December 09 – Holidays, anyone?
It’s almost a cliché – “the holidays” usually aren’t. In fact, the hectic pace at which most of us live today is often driven to a fever pitch of exhaustion in search of the “perfect” holiday experience – which we both want and tend to assume (or at least so many of us do!) that we are expected to make happen for others.
I feel it as much as anyone. Sitting at Starbucks writing this newsletter, I’m painfully aware that it’s already the second of December which means I’m one day late on this month’s newsletter!
So what? Is this the crime of the century? Have you, my faithful readers, been waiting with bated breath, tapping your toe, saying to yourself, so where IS Rev. Cat with her newsletter this month??
I sincerely doubt it.
And will you, if you know me in person and have experienced me as a helpful contributor to your spiritual development, question the validity of your experience and find your trust in my reliability crumbling as a result?
Honestly, I doubt that too.
But this is the fear, isn’t it? The real fear that keeps us running ever faster on the hamster wheel, trying to catch up with a destination that never arrives, is this: if I stop, no one will like or trust me and everything will fall apart.
Will it? Really? Can we question that?
What about trying out a different paradigm for really living the holidays? What if we gave ourselves a holiday from all the “shoulds” about the holidays themselves?
Try making a list of everything you think you have to do, and I’m betting you’ll get tired just looking at it.
Then try crossing every one out.
Then try considering what you really want to add back in!
What if there were not one single thing you really had to do?? Honestly, what’s the worst thing that would happen if you didn’t do any of it?? (And if it’s really that bad, there are some other questions you may need to be asking…)
What if every time a belief about what we “have” to get done arises, we give ourselves permission to question that and to choose to do only what’s really meaningful now – as opposed to what we believe people expect of us based on a past that isn’t here anymore.
Here are some ways I’m going to give myself a real “holiday” this season:
I’m planning on not sending holiday greeting cards this year – even by email. I’ll send back a brief “thanks and good wishes” note to those I do hear from.
I’m planning on getting a few small gifts for my family rather than exhausting myself shopping for perfect, knock-out presents.
I’m planning on a smaller, easier to handle tree and passing some ornaments on to others.
I’m planning on having fun with my family in town when they visit, rather than believing we have to wade through crowds and traffic to a host of “special events.”
But I’m also planning on doing some holiday baking – because I love that, and I plan on asking for what I really want: cooperation from all my kids in getting a professional family photograph taken.
What would make it a holiday for you this year? Do you doubt that you deserve it? Question that! Please remember: whatever you do to bring joy, peace and fulfillment into your own life, you do on behalf of every person on the planet.
So enjoy the holidays. Really.
Simplify or eliminate what no longer works.
Enhance what does.
The world will be better off for it. And so will you. Make it a holiday from guilt and self-imposed OR other-imposed demands and you will have a real holiday this season!
In the Spirit,
Rev. Cat