Love makes all the difference in managing Christmas excitement, expectations, and depression.
Once when I was home from boarding school in New York City, where my parents lived when they were eight years old, I got really excited to look at our tall Christmas tree that went all the way to the ceiling and my dad had to cut the top off, Much to my son’s annoyance. regret.
What a big tree that was, all green and its scent of fir filled the air of our apartment. Outside there was snow spiraling in the air with white fluff hitting us in our crisp, cool faces. If my dad wasn’t watching me, he’d be eating fresh snow off the curb or making snowballs for you-know-what.
I was excited and very happy with the arrival of Christmas because love was here. My mother told me that people were always nicer to each other at Christmas. Yeah, he still didn’t know why, but there was magic in the air!
However, when we climbed the big tree up the stairs, my father and I, and entered the apartment, cut off from the top and all, I looked at it and passed out and hit my forehead above my left eye against the radiator as I I fell.
The plain truth that I realized later is that the promise of Christmas is the promise of love, of care, of new life itself.
Have you ever been disappointed by the Christmas gifts you received? I certainly have. It seems that those who love us can never truly give us the gift we truly long for. Is it not because we yearn for love in our life?
Why do families tend to go to their parents’ house at Christmas, or to a sibling’s house?
It’s called the family archetype. We return to the nest where our existence began. In nature at the darkest time of the year, the winter solstice, the new light is born. After the longest night and the shortest day, the days start to get longer and we know that after winter spring and summer will come. Within us is the birth of hope again, of another year of life, but with wonderful new things possible.
It is the death-rebirth cycle. Not only nature goes into hibernation, and living things are still but not dead. It is also hibernation in the inner womb. It is the season of inner light, so the outer light of many candles lit in the afternoon and evening brings joy to our hearts.
Where I lived for a while, both in Sweden and Norway, they have a custom of lighting large candles that the wind can’t blow out and placing them outside shops and restaurants on the sidewalks. This represents the light of winter when all is darkness.
Darkness represents depression, the withdrawal of light, vital force, energy and enthusiasm for new projects. In England it seems that during the whole month of December nobody works so hard in their companies. What are they doing? Good restaurants are full all afternoon and night because companies bring all their employees to company Christmas parties. They stay for hours, believe me. And they are mostly in no condition to work after such a party.
Ancient societies always had winter light festivals, whether or not snow visited them due to the weather.
Christmas, the birth of the Savior, was placed by the fathers of the Church near the time of the traditional winter solstice. Whether they knew it or not, they were sensing the need for humans to go through their own internal cycles of death and rebirth.
And we go through ours too, whether we consciously know it or not.
Here are some suggestions to guide you through the winter break. Don’t worry if you are religious or not. Look for the spiritual meaning of Christmas-Winter Solstice in your own inner being.
If you find yourself caught up in a Christmas gift-buying spree, remember that each of these material gifts truly symbolizes the One Great Gift, which is the gift of life itself. Life comes through love.
If you don’t have as much love in your life right now, don’t get totally depressed about it, or if you are depressed, don’t hide yourself with alcohol or anything else you want to take to relieve your depression. .
Do not let materialism dominate you. In other words, don’t give yourself totally to others in gifts or time spent with so many people. Choose. Choose your close friends and family. Choose what you want to do on vacation and choose something that you feel compelled to do.
Relax on the holidays. Take time to be with co-workers and friends. Remember that the spirit of this time is bringing light out of darkness. Take some time to write an old friend something serious about you and how life is going for both of you.
After being with many people celebrating, he also suggests to some of those closest to him that they all go somewhere in nature to walk.
Remember that your life is a year older, like everyone’s. You let go of the old year to make room for the new by acknowledging the old life, or highlights of the year, and then letting them go.
When offering holiday toasts, you can ask each person to toast a highlight of their being or working together over the past year. Therefore, it is recognizing the light, symbolically the times of greatest value of the year.
