What Will We Make of the New Year?

Like last year, this is my last entry for the holiday season since it is the end.  I thought I would take a review of of matters and a look ahead.

As I look at the Google statistics, I found the following readership for this blog since I started this blog in November 2011.  

United States	762
Russia	157
Germany	39
Ukraine	17
United Kingdom	6
France	4
Canada	3
China	3
Aruba	1
Spain	1

People all over the world struggle with the holidays--it is not merely an United States thing. I found it very interesting to get a few readers from China as this is a holiday blog.

While this was probably not the most read blog about coping with the holiday on the Internet, it is rewarding that I got some feedback from friends and from colleagues about the value gained.   It brings me to the next phase: do you have plans for 2013 and the next holiday season?

Value and Values

How we live matters. It is our lives and while we are all trapped to some degree within our circumstances we have choice.  I was watching some of Doomsday Preppers today on the National Geographic Channel and I came away with the feeling that you can prepare too much to the point that it is an addiction.  The two guys they covered were spending all of their time and money making preparations for what they theorized to be the different elements of "doomsday."   One of the "teases" or promotional ads for the show asked

"Am I crazy? Or are you?"

I won't get into that one, but I while I think a plan for the next holiday season is important, but it has to be realistic and concrete.  Furthermore, we cannot spend all our time planning . . . over-planning seems to drift into dwelling on resentments.

A plan should include something that we want and something that we value. It helps to keep in mind that there is no perfect plan, and what we plan is not going to be perfect.  We have to stop planning sometime and take action and not being stuck in the rut of perfectionism helps.

Explore What Can Be Real

For many survivors, the tendency to stay to yourself does not allow you to get outside of yourself as to what can be real.  Sometimes it helps to see how much we can make our lives better by exploring the options.

For example, making a list of things you might like to do, finding out the prices for those trips or items, and creating a budget for them is a great growth step.  Focusing on what we want and how to get those things is a great, healthy action.

In the next year, if you are in need of perspective checking out a therapist is always a good thing.  If you have insurance, you can look at your network papers and see who takes your insurance.  If you do not have insurance, there is usually some ability-to-pay counseling agencies where you live. If you go to a church, sometimes your minister or priest could be a counseling resource for a few sessions.

Goals

Other than counseling, making some goals for the next year is always a good action.  I am in the process of making my goals. I did not accomplish all my goals, but I was surprised what I did get done because I made the list.  Some goals should be small, and some goals should be large.  I wrote about goals earlier in the blog.

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for reading and I welcome you to a new year.  While it will not be perfect, I hope that it is a good one for you.

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.

Disney Princess 12-In. Cinderella Bike By Huffy (Google Affiliate Ad)

Huffy Spectre 20-In. Boys' Bike (Google Affiliate Ad)

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.