Easing Holiday Stress with Love

I don’t know about you but my family is crazy during the holidays. Their worst attributes seem to find a way to display themselves. It doesn’t matter that my mom is German and she didn’t even grow up in the states, she seems to have a weird mood thing that occurs with Thanksgiving or any other holiday. Suddenly, people who never behave themselves in any particular way are supposed to behave, dress a certain way, eat with table manners, and in general be cheerful and perky.

Everyone has one reason or another for stress during the holidays. Whether its that you don’t have the money you want to buy people gifts, you don’t get to see the family members you want to see, or you’re angry at your mom but can’t find a way to deal with it effectively. There’s some sort of stress going on. One way to deal with stress is not to deal at all.  You can decide not to see the people who seem to be the cause.  Another way is to approach the whole thing from the perspective of healing. Try to find a way to have a healing and loving time no matter what.

When emotions are high and people seem to be stressed, it’s hard to feel calm yourself.

Especially when you’re with someone that you don’t really enjoy being with. One effective tool is to become a witness. As soon as you start to feel anxious or stressed, you can begin to have an internal conversation that says – “oh look….I’m feeling stressed.” Or “oh look, my anger’s coming up.”  When you do this, don’t have a judgment about how you’re feeling or what’s happening. You just step back and watch yourself. By doing this, you begin to create a gap between your emotions and your experience. It gives you some space to have separate yourself from your feelings.

We tend to identify with our emotions when they feel strong, and think that’s all we will experience. It feels like it’ll never go away and will create havoc in our lives. If you begin to witness your feelings, you can see that you have a choice about whether or not you act on them. If you keep on witnessing, slowly you’ll notice that the feelings don’t seem quite so intense. If you keep pretending that you don’t have any feelings, they tend to sneak up on you in unpleasant ways, such as causing fights with your relatives.

Another tip for coping with the holidays is to remember that, beyond all else, you are with these people because you love them. Try to remember that the love is the most important reason you’re there. If someone angers you or causes you pain, remember that the love you have is more important than your need to be right, or your pain. Sometimes in the peak of our pain, its hard to remember that. Again, you can at that moment use your witness to pull you out of your anger in the moment.

Years ago when I was in high school I learned the saying – “count to ten before you react.” And “walk a mile in his moccasins.”  At the time I thought they were good advice but I never really understood what it meant.  It means choosing love above all else. It means slowing down enough to see that the person in front of you has a story too, and letting go of yours in order to allow healing to occur.