​We have made it through the Holidays, almost!  One more week and we will close out the year and complete our holiday journey.  Most of us are feeling some relief.  We made it, so far!  There may have been moments when stress began to grow, but we were able to manage them.  Regardless, few will have lasting scars.  But we may have memories of what we could have done better.
 
It is important to remember that the holidays have not caused the stress we have experienced over the last month.  They may have provided the opportunity, but we are the authors of our own holiday stress.  Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and page by page we have scripted stress into our lives.  We invited it into our holidays with unreasonable expectations, unrealistic goals, refusing help, and fighting our way through on sheer determination and grit. 
 
The holidays are intended to be opportunities for celebration, honoring something important in our lives.  The holidays are times to honor the families that surround us, the faith that sustains us, the year we are completing, and the year that is waiting on the doorstep.  For some there may have been moments of renewed grief over loved ones who are no longer with us. For some, there were moments when we tried to make everyone happy.  There were moments when we leaned heavily on our faith and may have felt like it was not enough.  For some there were moments when we felt regret for past disappointments and anxiety over an unrealized future.  The honoring became difficult as the stress began to build.
 
We cannot control the circumstances, but we can control the stress we experience when grief, disappointment, regret, and anxiety show themselves.  The ancient spiritual leaders of many traditions talk about “letting go” and “detachment.”  These words recognize that holding on to something is a choice we make.  When we hold on to disappointment, regret will grow.  When we hold on to anger, fear will take root.  When we hold on to our losses, grief will take root.  If we fight to resist these very natural responses, stress will spread like Kudzu over a Southern Forest. 
 
But letting go is not as simple as opening our hand.  It takes a deeper awareness of how “holding on” and “attachments” create our sense of being and purpose.  Letting go and detaching demands a growing sense of who we are in our body-mind-soul.  Once we come to see grief, anxiety, disappointment, and fear as a part of who we are, the stress begins to melt away.  We no longer fight against the currents and allow them to carry us to new lands of living and self-understanding.   By letting go of the desire to control them we find new lives dawning with the new year.  That detachment makes all the difference.
 
We have one more week of the holidays.  As we prepare to enter the new year, let go of your need to control the life that awaits you.  Acknowledge your companions, even those that cause you pain.  Allow them to help you become better acquainted with your body-mind-soul.  Leave stress behind and celebrate the person you are becoming.  Honor your grief, anger, disappointment, fear, and anxiety.  They are teaching you wondrous things about the new you in 2019.
 
Happy New Year,
 
Bob 

Next week I will begin a three week break as I take a vacation and open an office for Spiritual Direction at First Christian Church of Pasadena.  I will see folks on Thursdays by appointment only.  Email me for more information at [email protected].  See you on 1/23/19 when we will begin exploring Self-Care when we begin new journeys in life.  Happy New Year!  BD

​Resilience is a good thing.  We all need to be able to bounce when we stumble and fall.  A little bounce helps us through disappointments, sudden changes, and surprises.  But there is Bouncing Resilience and then there is Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy!
 
During the Holiday season we are exposed to the three too’s.  TOO MUCH! TOO LITTLE! TOO LATE!  There is too much to do, too much to eat, too much to buy, and too much to cook, etc. etc.  But it is also a time for too little.  There is too little energy, too little money, too little time, etc. etc. etc.  All this boils down to too little too late.  We try and get everything done and discover that we stared too late in the year, too late in the month, and too late in the day. 
 
How do we respond?  Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy!  We careen through our chores, ricocheting off of one surprise after another.  The grocery store is out of our spouse’s favorite Christmas Candy.  Amazon just emailed you that your package would arrive after Christmas.  The butter comes up one stick short for your family’s favorite cookie recipe.  We bounce off one thing after another until all we do is react.  The closer we get to December 25th, the more our reactions become over-reactions.
 
We keep telling ourselves that all we need to do is focus.  We may remember the naïve wisdom of Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester as he lectured Hawkeye on how he planned to do meatball surgery.  “I do one thing very well and then I move on.”  The holidays, like the M.A.S.H operating room, seldom allows us the luxury of dealing with “one thing.”  We have to be able to focus on multiple tasks while constantly rearranging their priority according to the shifting needs. Focusing on multiple points is the source of a soul’s distress during the holidays, especially when the tasks intertwine and conflict with one another. 
 
