2020 has been just plain bonkers, hasn’t it?
And if your world has been anything like ours lately,
(and we’re guessing it has been)…
Your ideas of what a happy holiday season are getting tossed around like a rag doll.
We know the world seems crazy with a capital C right now but there are some tricks to having a happier holiday
season and we’ll share one with you now.
Here’s Holidays Happiness Trick #1…
That isn’t a trick at all but an understanding as Byron Katie says that reality is always kinder than the story we make up about life and what’s going on in the moment.
And this includes our preferences about the holidays.
Because of the current worldwide health crisis…
For the first time in the 22 years since we’ve been together, we’re NOT going to Susie’s sister’s house, two hours away on Christmas eve.
We’re not going to be with her extended family.
We’re not going to get to be with people we love and only get to see a few times a year.
We’re not going to get to be in a house full of jacked-up-on sugar-kids and grandkids all vying for attention in their own unique way.
And our two-hour long Christmas eve ritual (complete with carols being sung by everyone while Susie plays the keyboard, games and candle-light meditation)…
GONE.
Maybe forever.
We’re sure you’ve got your own version of this right now.
The question is…What now?
How do you find the happiness in your heart in a time of so much change, uncertainty and longing for what was?
The answer is look toward what doesn’t change.
We forget that life is always changing and THIS (whatever THIS is that’s going on in your life) is going to change.
It’s going to pass. It’s going to move.
It always does.
Deciding what story you’re going to tell yourself and believe about what your reality is in the moment is what’s important.
Not getting to be with Susie’s extended family this holiday season is painful.
And like everything else in life…it’s a choice.
As a result, there’s another choice we get to make.
The choice to be happy or the choice to be miserable.
What we’ve come to see in our lives is there’s always a choice.
And the choice to be happy regardless of our circumstances is one worth making.
These days you don’t have to look very far to see an example of something tragic or painful.
At this moment, we have a dear friend in the last stages of his life, infected with Covid and dealing with the devastating affects of Alzheimer’s.
Even with all of this…
We offer a simple invitation to you (that we will listen to ourselves)…
Love yourself.
Love others.
Be kind to yourself.
Stay in THIS moment.
Don’t futurize.
Don’t make up stories and don’t drag the past into the now.
Above all…
Give up your expectations about what form happiness has to take in order for it to be real and true and yours.