Happy Holidays, Sad Holidays

Robert Burney M.A.


Holidays, Anniversaries, and Birthdays - set up by emotional expectations...

The holidays were always a very hard time for me emotionally. Being alone on
Christmas and New Years Eve was very painful. So painful that sometimes I
would arrange to be with someone or with a group of people just so I wouldn't be
alone. That often was more painful than being alone. And on those occasions
when I was in a relationship during the holidays it was also painful because
there was something missing, somehow I was failing the other person or she was
failing me because even though there were moments of Joy and Love, it never
felt quite like it "should" feel.

After I had been in recovery a few years - in the course of trying to figure
out how I set myself up to be a victim with my expectations - I had a very
important insight about holidays. I realized that holidays - not just Christmas
and New Years Eve but Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, etc. - along with days
like anniversaries and my birthday were the times which I judged myself the
most.
My expectations of what a holiday "should" be, of where I "should" be at a
certain age, of how my life "should" look at this particular time, were causing
me to unmercifully beat myself up. I was buying into the disease voice which
was telling me that I was a loser and a failure (or going to the other
extreme and blaming someone else for my feelings.) I was giving power to the
toxic
shame that told me that I was unworthy and unlovable.

I realized that I was judging myself against standards that weren't real,
against expectations that were a fantasy, a fairy tale. The fairy tale that
everyone should be happy and cheerful during the Christmas holidays is
ridiculous
just like the myth of happily-ever-after is a false belief that doesn't apply
to this level of existence. The holidays are just like every other day of the
year only magnified. That means there will be moments of happiness and Joy
but there will also be moments of sadness and hurt.

Christmas is about Love and birth - rebirth. The Winter Solstice is the time
of the longest darkness and marks the point of increasing light, the new
beginning. Hanukkah is a celebration of, and time of, rededication. Kwanzaa is
a
time of recommitment. These are all times of both celebration and
introspection. Of assessing the past and focusing on what we want to create in
the
future (New Years resolutions.) Any new beginning, any birth or rebirth is a
also
an ending. With every ending there is sadness, feelings of loss and grief.
Loss because of Loved ones who are no longer in our life, grief because Loved
ones who are still in our life cannot see us or understand us, sadness because
of things that ended and people we have had to let go of during the past
year.

What is so important, what has changed my experience of these Holidays
completely is allowing myself to accept the reality of my life (looking at both
the
half of the glass that is full as well as the empty part) and be wherever I
need to be emotionally - that is, allowing myself to be emotionally honest with
myself. That does not mean that I have to be emotionally honest with other
people. If I am feeling grief because I am alone on the Holiday it does not
serve me to share that with someone who is not being emotionally honest -
someone
who will shame me for not being cheerful. If I am feeling hurt or scared or
angry I will only share that with someone who is a safe person to share with
emotionally - that is, they won't discount and invalidate my feelings or try to
fix me.

I don't have to live up to some false expectations about how I "should" be
feeling today. It was trying to deny the pain and sadness, the anger and fear,
while judging myself as shameful for not feeling what I "should" feel or being
who I "should" be, that caused me to get depressed and suicidal. When I am
in my feeling process I actually am a lot happier and feel more Joy than I ever
did before I learned how to be emotionally honest. It was on Christmas about
10 years ago that I got real clear that I could feel more than one feeling at
once. I was sad that it was Christmas and I was alone, and I was grieving
for all of the Christmases that I had been sad and alone - which were very valid
and legitimate feelings. But as I went around to various clubhouses and
friend's homes that were having open houses, I could feel happy to see people I
cared about. I could feel Joy and gratitude that I was in recovery and feeling
my feelings at the same time I was owning the sadness of that day and the
grief of all the lonely holidays that I had experienced.

It is so very important to stop judging ourselves against someone else's
standards and shaming ourselves due to a fantasy of where we "should be." We
are
exactly where we are supposed to be. We are Spiritual Beings having a human
experience. We are perfect in our Spiritual Essence, we are perfectly where we
are supposed to be on our Spiritual path and from a human perspective we will
never do human perfectly.

A natural normal part of our human experience is feeling the feelings - we
need to accept that. No one who is being emotionally honest with themselves can
go through the holidays without feeling sadness and hurt, anger and fear.
The good news is that the more we are able to own those emotions the more
moments of peace, Joy, and happiness we can have.

So, have a happy, merry, sad, Joyous, painful, peaceful, scary, cheerful in
the moment Holiday season experiencing what it feels like to be alive in human
body. Whatever your celebration: Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice,
Kwanzaa, New Years, etc. let it be about the new beginning; the rededication to:
the
recommitment to: the rebirth of; life. But most of all, let it be about Love
by first of all Loving yourself enough to tell the critical parent voice in
your head to shut up with all the comparisons and shame and judgment.



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