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The winter holiday season will be upon us before we know it. The leaves are changing colors here in New England. You may notice that many stores have already put out their Christmas decor and some items, though we haven’t even had Halloween yet. What’s the rush, you ask? I ask that too. Still, it doesn’t hurt to consider in advance how we will set the tone of the upcoming winter holidays.
I want to wish everyone a quiet and peaceful holiday season, no matter how you do, or don’t celebrate it. It’s usually our choice whether or not it’s all super hectic, or stressful. For many, chaos, exhaustion, triggered memories, sadness, and ruffled feathers are often a part of this season, unfortunately.
All is pretty quiet here, at least for the moment and I am so grateful for that. It is these quiet moments to which we must give our fullest attention. I keep reminding myself of that. My memory sometimes fails me about this hard lesson, but I am getting much better.
Nowadays I am mostly thrilled when life is serene, and uneventful, but I used to find that bland and boring. I used to even be afraid to verbalize that things were going well. Perhaps I absorbed some of my Eastern European ancestors’ beliefs about attracting bad luck or the “evil eye”. I have certainly done a lot of changing, but I have had to work at it.
I watch others rushing madly to finish their holiday preparations. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of good cheer, at least to the casual observer. I was at the supermarket yesterday and it was quite a scene. I told myself this year that I will simply not allow myself to get swept up in it, or to expend much energy being overly sad about my previous losses. I know I have said that before, but this time I’m sticking to it. You might think that is easy, since Christmas is not really my holiday anyway, and Chanukah, a relatively minor but not unimportant celebration and commemoration, is over. It has not been easy. It has taken me a damn long time.
We do have a family gathering at this season, because we are a multi-cultural, multi-religion family, and it seems there is always a lot of planning, even for our small group. It may not be my holiday, but I will grab any opportunity to get together with my now-small clan. I am so happy when they are all well and we can put away some of our concerns about life, about the world, at least for a bit. We really need to do that this year, since none of us are at all happy with what is going on in our country. That’s an understatement, to be sure!
I never thought I would love calmness. My favorite time now, I think, is when all is still, when I can smell the crispness of the winter night air, This is the time when I try hard to quiet my monkey mind and listen to my own voice, whispering prayers that are like poems from the deepest part of my heart. These poems may begin as shaky, fearful pleas, but finally, I allow myself to focus on letting the fears and worries slides softly over the rooftops. I must continue to practice letting go, since it is not my innate nature, but we can all change. Change is the way of the world.
Tomorrow is always a time for new hope and new possibilities, if we open ourselves up to this, no matter what has happened in the past. We don’t erase the past. It, and the people from it, are still very important parts of us! It doesn’t matter if new possibilities scare us. Change will happen. There is no way to stop it. I wish everyone I know could recognize that. I wish I could teach this to them. Sometimes they listen, but sometimes they are too filled with their own loss, their own fears and rage.
Yes, we lose loved ones and other things may not go the way we would like. We can allow our misery and fears to darken every bit of light there is. We can develop the habit of expecting that we will be unhappy, and that this is our lot in life… Or we can decide once and for all, that regardless of what it takes, we will figure out how to recognize and enjoy our blessings. We can decide to actively seek and find the courage and will to go on, and to do some good while we are still here, so that each of us can hopefully, leave a unique mark on the Universe. We can decide to take pleasure in doing that.
Yesterday, December 23rd was my late sister, Carol Salmansohn’s birthday . She was ten and a half years older than me. She was like my second mother. Carol has been gone a long time now, as have many other beloved family members and friends. The last time I saw her at the very end of her life, when we were ready to leave for our flight home from our visit with her in California, she had some very wise words for me. I knew she didn’t have much time left and I broke down during our goodbyes, saying, “I don’t know how I can live on this Earth without you. You have always been in my world. What will it be like without you?” She replied, “You can and you will. That’s what we do. We go on.”
As we approach 2019, I hope you will spend some time considering how you want to change, what works for you and what doesn’t. Imagine yourself letting go of the things that have been weighing you down and that don’t serve you anymore, as you begin to feel the calm, peace and hope you deserve.
Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC is a Life and Grief Transformation/Life Reinvention Coach and a poet/writer.
Iris helps people (mostly midlife women, Baby Boomers and widowed women) find new purpose and passion and reinvent their lives no matter what they’ve been through. She will help you figure out how to transform past pain or difficult life stories into learning you can leverage to be a happier, more successful person.
She is an expert in grief and loss issues and at figuring out how to make lemonade out of those sour lemons.
Please spend some time on this web site looking around. There’s lots here you may find useful.
Contact Iris to set up an exploratory call to determine if coaching is right for you and if you and she are a good match. I invite you to have a conversation.