If you just accept things, or act happy when you’re not feeling so happy, or get totally stressed out with shopping and planning dinners and parties, then you’ll lose a lot of energy and feel down by the time Christmas comes or right after.
Don’t forget that the New Year is coming soon!
It seems that most of us want to be with other people during the transition to the new year. What is the tradition of kissing at midnight but the symbolic hope of true love in the new year?
If you’re not with someone special, don’t get depressed about it. If year after year you are not with someone, then make sure you go to a special New Years workshop or something.
Give up something old in the transition to the new year. However, also focus on something new for the new year.
I once asked a group of twenty people who wanted me to lead their New Year’s celebration at sea in Big Sur, California, on a farm, ‘what’s the worst New Year’s you’ve ever had?’ People told amazing stories. One theme dominated them all. It seems that when the New Year approaches, expectations are awakened. You are supposed to be extremely happy and optimistic. But what if you just don’t feel that way?
Understandable, we psychologists say. Expectations are never as good as reality.
The best attitude to approach the Christmas and New Year season is to open yourself to all feelings without waiting for what should happen.
Interestingly, Christmas fights are common in families that get together every Christmas. You don’t have to fight, but families do. As my mother used to say, people are nicer to each other at Christmas. Was that a wish or a reality? She and her sister sometimes had horrible fights.
The problem is that most of us do not receive or give enough love and appreciation during the year, so at the time of love and the new birth we secretly feel depressed about not having enough love in our lives. We fight each other and get sick and depressed, instead of choosing to love the best we can in all the places we can.
Be careful because Christmas symbolizes the birth of a new life for love, and the New Year symbolizes the sacrifice of the old life for the new one. Sacrifice your negativity and pain and choose to love again.
Love is choosing to love fully despite the disappointments and hurts of the past. You must love yourself first before you can love others. You must love others first before they can love you.
The only true gift at Christmas is love.
Love is accepting the unacceptable because you want a new life for yourself and others.
Love is the sacrifice of old wounds and traumas in order to love and share again.
Love is caring about what is important in life. Love is caring about who is important in your life.
Love is feeding the rat behind the door as well as the beautiful kitty in front of the door.
Love is not perfect, but the choice to love is wholeness itself.
Love does not end hate, but it offers an opportunity for change.
Love is exchanging the old life for the new. Lovers may be old, but their love can always be new.
However, do not expect perfection in love, or the ideal of love. A rose can be almost perfect, but you don’t have to be.
You probably won’t find your ideal gift or person out there. You have to allow quiet moments this holiday season to feel your inner self and do things that are meaningful to you. Love yourself first and you will love others. Try to get love from others and you will hurt yourself and them.
Don’t try to buy love with Christmas gifts. Take it easy. Decelerate. The right gift at the right time will come to you if you allow it. Go for the simple. If you have to put too much effort into it, why do it?
Don’t just send Christmas cards, if you still do. Send some sincere letters to share with some people who have really counted for you in your life.
Don’t just throw parties or go to parties, or family gatherings. Be sure to schedule special times, like lunches together, for special friends you don’t see as often due to the world of work every day the rest of the year.
What people need is your love, not your gifts. You need to allow the time and inner receptivity to love and allow love to come your way.
It is also a moment to remember. With that special friend or family member, make time for the two of you to sit together, or go for an hour’s walk in nature, just to tune in.
How has this year been for you? you ask. And you yourself share something about which you feel more good, and also about what has been difficult for you.
Remember, the true gift is love. We were born by an act of love and closeness and thus we come to life. We have the gift of life while we have it. Don’t worry about death. The real problem is to live fully when you are alive.
Don’t rush through Christmas and New Year any more than you have to. Slow down. Don’t drink or eat a lot to avoid a secret pain, or because you think you have to be happy all the time during the holidays. You do not.
If you are yourself, you will feel the sadness of what did not happen to you last year and the joy of the positive things that have become the bright lights on your Christmas tree of life and love.
The real star is love.
