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 It happens every year. The holidays come around, bringing a flood of activity, food, social gatherings, and expenses. For most of us, the holiday season is a bright and pleasant time - a time of celebration, a time of enjoyment and added closeness with those we love.
But what if things aren't so pleasant for you this year? You get the Christmas cards and letters, featuring the bright smiles of families and couples. You attend the Christmas parties, where everybody seems to be happy and connected with others. You see the TV commercials and billboards and catalogs and online ads for an endless array of commercial products for sale, promising to delight loved ones and give happiness and good cheer.
If things are not as you would desire in your own life, relationships, or financial standing, the trappings and images of the holidays can bring added pain. Perhaps you are single, though you wish you weren't, and look wistfully at other couples laughing and smiling and exchanging gifts. Perhaps you are in a marriage riddled by conflict or unresolved issues - and those Christmas card images of happy families bring you to tears with the contrast you experience in your own situation. Maybe finances are tight this year, and all those ads remind you of what you wish you could buy for your kids and loved ones, but you can't.
If you have ever experienced feelings like this during the holidays, you are definitely not alone. For many people, the pain of unmet expectations is never higher than during this season of "peace and good cheer."
If this is one of those holiday seasons that proves tough for you, perhaps the following suggestions can help:
1) Count your blessings, not your deficits. Whatever your challenges might be this season, if you look around you can identify positives in your life that can help you weather this time. Start keeping a gratitude journal, listing at least three things per day that you can be grateful for. Perhaps there is a kind word, a blessing of health, an unexpected gift from another, a quiet spiritual insight that comes from an unexpected source. Perhaps you see a particularly glorious sunset, or a magical flurry of snowflakes, or a bright star on an otherwise dark night. Perhaps there is an inspiring phrase that jumps out at you from something you read, or hear on TV, or in church, or in a song that happens to play on the radio. Look for the positive, record it, talk about it - and you will find the positives in your life outweigh the negatives, and help you weather whatever challenges may come.
2) Reach out to the less fortunate. If you look carefully, you can always find someone less fortunate than yourself - with worse health, worse finances, or going through an even more challenging situation than you. It helps to remember that you're not the only one struggling during this holiday season. It helps even more to somehow lighten the burden of another. Maybe you shovel their driveway on a snowy day; or anonymously leave a special gift or card or donation. Maybe you visit them, and spend time with them, and let them know you care. Maybe you volunteer at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, or place a little extra in that little donation bucket in front of the grocery store. Reaching out to others when you are down is one of the most powerful ways to overcome the blues and move to a happier mindset.
3) Make wise choices about your health. The holidays can easily become a time of overeating, overspending, undersleeping, and under-exercising. We're so busy attending to the purchases and tasks of the season, so busy sampling all the various treats that might come our way, that we can quickly throw off our own brain and body chemistry by overindulging in sugar and other substances that can provide a momentary kick - followed by an extended physical and emotional crash (and perhaps the addition of depressing unwanted pounds.) Many January depressions are triggered by December indulgences. Be smart. Avoid the after-holidays crash by making wise choices now. Take care of your body - especially during the holidays - and it will take care of you.
4) Comfort yourself wisely. When you are down, it can be tempting to drown your sorrows - in sugar, in alcohol, in explicit media, in an excess of food, whatever it might be. But you've followed that route before, and you know where it leads. Far from "drowning" sorrow, it feeds sorrow, and makes it more powerful than ever. Find other, healthier ways to comfort yourself. Perhaps it's a long bubble bath, or an intense workout session, or letting yourself cry through an emotional CD. Feeling your painful feelings releases them, and makes room for happier feelings. So don't drown your sorrow. Honor it - express it - and then move on from it.
5) Nurture your faith. If you are a religious person, the holidays may contain profound religious meaning for you, and can bring some particularly stirring spiritual experiences. If you are not a religious person, you still share in the universal values of peace, community, service, and appreciation that permeate the holidays. Sit alone in the light of your Christmas tree, and write about what this year has taught you, and what you hope to experience next year. Turn to your God, or Higher Power, or wise mind within yourself. The toughest life experiences often engender the deepest, most influential lessons - if you have the ears to hear, and the heart to understand. Read spiritual literature. Pray. Ponder. Write. Visit settings that have inspirational value for you - whether a chapel, a temple, a mountain, or in the soft light of your own Christmas tree at home. Nurture and cultivate your faith - now more than ever. Even if your health suffers, your marriage is a wreck, your finances are a disaster, or any other challenging factor or combination of factors, you can find perspective and hope by looking to a force bigger and smarter than just yourself.
6) Set meaningful goals. The holidays lead to the New Year - which can be a time of profound soul searching and direction setting to guide the coming year. Take advantage of this time. Set some meaningful goals, in various areas of your life - physical, spiritual, emotional, vocational, and social. Identify relationships you'd like to strengthen or repair. Identify physical habits you'd like to improve. Identify areas you want to learn more about or improve your skills in. Setting goals is a great way to get perspective on what you've achieved so far, and where you'd like to go from here. It reminds you that this hard moment you may be going through today is nothing more than a gateway to tomorrow. Make a plan, make it specific, and begin to implement it, in a specific, focused way. Positive action can launch powerful hope.
By applying these suggestions, you can not just "get through" the holidays - you can prevent the after-holidays crash, and launch yourself onward to a happier, brighter, more effective new year. So... Happy Holidays!
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