What to expect from the Holiday Season
With the Holiday season upon us, I thought I’d revisit the notions of expectation and stress. While this season tends to be synonymous with family and friends and togetherness…it can also be a lightning rod for feelings of pressure and overwhelm. Let’s explore what this is about below.
Also, on this week’s podcast, Linda and I interviewed Elizabeth Phinney who regales us with her experience and wisdom around health and thriving (even, and perhaps most especially, at 95). Take a listen.
Now, onto this week’s blog:
Ah...the holiday season.
Full of sugar plum fairies, Yule logs and merriment as we gather together to share our joy and love and laughter with friends and family.
Ah yes...the holiday season.
A time to reflect and relax in the company of those we love...sipping hot chocolate as we sing in perfect 3-part harmony wearing our cozy winter sweaters and surrounded by bowls of yummy treats and good cheer.
Ah yes...the holiday season.
Sitting around a beautifully arranged table with immaculately prepared foods displayed in gorgeously accented dishware and consumed by graciously mannered and complimentary company.
Ah yes...the holiday season.
It's here.
And...like every year that came before, expectations are high.
We all want to recreate that hallmark moment or classic holiday tale.
More often than not, however, at some point in the festivities, we end up with spilled drinks, sour moods, family squabbles and burnt offerings.
Not exactly what we had envisioned or hoped for.
The pressure and expectation to create the perfect holiday experience is perhaps more highly felt by the women of the family.
And perhaps that pressure and expectation has unwittingly and unknowingly become a tradition in and of itself.
And so, each year around this time, we feel that pressure and expectation to...
give the perfect gift
prepare the perfect foods
offer the perfect drink
select the perfect music
entertain the perfect guests
tell the perfect story
play the perfect games
sing the perfect songs
wear the perfect outfit
decorate the perfect room
carry the perfect weight
be the perfect hostess
ALL while appearing to be perfectly relaxed.
Yup.
We put the pressure on ourselves to create the perfect holiday experience
so that others can enjoy themselves
and
if truth be told, so that we can appear perfect in their eyes.
EXCEPT...
we don't feel perfect.
We feel pressure and stress and expectation weighing us down.
To make matters worse...that pressure that we feel quite often finds a not-so-festive release at the expense of our closest family members.
So much for the perfect holiday experience!!!!!
Perhaps then, it is time to consider a new tradition.
One in which we recognize the humor and irony in our thinking and our patterns of doing and being during this season.
Perhaps we begin with how wewant tofeeland remember that
we are only ever experiencing our thinking.
The pressure and stress we feel is, in fact, created by thought.
Our thought.
So,
we must learn to appreciate and acknowledge that...
if we are capable of thinking and believing and experiencing thoughts that create feelings of pressure and stress and expectation
then
we are also capable of thinking and believing and experiencing thoughts that create feelings of joy and happiness and peace.
Recognizing that we are only ever one thought away from a new feeling is HUGE.
This holiday season, begin to notice how you want to feel and what thoughts you choose to believe. Notice what shows up for you.
When the feelings of pressure and stress return...as they will...recall again, with humor and irony, the nature of our very human thinking...and then let it go.
Pressure, expectation, perfection?
They are all the result of our thinking.
Joy, happiness and peace?
They too are the result of our thinking.
Happy Holidays everyone!!!