Rather than focus, the one thing we need is often the thing that is in shortest supply.  We need a quiet space so that we can calm the soul.  Quiet can be very hard to come by during the holidays.  But quiet can still the chatter that is shouting in our soul.  It can quell the disappointments of missed deadlines and opportunities.  It can allow us space to step back and look at our needs with new, unbiased eyes.  Quiet, while rare during the holidays, is not impossible.
 
How can I quiet my soul so that I can enjoy the holidays?

​Classical Centering allows us to focus on what is most important and let go of the things that can wait.  Fr. Thomas Keating taught a form of Centering Prayer that allowed the soul to rest in the quiet mystery of God and be refreshed by the encounter.  Centering has been around for thousands of years.  Jesus sought a lonely place during a particularly difficult time in his ministry.  Buddha and Mohammed did the same.  Lao Tzu sought quiet to ponder that which cannot be pondered.  Native people have used spirit quests to re-center their lives.  Centering is nothing new, but it is easily dismissed when life gets complicated.
 
I suggest that when we find ourselves caught up in bouncy-bouncy-bouncy of the holidays, it is time to re-center ourselves.  By this I mean, re-center in ourselves.  We forget who we are, what we are, and what we want to be when we spend our time reacting and over-reacting.  In all the holiday doing we lose sight of being ourselves in this precious and fleeting moment in time.  By recovering the center, we are able to enter the chaos of the holidays with a calm and quiet soul that discerns the path “with heart” without being distractes by things that only appear to be meaningful in the moment.
 

1. Take a few moments at the beginning of the day and find yourself.  Do not focus on what you will be doing.  Rather, ask yourself; “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be today?”  Keep your answers simple and straightforward.  “I am Bob.  I want to be a kind person today.”   “I am my Mom’s daughter.  I want to be a loving and attentive mother to my family.”  These thoughts may change from day to day as you wake up to the new day ahead.
2. Spend some time sitting with these thoughts.  Allow them to become your mantra for the day.  Allow them to fill in the crevices and cracks in your expectations.  Allow them to sweeten your hopes.  Hold them firmly in your mind so that your soul can find them when you need them.
3. Begin your day by reciting these words.  Recall them when the surprises, changes, and disappointments threaten your inner quiet.  Let the words guide your soul and body throughout the day.
4. When the day has come to a close, remember the words and celebrate the little victories.  Forgive yourself for when you allowed the world to overrun your center.  Embrace the night’s rest you will need when you rise from your bed in the morning.

 
You will discover that your resilience will return as you lessen the pressure to perform a laundry list of tasks.   You will increase the joy you find in living out of your center as you move from one task to the another.  May you find that instead of TOO MUCH you find the blessing of having just enough to be who you want to be.
 
Blessings,
Bob

Resilience
 
Centering
 
Centering Prayer

​Many of us find ourselves mind-weary during the holidays.  We may experience all kinds of memories, both troubling and comforting.  We work to keep up with endless to do lists along with a process for what needs to happen next.  We may confront larger issues like who we are and why we do what we do.  We may simply stress out trying to keep our shopping lists, budgets, and calendars on track.  Mind-weariness can cause difficulty sleeping, making decisions, and dealing with confusion.
 
This weariness generally revolves around the three “R’s” of celebrating the holidays; rituals, relationships, and rememberings.
 
Rituals – Almost every family has a certain set of things that it does every year during the holidays.  We usually call them family traditions.  These may include activities and recipes.  A couple of years ago I saw a picture of my Mom and Dad sitting at their dining room table in the mid 1960’s.  I could identify every dish on the table because we had most of them on our table last Christmas.  These rituals serve as a vital part of the holidays and when we change them, we begin to feel stress.  These rituals allow us to get into the flow of meaning of the holidays.  They help us connect the dots between what we understand about the season and embrace it once again.  Unfortunately, there are times when they must be changed.  As I diabetic I have had to say good bye to several recipes on the holiday table.  When we change the ritual, we fear losing the meaning.  Can it really be Christmas without Pecan Pie?  We are easily wearied by having unwelcome and unwanted changes to our rituals.
 
