How to Ease the Holiday Blues

“I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.” – Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas

Charlie Brown immortalized the uncanny dissonance of the holiday blues in this classic Christmas tale. I first heard about the holiday blues when I was working at a psychiatric hospital in Cambridge and my colleague said to me in September: “These beds will all be full by the beginning of December”. I thought it was strange that at a time centered around happiness, fellowship, harmony and family, people find themselves lonely, sad, depressed — even suicidal. Clearly, the holidays are laden with expectations – expectations that have been built upon a foundation of years of nostalgia or, alternately, disappointment.

While some of us look forward to the holidays, others dread the impending stress that comes from overdrinking, overeating and over consuming. Many of us remember those who are no longer with us — family members who have passed, marriages that ended, and relationships that have been severed. Holidays propel us back into old family conflicts which faithfully resurface each year, which can deepen our sadness and unease.

Here are some ways you can lighten your expectations and ease the holiday blues. They are a holiday offering for you. Pick and choose as you like, rather than another dreaded list of to-do’s that you must get done by the year’s end.

Reassess your priorities

As the year closes, we feel pulled by an array of demands: attending office parties, cooking elaborate meals, traveling and spending beyond our means. What would actually bring you the most pleasure this holiday? Make a list of your holiday “shoulds”. Get inspired by Ellen Burstyn’s “should-less” days. See if you can cross off at least two or three items from your list.

Then, make a new list – of things that will bring you meaning and pleasure. How can these two lists be combined? For instance, if you want to reconnect with old friends but you are planning to cook a complicated meal to impress them, what if everyone brought a dish, instead? Collaborate with family and friends by letting them know how you feel about the holidays – you may be surprised to find they feel the same way – and together, find creative ways to ease holiday anxiety.

Give to those who need it most

The old adage is true: there is nothing that makes you feel less alone and less unworthy than to help others. For years, when my children were young, we would volunteer in a soup kitchen on Christmas day. The holidays offer so many opportunities to give to the community. And you will find that your act of altruism has the benefit of making you feel better, while also creating a sense of meaning that cuts through the superficialities of the holiday season. Here’s a list of possibilities for helping others in Toronto, or to find opportunities in your area, a quick internet search should lead you in the right direction.

Surround yourself with your family of choice

Many of us do not spend the holidays with those that we love the most. What I seek in the holidays is gathering, conviviality and warmth – a beating back against the cold through the fellowship of others. Create a place where you can be with those who accept you, free from judgment and awkward political conversations. If you feel isolated, far from your family, have a gathering of “the exiled and orphans.” This kind of fellowship brings great solace during the holidays.

Find some time for spiritual introspection

When I lived in Jerusalem, despite being Jewish, every year I would pick a different church to attend midnight mass. Regardless of your religion, being in a room where songs are sung, candles are lit and humans gather together can be uplifting, helping you to shift your focus from doing to simply being.

How are you handling the holidays this season? I’d love to hear from you
ganga@holisticcounsel.com

Unconditional Happiness

Feelings are so important to us because we base our sense of happiness on our feelings.

We think we have to achieve something, acquire something or be in a certain relationship in order to be happy. Actually, we don’t need any of these things to be happy. We just need to approach our feelings in a certain way to experience a sense of happiness unrelated to achievement, possession or relationships. That’s called: Unconditional Happiness.

In today’s society there seems to be a huge gap: we are intellectually advanced, but emotionally unaware. The goal of unconditional happiness is to create a balance between intellect and emotion, thinking and feeling, reason and intuition.

Have you noticed that you may have strong negative feelings that you can’t seem to resolve, like: depression, loneliness, anxiety, etc…. You may also be experiencing active emotions such as: anger, jealousy, fear, which erupt from time to time, especially in intimate relationships, where our buttons get pushed the most.

Most of us are locked into fixed, limiting patterns that we find difficult to get out of. Until we release the feelings associated with these patterns, we will be unable to change. For example: Negative feelings cause stress and stress is merely a negative emotion we are unable to release. This does not mean that we can be stress-free all the time. Even in our most positive relationships, we will from time to time experience periods of loneliness.

When we resist an experience, that negative energy gets trapped and held in our emotional and physical body. This in turn leads to suppression. A suppressed emotion goes into the subconscious, and creates a body of unresolved feelings and emotions, waiting to be released. The problem with suppressed emotions is: if we don’t consciously release the feelings, they will start coloring our experience, making us react in unreasonable and destructive ways. Often we blame the other person for our feelings because we are not aware that our own unresolved issues are being triggered.

