts, the bigger the mountains they create from the mole hills.

Living in the Present


Living in the present has been a oft-made recommendation by therapists and self-help authors.  What it can mean may take a whole book to elaborate.  I won't do that, but I think I can give you a brief idea of what you can start to do.  If you want to read more about living in the present--you can easily Google it and get all kinds of thoughts.

In a nutshell, I think that living in the present is focusing on the present moment and place.  You are working to not dwell on days and weeks and years ahead.  You are stopping yourself from thinking about all of the potential disasters that could happen.   You are also putting the past on a shelf in the back of your mind and not focusing on it either.  Neither the past or the future are things you can do about, so we concentrate on the present.

Focusing on the present does not necessarily mean that it is going to be easy.  The present may be tough if you are in the middle of a crisis.  The present may also be tough if you are suffering.  However, options and solutions are only going be had in the present; you and I are not going to fix a past problem, and we do not know what the future holds until we get there.   I may be suffering now, but I can perhaps choose now to lessen my suffering or take comfort in something now to ease my pain.

A Historical and Spiritual Recommendation

Living in the present actually has been a recommendation of most religions.  Hinduism and Buddhism recommend doing meditation, focusing on medication, and being in touch with the now.   The Bible also recommends living in the present:

Jesus himself said in the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 6:25-34)

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(NIV)

The point is that for thousands of years there has been the recommendation to focus on the present.  People have had problems worrying about what bad things could happen in the future.

 Methods of Living in the Present

While this may sound condescending, I think that many people need to do more than just sitting at home reading blog posts and trying to change what you think so as to stay in the present.   If your emotional pain is intense, thinking positive thoughts about the present are not likely going to be enough.    Many need to get up and change their scenery and get active.

If you have been isolating because you have avoided friends and family it may be that you need to go out and be around people.  Getting into a different mindset often means changing your surroundings where different sounds and senses can be experienced.  

Being in the present also means doing something different but healthy.  Trying something different like listening to a different type of radio station or going to a concert that you would not normally go to can also get you in a different frame of mind.  Going and trying a different cuisine or type of food can broaden your horizons.  A possibly easy option is going out to the mall and people watch--look at people's faces and compare and contrast their facial expressions (some ethnographers get research grants to do this). The sky really is the limit when working to stay in the present.

Concluding thoughts

We as humans need a break from worrying and holiday stress.  Focusing on the present is a useful and simple strategy.  While it has its limits, focusing on the present does provide some relief.  Life can be simpler and less stressful in the present when we are spending our energy imagining that bad things are going to happen.

The Perfect Christmas—the advertised delusion

Many people become depressed at the holidays because Christmas is not going to be perfect.  A lot of the material on holiday stress says to lower your expectations on Christmas and the holidays.  Despite all of the different material, I have read on the internet and in books, overcoming the sadness that Christmas is not going to be perfect is a tough one to beat.  It goes back to my metaphor that the holiday season is like a hurricane—you can’t get away from it.

The advertised delusion

In the cultures that celebrate Christmas, there tends to be an intense brainwashing campaign by the retail and advertising industries to get you to buy at Christmas.  At face-value the advertising sends warm emotional sentiments and images.  The advertising connects those warm sentiments to the advertised products and services.  If sexual attraction messages can be mixed in, you can be sure that they will mix them in

What makes the Christmas commercial even more sticky is that they use Christmas songs.  The tempos and arrangements are more intense as if to give a burst of energy for the 30 seconds.  Warmer sounding tones like bells are also used for that apparent magic sound.  The advertisers are intelligent in how they go all out to get you to buy.

There are at least three types of TV commercials that I have seen each year that rub salt into emotional wounds perhaps to the point of nausea.  These are the happy family, the great holiday party, and the faux meaningful morning.

The first nauseating TV commercial is the happy family on Christmas morning in their fashionable robes and pajamas with hair that does not look like they just got out of bed, opening up each gift with a look of surprise.   Opening up the gifts bought from that department store is made to look like the happiest time of their lives.  Everyone gets what they want?  Only for the camera.  

The second most nauseating TV commercial is the happy holiday party.  There are a bunch of skinny people gathered around enjoying beautiful and tasty-looking food.  These people look like they can eat anything.  This is where the "sexy" is thrown into the advertising mix.

Of course there are the meaningful commercials at Christmas.  There were two different coffee brands where an adult son comes home for Christmas at the last moment.  The adult son sneaks in, makes a pot of fresh coffee, and the aroma of brewing coffee wafts through the house as part of the beautiful moment.  The son's mother gets out of bed with hair that looks nearly perfect.  The impression that advertisers want to make is that a buying a can of the coffee is going to make your Christmas fulfilled.

