The Holidays can be a challenging time

The Holidays can be a challenging time!

Here are some of the things that I struggle with during the holidays and a few insights and tools to help make it most enjoyable.

Reduced sunlight

As we near the winter solstice, there’s a lot less daylight to stimulate our natural systems of wellness inside. There are approximately 10 hours of daylight at the Winter Solstice here in the mid-Atlantic, as opposed to almost 15 hours at the Summer Solstice. So in winter, we are operating on roughly 2/3 of the nourishment that we receive from the sun in the summer. That’s significant, and it is a partial explanation for our reduced feeling of wellness during the holidays! Let’s be grateful for the sun, and all the forms of love that support us. We need sunshine, so let’s get creative and find ways to get outdoors and exercise, even when it’s cold outside.

The beauty of Childhood hopes and dreams

We all have a sense that our childhood could have been a little bit better than it was. When we remember the magic of Christmas and the holiday season, we get nostalgic for that feeling of being a child again. Most of us long for those feelings of joy and excitement, and anticipate the light and love of Christmas. We are adults now yet, we wish to be amazed again by the warmth and support of the holiday season. All of those forms of love are still available for us, but they are in different forms. Our parents may no longer be with us, and we may not be among our loved ones, but the forms of love of the earth and the joys of life are still here to support you. We just need to scratch around to find them and practice gratitude for them, and bring more of them into our lives. We can all do this by connecting with others and building our supportive village.

Feelings of loneliness are natural

An important part of feeling loved, and adequate is avoiding disconnection and isolation. Occasionally, we get accustomed to being a little lonely, and that can become part of our identity and our story unconsciously. The truth is that we are descended from people who got lonely, and who came together to help each other to get their needs met. Think about it – the people who did not get lonely, did not come together to survive, and probably did not leave surviving offspring. So, it’s completely natural for us to feel lonely sometimes – it’s in our genes as we are directly descended from them, and we exhibit some of their characteristics.

Our ability to work together is also natural

The good news is that we are also descended from the people who survived. The people who worked together and shared with each other, and developed our gifts in service to something bigger than ourselves. These are some of the ancient truths that I write about in my book, The Authentically Grounded Man. We have become disconnected from some of these basic human instinct of sharing and supporting each other. We have not been exercising lately, and we have weakened some of our natural inclination to cultivate love in our village and community. All of those forms of love are still out there, and we instinctually want those things in our lives, but we often don’t feel appreciated for our gifts and talents and our efforts. The key is to connect with others and work towards a shared goal together, whether it’s hosting a holiday party with your family, or volunteering at a food bank; we can only thrive when we are sharing our gifts with the world in service to something bigger than ourselves. I recommend Love as the thing that we can be in service of that’s bigger than ourselves. I call myself a Love Coach, and I encourage us all to open our hearts to accept ourselves most fully, so we can get all of our needs met and confidently share our gifts with the world. Sharing love and support with others towards a goal that is bigger than ourselves is the path of love and wellness and contentment.

Stepping into Abundance

As I’ve also written in my book, much of our society and individual neediness is based on a perspective of a scarcity, where we feel that the good things in the world are in short supply. When we are under the influence of scarcity, we tend to wonder if we are good enough ourselves. When we humans are under the influence of fear, we lose touch with our ability to be grateful for what we have. Do we see the glass is half full or half empty? We can practice gratitude and be thankful for the things we have in our life, and this simple act opens our perspective and beyond our personal drama. We begin to see more opportunities for success and love and connection in the world. We do this by stepping out of fear, and through the process, we rewire our thought patterns and can redefine our adequacy. We see more of the beauty in the world, and begin to recognize all the forms of love they have been supporting us all along, rather than chronically focusing on what’s missing in our lives. It takes a little bit of time and practice, as I’ve outlined in my book, but when we shift our perspective into one of abundance, we get very optimistic about what’s possible in our lives. We naturally use our creativity and find ways to connect with others and share in the abundance of the world. This can help us appreciate our family and our experiences more fully because everywhere we find opportunities for learning and growing. This is one simple approach to opening our hearts! Life is too short to dwell in what’s missing, especially when we have an opportunity to thrive right now. So let’s do that more and let’s recognize the expanding perspective of the love and joy that’s available for all of us to share in the world.

Choose healthy ways to express your Love

Let’s be careful not to drink too much over the holidays or to over indulge in other ways because this will suppress our joy and enthusiasm and make us lethargic. Exercising is critical to supporting our well-being. That’s our goal, and we all need to support our well-being! Our bodies were meant to move, and we feel good and alive and our mind is nourished with feelings of wellness when we exercise consistently. Expressing gratitude is one of the 12 happiness principles from Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky from her book the How of Happiness. Let’s get clear on what we want and surround ourselves with supporting and loving people and express our gratitude.

