Finding the Positivity In the Holidays
For all the good, many get overwhelmed by the not-so-good.
For some, this is the best time of year. Starting with Halloween, then moving on to Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and then New Year’s Eve/Day, this is their favorite time of the year.
However, that’s not so for everyone. Many people find this time of the year frustrating, a reminder of pain – whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or all the above – and many other negatives. Also, the utter bombardment of the music, crass commercialism, greed, and other elements are virtually impossible to avoid or ignore.
Those who poo-poo the holidays are often referred to as Scrooges or humbugs. How dare those who can’t get into the spirit bring everyone else down. As if that’s not enough, then you get those who are so offended by the non-existent “war on Christmas” that’s tied to recognizing that not everyone is a Christian or celebrates this holiday. “Happy Holidays” is not a war on Christmas, it’s just recognition that Christianity isn’t the sole religion for all of us.
Even those who find this time of year joyful can also be saddened, frustrated, and distraught by it. Let’s face it, very, very few people have families that are so perfect that they’re drama-free at the holidays. Certainly, nobody I know is in that boat.
Whatever your position on this time of year might be, you’re capable of finding positivity in the holidays.
First, however, we need to acknowledge a little reality.
Overwhelming messages are overwhelming
Maybe I was more naïve as a kid, but I do not recall the music and décor coming out much before Thanksgiving. This made sense to me.
Not so long ago, I believe, the décor, music, commercials, and all the rest started to appear well before Thanksgiving. It’s only gotten weirder and started earlier in the fall, as more and more I’m seeing it right on top of Halloween. If, in the next few years, they start selling everything Christmas as early as Labor Day, I’m lodging a protest of some sort.
Do we need to push the décor, the commercialism, and the greed of Christmas so early? No. Do the stores need to be open on Thanksgiving to compete with online options and get a jump on Black Friday? No. Yet, more and more, here we are.
The overwhelming messages are overwhelming. What’s more, they come from multiple sources and vary from benign and cutesy to downright invasive and obnoxious. It often feels like the message of, “Did you know it’s almost Christmas?” is being turned into “START SPENDING YOUR MONEY AND SHOWING YOUR SPIRIT IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!” Loud, obnoxious, and overwhelming hardly covers it.
I will concede this might impact me harder because I was raised Jewish (and still culturally/ethnically identify as Jewish). As adults with a niece and nephews, my wife and I celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah in our families. Yet even living in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population, the Hanukkah section of the stores still pales by comparison to the Christmas section.
Thus, it can be difficult to find the positivity amidst the overwhelm of the increasingly loud and insistent messages about the holiday season. However, you can find it.
Finding the positivity in the holidays
Almost buried beneath the increasingly crass and greedy consumerism are messages of peace, love, and goodwill to all. The idea is that during this time of year, we should show increased kindness, compassion, and empathy for our fellow humans.
That part of the idea of the holidays is still worthwhile. However, it needn’t be only during the holidays that we take into consideration the other people around us. This applies not just to friends and family, but also to the people you stand in line with, servers at restaurants, cashiers at stores, and perfect strangers you pass along the way.
Emphasizing kindness, compassion, and empathy this time of year is empowering, no matter how the holidays make you feel. That, as such, is the key to finding positivity in the holidays.
How? By being a focal point for positivity. It’s achieved by making the effort to give kindness, compassion, and empathy above all else. To rise above the overwhelming messages about the needs for the material and tangible of the holiday season by spreading the intangible and immaterial.
What do I mean? I mean that rather than worry about your décor or the gifts you are giving, consider instead how/where/when you can give kindness, compassion, and empathy. What can you do to spread kindness, compassion, and empathy during the holidays? Especially when so many people could use more?
All you need for this is active conscious awareness. That, of course, is mindfulness.
Be mindful as often as you can
Everyone has days where you need to turn off, tune out, and just let life live you. Go with the flow, don’t push, just exist. Let your routines and habits carry you by rote through your day/week/whatever.
For most people – I know that this isn’t true for all, since nothing is true for all – this becomes dissatisfactory. You develop a sense that there’s more, and just letting life live you isn’t sufficient. I’m going to presume that you’re one of those people. If you’ve read this article this far, I think that’s proof enough.
To take control and take the wheel of your life, all you need is active conscious awareness. In other words, mindfulness. Mindfulness is, in this present moment, recognizing and acknowledging what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and aren’t doing. Asking and answering questions about your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions tells you who, what, where, how, and why you are.
When you have a handle on yourself, you can give more – and more readily – to others. Giving kindness, compassion, and empathy comes with no cost. You needn’t spend a single penny to give the intangible and immaterial.
I don’t know about you, but when I think about what I most desire, most of the time, it’s not things. The material and tangible things of the world don’t make me feel content or joyful. What does? The intangible and immaterial things.
Focusing on those is how you find the positivity in the holidays. Anyone from any background can do this. You have that power, and if – like me – it’s what you most desire to receive, why not give it out?
Can we even have too much kindness, compassion, or empathy in the world?
Finding the positivity in the holidays isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you have a greater desire for kindness, compassion, empathy, and the immaterial, you can work around the overwhelming commercialism, materialism, and consumerism of the holidays. Knowing that these immaterial and intangible things are what matter most to you, it’s easy to pass them on and give them to others around you, whether friends, family, or perfect and imperfect strangers.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and sixteenth (516) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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