Repetition: the brain-washing effect: You need whatever they are selling!

Advertisers know what they are doing.  They are sophisticated in their use of psychology, and they are effective.

Christmas commercials are repeated over and over again on TV and Radio for weeks.  They are on at all times of the day.   The volume tends to be louder than the TV show when they are on TV.   You just cannot get away from the commercials and they can break you down.

If something is repeated enough, it is believed.  What advertisers want you to believe is that you need to buy the advertised product or service.  Advertising creates some sense of a need and then portrays the product as a way of meeting that need.

The unintended effect: feelings of inadequacy and depression

For many of us with financial limits and dysfunctional families, we know well that we are not going to be able to afford most of the products being advertised.  We also see that our family is not going to be together on Christmas for whatever reason.  The commercials merely remind us repeatedly of us problems and inadequacies.  

Coping with the commercials

If the holiday commercials are bringing you down, I think that the coping strategy is going to require multiple techniques. I think that the drastic ones include:

1.)    Reduce the amount of TV you watch or stop watching it. 

      2.)    Listen more to MP3 and recorded music than to radio stations.

      3.)    Read books as opposed to watching TV.

I think the less drastic strategies are:

1.)    Only watch TV shows you have previously recorded and speed through the commercials

2.)    Consider listening to radio stations that have not gone to Christmas music formats.

I think that the standard strategies like telling yourself it is okay that Christmas is not going to be perfect does work, but that you often have to tell it to yourself over and over again because you will get the negative messages on a constant basis. My criticism of a lot of the books is that they don't discuss how intense you may have to be in using these slogans or affirmations.  You may have to put signs up around the house to remind yourself.

Sarcastic joking helps too.  One of my favorite jokes in the past that I have liked to make is a countdown such as: Only 18 days until Walmart is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Also, I am thinking about posting this on my Facebook page:

There are only 18 days until 106.9 FM goes back to playing the usual soft rock and if I hear one more remake of Wham’s Last Christmas, I am going to vomit.

Lastly, I think that a faith-based or religious strategy could be helpful.  I think that saying daily prayers and reading an Advent reader or lectionary such as the Book of Common Prayer could be of benefit to focus thoughts and perspective.  I emphasize that this is a daily activity.

Tomorrow, I will look a the struggle for faith and meaning at Christmas--or maybe just try to start the struggle.

Control--the Holiday Slaver

Control is a holiday survival issue.  I do not think I am going to do justice to this topic, but I hopefully have useful ideas or at least some entertaining thoughts.

People who are trying to survive or who have identified themselves as survivors usually have control issues.   What this means is that they have to be in control or be in charge or be in power.  We often refer to these people as "control freaks."

Controlling behavior overall is motivated by some kind of anxiety.  The suppliers of the anxiety include past trauma and irrational and caretaking beliefs.

In the context of one person

When a person tends to be a control freak or a controlling person, they tend to engage in subtle and not-so subtle battles for power.  It has to be their way . . . period.  It is typically an all-or-nothing deal with all or nothing thinking. 

Controlling people tend to be passive-aggressive and abusive.  They play games with other people who are perceived challengers to their control.  The people they draw to themselves are dependent and have a need to be controlled or taken care of.

Control freaks typically develop tiny kingdoms of the few followers who will follow them.  This means that control freaks have few friends and have burned many bridges and made many enemies along the way.   Besides being dependent, the followers usually have some sense of obligation that keeps them stuck in emotional or financial slavery to the control freak.

I recall one co-worker demonstrating controlling behaviors in the office.  She was a receptionist, but she did not want anyone hanging around her.  She was the one who always brought the cake for office birthdays and personally financed the candy dish.  I recall in my supervisory position wanting to monitor the operations at the front desk given some repeated problems, and within about three minutes she went from gentle prompting to leave her space, to anger and then almost braking down with a disclosure of some inappropriate personal information. 

Now, I think that the inappropriate personal information was an attempt to put herself in the victim role and that I was being portrayed as a perpetrator of sorts for persisting in my staying there to observe.   It was bizarre, but she had to  have control and she threw at me a number of emotional weapons including some drama.

I have concluded that control freaks do indeed control for a reason.  They are fragile and they are scared and they are hiding behind being controlling. 

Control freaks are never happy. The need to control is insatiable--either until the day they die or the day dementia becomes severe enough, they will attempt to control others by any means possible.

In the context of the family

In the context of the family, people who play control games are identified as the ones who exasperate the other family members.  In-laws (those connected by marriage) especially tend to exasperate or get  exasperated.   The individual need to control is stronger than the collective need to get along and foster acceptance.