Your biggest gift is your Love and attention

A lot of us try to find the perfect gift for our loved ones to express our love to them. I urge everyone to take that pressure off themselves and step out of trying to be perfect. Perfectionism is manufactured in our ego, and it is an indication of fear and scarcity. Express your love to your loved ones with words and with your actions and through sharing your attention. Release the need to give the perfect gift to show your love to them. This takes practice, and it’s a good idea to let them know what you are doing. We can release our need to appear perfect and be inspiring to others instead. I have been doing this one lately, and it has relieved much of my anxiety. I am practicing releasing my need to be perfect for others in writing these words today. It’s similar to the process of focusing on the glass half-full. When we remove our attention from our perceived inadequacies, we grow our internal wellness and release our hidden shame. We no longer need to be perfect for others or to compensate for something missing inside because we can show up and be our best now when it really matters. This moment is powerful, and it’s our opportunity to express our Love and joy and our feelings for each other.

Release the need for perfection and find your gifts

I believe that we all have love inside to share and special gifts and talents that we can share with the world to create more love and freedom. I believe that we humans have vast needs for love and connection, which we are often unaware of. Most of us require more recognition and praise than we are receiving, and this makes us needy and undermines our wellness. Let’s start by recognizing our needs for challenge and praise, and let’s help each other get those needs met by inspiring each other and supporting each other. It’s helpful for me to consider myself to be a special-needs human, and that I don’t operate at my highest potential unless I get all of my needs met. If we can come to terms with our needs, we can solve some of the problems that face our world and connect more easily with others.

We all have special gifts and need a bit of special attention to get our needs met

My goodness, we all have so many talents, yet we crucify ourselves for not being good at this, or that. Let’s help each other in Village the way that those with exceptional gifts and abilities can be supported and let’s not judge each other for our imperfections because that keeps everyone stuck.

Wisdom from an absent-minded professor

The folklore about Albert Einstein is that he was so brilliant and focused that he couldn’t take care of himself. The people in his community supported him because they knew he could solve some big problems in the world, so they cooked meals for him and protected him, so he could do his great work. They helped him and loved him as a valued and appreciated member of the village. We can protect each other with that same type of Love and support! He was an absent-minded professor, yet he thrived and became one of our best because he was supported. They painted his door red, so he would know which house was his. We all have a story and special gifts, and we all need encouragement and love and support to share our best fully with the world. Let’s not beat ourselves up! We all get lonely sometimes, so let’s not conclude that we are unlovable just because we are isolated and alone today. Let’s remember that we are descended from the people who got lonely, so it’s natural for us to want to connect with others and share enthusiasm and love. Let’s all make an effort to get out of the house and connect with others and work towards something bigger than ourselves. This is how we can not only get through the holidays, but we can thrive in our lives and enjoy every day as the beautiful gift that it is.

Albert Einstein wrote

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a brief visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself to give, in return, as much as I have received and am still receiving.”

Let’s be inspired to step out of fear and scarcity and into abundance. Let’s live our lives as an expression of the Love we have already received, as Einstein did.

Muhammad Ali wrote

“Live every day as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.”

and

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.

Stillness is a need

Let’s take a deep breath and enjoy some stillness and feel into this downtime and rebuild some energy. The days are shorter and the nights are longer, and all of this affects our moods. It’s an opportunity to in touch with our body and out of our head. We evolved in these cycles of light and dark, and our feelings and energy levels are influenced by them. We are inseparable from these powerful forces of the Earth. They nourish us and support us, and they are the cycles of love and life. Embodying love and life and aligning ourselves with these forces is a strategy for living fully. Fighting these forces leads to exhaustion and keeps us stuck in our head. In my program, I write about developing presence and holding parts of our attention in our body, and feeling the sensations of enthusiasm and inspiration with curiosity. When we cut off from these forces, we cut off from our natural inclinations and motivations and get stuck in our head. So, when the world starts slowing down, let’s pay attention. In the Springtime, when life begins to expand and bloom, we will be expanding and blooming along with it more easily. Let’s not fight the darkness. Let’s embrace the light with gratitude and live fully and get curious and creative with what we have in our life. And let’s embrace the holidays and express our love most fully. To do this, we must feel into love inside and be comforted by it.

Happy Holidays,

Thank you, Joe