Where is the joy of the season?
‘Tis the season – the holidays are a time that are filled with joy, family and friends, celebrations, and lots of good fun. Well, maybe not exactly this year. We’ve all got a lot going on. We’ve got COVID – not joyful – full of fear, exhaustion, illness, grief. We haven’t moved on from the political struggles. In fact, we are move invested in our points of view than ever before. We are all struggling with racial inequality, each in our own way. But it’s the holidays – let’s put on a smile and power through. If you are like me, you might find that smile a little harder to find. The spirit we aspire to during the holidays is elusive for many of the people I talk to. Is it possible for us to deal with our feelings or will we be saying “Bah, Humbug!” in our hearts and minds throughout the season? Just as I was feeling particularly Scroogey, I saw an article in the LA Times. It gave me some hope – we might be able to find a way to feel like Scrooge after his evening with the ghosts.
The article was written by Jillian Horton, a Canadian internist, who also teaches the concept of mindfulness to doctors. She suggests that rather than try to put a smile on to cover up the negative feelings we have, that it might be better to use our “energy to reprogram how we process them.”
What does that mean?
She writes about her experiences with her own emotions, trying to censor or dismiss them, and how mindfulness made a profound difference for her. She says, “Feelings come and go; we don’t control them. What we do control is how we respond to our feelings.” She tells the story about working with other physicians at a mindfulness retreat. They paired up to talk about the challenges they were facing. She was still struggling with a very difficult situation at work and couldn’t seem to get past it. Then her partner asked her, “What would it be like to let go of those feelings?”
Wow! I thought that was an amazing question. When we are riled up or in a spiral of negative feelings, we don’t usually think of anything else. Sometimes we define ourselves by those feelings – they become who we are. We carry them around like a suitcase full of rocks. But what if we could really let all these emotions leave our minds and hearts? In fact, for our own well-being, we must let them go “because otherwise, it blackens the heart.” Ok, I buy into the idea of choice and can vouch for the fact that carrying around anger, hurt, fear and any of those really negative feelings we all get does us no good. I’ve seen the damage it can do to the people who carry it and the people who are around them. But can we really just let them go? Maybe we can’t let go just by saying it, but there are some steps in the practice of mindfulness that can move us along the path. So first consider where the negative feelings are coming from. Most likely they are from something in the past or something we expect in the future. We can have no impact on either of those time periods. But what we can do is focus on the moment.
Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center said in an LA Times article that “Most people are OK in the here and now. If you can put yourself in the present, you can handle difficult thinking.” Winston likens worry and negative feelings to a train. Once you go down that path it’s like being on a train, but the good news is that you can get off the train. She says “As you practice mindfulness, you don’t even have to get on the train in the first place. You can stay on the platform and let those scary thoughts go.”
Here’s how she suggests we can help ourselves get to the platform.
- Stop when you are anxious, angry, afraid, and take a breath. Pause for a moment; feel yourself grounded to the floor.
- Pay attention to what’s happening physically while you are locked into the emotions. Then ask yourself “how am I right now?” This will bring you back to the present moment.
- Now you have created a way to get off the train. You can let go of the feelings that are driving you. Leave them on the train.
This is a simple start. We all have the capability to focus in the moment, but it takes practice to really get the hang of it. The good news is that it is innate – we just need to find ways to tap into the present, instead of being swept up in negative emotions. Think about this: “Mindfulness is a quality that every human being already possesses, it’s not something you have to conjure up, you just have to learn how to access it.” Read more here
We have an option to identify what we feel, notice what’s happening to us, and then let it be and let it go. It’s ok to feel Scroogey, but it doesn’t have to color your life. It’s just for a moment. The holiday spirit and joy we need is not gone. Mindfulness can help us find it. The joy Scrooge felt on Christmas morning is right around the corner, so make space for it to fill your heart and mind.
Wishing you peace, joy, and good health during the holiday season and throughout the year to come!
Copyright © 2020 Revolutionary Conversations, LLC. All Rights Reserved
REVOLUTIONARY CONVERSATIONS
Now, possibly more than ever in our history, we need to focus on communication – how we have conversations that move us forward — even when we are stressed beyond belief. Revolutionary Conversations™ and the S.H.A.R.E.™ Tools will give you a platform to develop soft skills and a roadmap to navigate any conversation. From the shop floor to the board room, from the office to the living room, these simple, elegant Tools, will help you build consensus and solve problems, create effective teams, increase engagement with employees, family and friends.
Buy it today and put it to work now!