Personally, it has been nauseating to see adults play games.  I have also found it to be disingenuous and hypocritical (especially in one family member who has spoken at Christian retreats).   I confess that as a human being I wanted to have control because I did not want any more abuse from certain family members, and I wanted to avoid certain family members disrupting things like my wedding.

As a professional hearing patients/clients tell me their story, I have came to the conclusion that the vast majority of families have control games.   Some are worse than others.   

In the context of the family, drama also seems to fuel control games.   Passive-aggressive message-couriers drive splits between other family members by reporting:

they hate you,

 or

they are mad at you.

In reality the truth is out there, somewhere as to who is really mad and not mad, but the splitter has a sense of control because they are conquering by dividing, and everyone else stays away from each other out of a perception of the need to protect themselves.  Everyone feels like they get something bad out of the deal--but they get something.

If there is a divorce and a particular toxic ex-spouse with a borderline personality, then hang-on Arizona.   I have been aware of several friends and acquaintances who had ex-spouses with borderline personality disorder and they have had year after year of misery dealing with the emotional terrorism and control games.  The emotional terrorism extended to extended family in these cases.

Control Issues in the Family at the Holidays

The family is not going to stop playing these control games at the holidays.  No matter if there is a call for peace on earth and good will towards men, it is not going to happen.

Many families have a general understanding and tend to go along with the power.  The holiday celebration will happen at a particular person's house and be according to certain unwritten rules.  The matriarch or patriarch runs the show and people will bow down to that person's authority--end of story.  

Many otherwise-strained families are able to put on happy faces for four to eight hours before either the wine, vodka, or rum-laced egg nog has kicked in or the the nice conversation has stopped.  When the guard has been let down, the control games start again. 

Many chaotic families with numerous family members fighting for control stay away from each other.  They moved away from each other or do not get together for good reason--they all have to be in control and have lots of past grudges and pain.  Maybe they will send presents and maybe they will call on the phone at Christmas--but that is it as the powerful need to control keeps them apart.  

 The reality of control over others: you can never really have it

Control over other people is an illusion.  I have talked to many people that put so much energy into it, and they never get it.  They cannot have meaningful, secure relationships, and they are never happy.  The pursuit of control over others will drain you dry and ruin you.

I think part of making for a better and happier life is surrendering to the reality that you cannot have control over anyone but yourself.  I think that it can make for a happier holiday season too. 

The ceasing of trying to control others allows you to stop wasting your energy and resources.  It also allows you to be able to rest and be at peace, have less anxiety.

Giving up the pursuit of trying to control others does not mean that you are becoming a push-over or weak.   However, what you do with that extra energy and that increased sense of peace is up to you. 

When some people begin to work on giving up the perceived need to control it can be scary.  There is another anxiety that comes along and asks if you are being stupid or foolish?    It is a question that you will have to determine.  As for me--I asked myself: what do I really have to lose?  Trying to control wasn't doing me any good in the first place.

Tomorrow, I will talk how many people start to get tense about holiday gatherings--it is related to control.

Grief and Loss at Christmas—feeling your feelings? Or stuck in the past?

A Recap

Grief is the natural emotional response to the loss of a cherished person, thing or idea. As noted before, I buy into the Kubler-Ross model that there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance.

Yesterday I discussed how anger is the underestimated emotion of grief during the holidays. Anger as part of the grief process is a strong feeling that people get stuck and paralyzed in if they do not work through it or resolve in.   People who are angry because of a loss can be unbearable to be around and can disrupt family celebrations.

Denial and Bargaining

When it comes to the other stages of grief, people may get stuck in the the denial or bargaining stages if they are dealing with a divorce or relationship estrangement. I have met one person who appeared to be stuck in the denial stage and they were apparently high on pain medications when expressing their bargaining with God to bring their mother back. However, usually when a loved one dies, if people are not having problems with anger, they are feeling depression.

Depression

The depression stage in grief is supposed to be after the “bargaining” stage (it may not be). In this stage a person has realized that they cannot bargain anymore. In the depression stage of grief they feel stuck and stupid and helpless. They usually do not feel this stage for awhile until after their loved one is gone.

The depression stage of grief does not exactly have an end to it. From what I have read it takes as long as it takes . . . everyone is different. When it gets in the way of a person's daily functioning . . . that is when people wind up in the hospital or at the door of the psychiatrist or counselor.

I have found that people who may be stuck in the grief stage of depression were people that did not have a way to get their emotional needs after the loved one died. One example was a guy who was a “mama's boy” whose mother and father died in the same year and he was stuck believing that he could not stand to lose anymore relationships. Another example was a lady whose mother was her only best friend and when her mother died she lost both her mother and her best friend and she had no other close friends by which to bond and talk and trust with her feelings. The guy was not ready to change, but the woman accepted the advice of calling people in her church to make connections—the woman got better but the guy did not.