Relationships – Another important part of celebrating is getting together with our “family’ whether we share DNA or not.  These reflect life-long or long-term relationships that remind us who we were, who we are, and suggest where we are heading.  They help us connect the dots of our “tribe” along with our place in it.  In our Children and Grandchildren’s faces we are reminded of who we once were.  In the faces of our friends we see ourselves as they see us, as we are.  And in the faces of our parents and older siblings we see ourselves as we will be.  When this happens in the context of the holidays, we have the opportunity to find forgiveness/acceptance, support/companionship, and hope/destiny.  However, when these opportunities are lost, and we may find ourselves in self-recrimination, isolation, and despair.   The holidays become a horribly stressful burden.  The meaning of the holiday is changed and we may become overwhelmed with these painful relationships.  It is just too tiring to “smile” our way through another Christmas some folks. 
 
Rememberings – A source of mind-weariness during the holidays revolves around our rememberings.  These are more than simple memories.  Re-membering is establishing a re-connection with the stories of ourselves and those around us.  It is not simply a quiet memory that comes and goes.  It is an active engagement with the story that has real-time effects in our lives.  These rememberings transport us back to being that child who could not go to sleep on Christmas Eve.  When we place that special handmade ornament on the tree, we re-member the little hands that cut it out and glued the glitter on it.  When the lights are passed from one candle to the other, we are re-membered with other Christmas Eve’s and other moments when the story came alive.  Remembering allows us to rediscover our self in our story.  However, mind weariness can begin to accumulate when that story is poisoned by grief, re-membered abuse, or we feel that our memories are empty compared to others re-membering.
 
We all want the perfect holiday where the rituals, relationships, and rememberings combine to bring us comfort, joy, and peace.  However, such perfect holidays are elusive.  Each of these elements will be sources of discomfort, anxiety, and disappointment as well.  Self-care of the mind can help us grow through and into a meaningful holiday experience.

​The mind is an integral part of our capacity for sorting out and making our lives mean something.  It helps us see our experiences in such a way that we can learn and grow through them.  Whether the experiences are positive or negative, the mind can help us find something of value within them.  The key to celebrating the holidays is to find the meaning in our rituals, relationships, and rememberings.
 
Do not simply go through the motions.  As you engage the rituals allow the memories and people who are brought to mind to speak to you.  Engage them in conversation.  Let them share, once again, the “reason for the season.”  Let the rituals, relationships, and remembering come alive.
 
Recognize that the past is the past.  It can suggest who we were and offer insights into how we got to where we are.  But well-worn rituals, relationships, and rememberings are not the same as the present.  In this holiday season, allow your rituals to adapt to new realities.  Allow your relationships to continue to grow through new experiences.  Allow your experiences to become the content for future rememberings.  Accept responsibility for your present circumstances and find joy in them but do not be afraid to leave behind those that cause you mind weariness. 
 
Finally, remind yourself that in many ways we are still children living in expectation of something very special during this time of year.  However, embrace that expectation with a broader understanding that not every gift is expected or welcomed.  Recognize that often our greatest gifts come in the wrapping of disappointment, sadness, and deep yearning.  Celebrating the holidays often means unwrapping those gifts and looking for the treasure within.
 
Engage your holidays, accept responsibility for your celebrations, and unwrap every gift whether welcomed or not.  In doing so you will find new meaning and purpose and make any weariness the result of a well-traveled road through the holidays.
 
Blessings,
Bob

Holiday Rituals
 
Holiday Relationships
 
Holiday Memories
​

​The modern American Holiday experience can usually be described with two words, “Too Much.”  We tend to over eat, over drink, over spend, overdo, and over indulge in all manner of things.  We may see the holidays as a time to relax and enjoy life after 10 months of hard work and self-denial.  We may simply take it as an occasion to give ourselves permission to ignore our health and well-being.  When it comes to self-care of the body during the holidays, the question is “When is too much, TOO MUCH?”
 