What is the solution? Not to resist those negative feelings, but to allow yourself to experience them. Know that when you allow yourself to feel the feelings, they will come to a completion and you can then be free of them.

The Psychology Behind Meditation

One of the simplest definitions of meditation is 'the correct use of the mind'. The aim isn't to deny our thoughts, but to become aware of our mind, gain mastery over our mental activity and generate the highest quality thoughts. With practice, we will be able to slow down our minds and enter the inner space within our consciousness.

People learn to meditate for a variety of reasons. Some desire inner peace, others use it as a part of their quest for truth and understanding, and for some it is the hope of discovering the holy grail of happiness. Meditation is a spiritual, mental, and emotional healing process, with proven benefits to our physical well-being.

The main benefits of meditation are: improved levels of contentment, concentration, creativity and communication.

Surrounded by a highly charged, constantly changing world, we may find it difficult to maintain our attention span for any length of time. When we take the time to explore the real cause of stress, we would find distorted thinking leads to various emotions that we find stressful. Stress and tiredness is a modern disease. If we acknowledge that negative thoughts and stresses are not normal parts of a fulfilling life, than we can reap many rewards from the regular practice of meditation. It helps to balance our physical energies, which allows the body to function more effectively, while improving its ability its heal itself.

The physical benefits of meditation are: reduced blood pressure, increased vitality, better sleep patterns and greater pain control.

Meditation helps us gradually increase self-awareness and awaken who we really are. It is a journey through which we rediscover our natural resources of peace, power and love.

Do You Control Your Thoughts or Do Your Thoughts Control You?

Plato: "We can easily forgive a child who is is afraid of the dark, but the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light."

Negative thoughts are controlled by your emotions. A quick fix can be to repeat positive affirmations. Sometimes all that's necessary to change your thoughts is practice and repetition of healthier thinking.

Affirmations work like commands given to a computer. They influence how we perceive ourselves, other people, events and circumstances.

Here is how this works: The repeated words build mental images in the mind and focus us on positive, productive thoughts. Frequent repetitions are like adding drops of water to a bucket, changing our habits over time. The conscious mind, starts the process and then the subconscious mind takes charge. This means that the most frequent thoughts that pass through your mind, ultimately effect your life and your future.

Here are some examples of positive affirmations:

I seek people who love and nurture me

I am centered and balanced

I can change

I value and love myself exactly the way I am

While affirmations are a highly effective tool, for some people reciting affirmations, will not allow them to deal with the root issues and negative emotions. For those people I help them to feel the underlying feelings first and then transform into peaceful feelings through a process called Focusing. Next week I will go into detail on this exercise. In the meantime, you can read more about it on my website here.

How Can I be Happy? What is Happiness?

Why is happiness so difficult to hold on to? It seems like we are insatiable, anything that pleases us will eventually become stale. This can be a force for good, it pushes us to do more than rest on our laurels, to go out and succeed in life. There is a huge rush that comes with pursuing feelings of lust, ambition, hate, anger and jealousy; but with it life can become a series of conflicts and problems. It can be easy to lose heart.

You may think: "If have a house and wife/husband, I’ll be happy", only to discover that once you’ve achieved these, you are still dissatisfied after a while, feeling an emptiness within. A void threatening to swallow up everything around you. Lots of people try to fill this void up with their bad habits. Kirstie Alley fills it with food, Charlie Sheen tries to fill it with drugs.

When this desperate discomfort or dissatisfaction spills over into negative behavior, its usually the result of anxiety over a central problem that you are ignoring or completely unaware of.

Finding peace is not just having a few hours or days of tranquility by yourself, but finding a higher state of mind where you are in complete harmony with yourself. The secret here is to find and deal with the root of your real problems. If you have negative body issues for example, then binging on comfort foods will lead you into a vicious cycle, but by actively working to resolve those issues with your body image, you can learn to move past any negative behavior and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Once you've developed better habits, those troubles that drove you to negative choices will no longer bother you. This can take time and commitment, but the end result is a longer, healthier, happier life.

True happiness is a state characterized by stability and contentedness. Learn to be comfortable with yourself and the world around you, accept that some things in life are beyond your control and find joy in things just as they are.