The holiday is just not going to be the same

The first set of holidays after the death of a loved one are typically the hardest. It is the first holiday (s) without them and you know it.

If the loved one was the matriarch or patriarch or family leader or who was the organizer of the family celebrations or had a central role in cooking, decorating or organizing, it will feel like there is a hole or something is very much missing. I have been aware that when a mother or father dies, the adult children fall out of touch with each other. No one was willing or feeling capable to organize a family gathering.

I think that for many the phrase the holiday is not just going to be the same is really the holiday will never be good again. I do think that there is some legitimate coming to terms with the holiday not being the same—because it is factual and logical. The holiday is not going to be the same because that loved one is no longer there.

I think when someone is going through their first holiday without the loved one, that this is another time where it is appropriate to be sad and mad and depressed all over again. To deny yourself these feelings is to deny that you are a human being with needs.

Dwelling and living in the past versus moving ahead.

Many people dwell on the negative thought that the holiday is just not going to be the same. Some will dwell on that thought to the point of depression. Cognitive therapists would call this a negative mental filter where a person's point of view is polluted by the dwelling on one negative thought.

I think when people dwell on the holiday is just not going to be the same, they start getting stuck in the past and start missing the present. It is my opinion that when this goes on for two or three Christmases, it suggests that someone may be stuck in grief.

It is not my original suggestion, but people who have lost that family member have a need to move on and make the holidays good again. Making it good again does not mean making it perfect or trying to make it just like that deceased loved one did.  I think it means gathering together to continue to have relationships. Maybe there can be an honoring of family traditions which bind relationships, or maybe there can be a new tradition to celebrate. I think that families merely being together at Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate can be surprisingly fulfilling and delightful.

The barrier of the family--when they don't want to move ahead with you 

It serves to mention, that not all family members grieve in the same way at the same time. If you are wanting to move ahead and try to organize a family gathering at Christmas or other holiday, you may have one or more family members be resistant or uncooperative.

The reasons are endless for family resistance but here are a few ideas. Maybe people are angry. Maybe people are just not wanting to talk about the loved one. Maybe mother was close to all of you but you weren't close to each other. Maybe some family members got together out of respect for mother despite not being able to stand each other (this even happens in religious families). I would like to say a little investigation may be needed, but such answers are not necessarily hard to get.

If your family is not going along with your idea to have Christmas or the holiday gathering, then you have some other choices to make. They all seem to center around the question of: How can I make my holiday good this year?    

Acceptance: How can I make my holiday good?

When people begin to focus on: How can I make my holiday good? versus It just won't be the same, a person is moving into the fifth stage of Acceptance. Acceptance is where a person begins to reach the conclusion and feeling that it is possible to heal and move on. Acceptance does not mean you will forget the pain or loss, but it does mean that you are in a better place to live your life . . . and I do mean your life.

It is all easier said than done

Any kind of discussion about these matters is easier said than done. I think that the journey of grief and loss is a miserable and stressful one that takes not just an emotional toll on someone but also a physical toll. The emotions of grief are physically stressful and lead to stomachaches, headaches, and muscle aches in addition to insomnia.

Despite the theories, the journey of grief and loss is still an individual journey. We all must figure things out for ourselves. We have to reach our own decisions and we all move on in our own ways.

For those of us who have prided ourselves on being the strong ones, we may have to surrender to being weak. We cannot do it all for ourselves and everyone else. We may cry and pout that we can't be all things to all people--but it does not mean that we failed.

We need grace in our grief

We (especially the strong ones) need grace in our grief, which is often defined as “unmerited favor.” We need a gift of relief. The original meaning of Christmas is that gift from God,  Jesus who came to earth to give us life and give it to us more abundantly. While Judaism would disagree with this interpretation, Isaiah 53 foretold that Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering. Psalm 34: 12 also says

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (NIV)

Approximately 33 years after being born in a stable and laid in a manger, Jesus died a humiliating public death on a cross after an unfair trial--he did suffer and he did it for us.  But death did not keep him in the grave--he arose from the grave after three days and is in Heaven to come back one day for the people who have accepted him as savior.  It is not a perfect option, but it can be comforting or soothing to know that God is a personal God who is not distant and uncaring. I think that people who seek God and His grace will find God--the Bible tells you how you can. 

Closing comments:

My Google statistics page indicates that I have readers in Germany and Russia beside the United States. Thanks for following this blog—I hope that it is meeting your needs.   If there is a topic that you are looking for discussion about to meet your needs, please make a comment.

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.

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.