Food – Our bodies have developed a little trick over the millennia to make sure that we eat enough food.  As hunter/gatherers, food was seldom in abundant supply.  Therefore, our brains learned to delay accepting that we have had enough to eat until we had eaten more than we needed.  There is a 20-minute delay between being full and feeling full.  This provided a margin of error that served us well in times of scarcity.  Unfortunately, in times of plenty it means that we tend to over eat.  During the holidays, this little quirk leads to dangerously high eating and drinking habits.
 
Money – Generosity is a good quality that is especially important during the holidays.  It is an important element in the celebrations of the season. It reflects of our gratitude for what we have received throughout the year.  To be generous is to demonstrate a “noble or kindly spirit” that shares out of our abundance with others.  These gifts feed our spirit and promote healthy living when they are offered out of that sense of gratitude.  But, when our giving is done for less noble reasons, it becomes a burden for on lives and takes away from our spiritual health.  Over-spending, and the financial problems it creates, tend to happen for reasons other than generosity.  We may over-spend more in order to impress others and portray ourselves as being wealthier or more loving than we are.   We may over-spend in order to repay others for their generosity.  We may spend too much in order to make-up for some suspected sense of failing in our relationships with our family or friends.  Each of these grow out of a need to give selfishly.  Generosity is about celebrating our relationship to the other, not our relationship to ourselves.
 
Time – The holiday season also brings an increased to do list, social schedule, and family gatherings.  These calendar items can lead to “over-doing” and “under-being.”  The holidays are intended to allow us to celebrate the meaning of the season.  This requires that we are able to be in the season as well as “doing” the season.  We find it difficult to focus on the season itself when we become over engaged in doing.  When we get lost in the details of doing, the sense of celebration and wonder also get lost.  To celebrate means to acknowledge and participate in an activity that feeds our spirit.  By over doing, the celebration becomes, at best, an afterthought and our spirit suffers.
 
When is too much, TOO MUCH?  When our eating/drinking, spending, and doing cease to feed your sense of joy then they are too much.  They steal our joy and take away from our resilience of spirit.  They trouble our soul, confuse our mind, and wear down our bodies.  They turn the opportunity to celebrate into duty and obligation.  They empty the season of the very meaning it is intended to impart.
 
How do we with deal with the stress of the holidays on our physical lives?  We need to learn ways to manage our eating/drinking, budget, and calendar so that they allow us to enjoy the season.  This begins with discovering the signs of satisfaction in our lives.  

​The easiest way to tell when enough has become too much is see/feel the edge of satisfaction in our eating/drinking, spending, and doing.  As we approach that edge, we can taper off and savor the moment rather than rushing headlong into over-indulgence.  We can give ourselves a reason to set the fork and glass down, put away the credit card, and assume responsibility for our holiday calendar.  That reason is simply, “I am satisfied!?  Any more and it will be too much.” 
 
This works at the table, in the store (or, more likely, online), and when the invitations for parties begin to arrive. 
 
First, we need to recognize when our stomach, our budget, and our calendar gives us the subtle clues that we are satisfied.  Listen to your body, not your mind.  It well tell you when you have had enough.
 
Second, when we feel the need to keep going, we need to ask ourselves “Why?”  Am I doing this for something other than celebrating the season with a “noble and kindly” spirit?  Or am I doing this simply because I want more?  
 
Third, as you set down the fork/glass, place you credit/debit card back in your pocket, and say “no” to that holiday activity, let that moment also be a celebration of the season.  Let the satisfaction of “having done” make room in your spirit to remember and celebrate the reason(s) for the season.  In short, does you doing still bring you joy?  If not, then celebrate the not doing, as well. 
 
When is too much, TOO MUCH?  When it steals your joy and becomes a burden to celebrating the holidays.  Give yourself the gift of the holidays by eating/drinking, spending, and doing responsibly.
 
Blessings,
Bob

Why do we eat too much?
 
Controlling Holiday Spending
 
Managing your Holiday Time