How the Holidays Feel

During the holiday season we are surrounded by images of cheerful people shopping and enjoying their loved ones in their perfectly decorated homes. The reality is much more complicated. If you have recently lost a job, or a loved one, if you are far away from family, or struggle with depression, it can feel like the whole world is celebrating without you. There’s a growing body of research showing that all those cheerful images (which are designed to make us want to shop, remember) can actually increase our stress, grief, depression or loneliness.

But I believe if we go back to the spiritual roots of these holidays, I think there is room for our difficult emotions. Consider the Christmas Story- Mary and Joseph alone and far from home. Consider how terrifying it is to be a couple expecting the birth of your first child. Or consider the Hanukkah story- survivors of war trying to restore their temple, with resources so scarce it seemed they couldn’t even light the temple lights for more than 1 night. The winter solstice specifically marks the longest night, and is celebrated as a time to journey inside ourselves and see what we find there. These holidays celebrate light in the darkness, they celebrate the unexpected presence of the divine.

But our wider culture is not comfortable with the difficult emotions. Perhaps you have experienced a loss or heartbreak and people around you tried to cheer you up with platitudes which imply that they would really like you to hurry up and finish grieving as quickly as possible? Psychologists agree that grief is an important process for healing loss. If we refuse to feel our feelings they don’t disappear, they creep into our bodies and into our relationships. The real need of our spirits to process our experience slams up against our cultural fear of having strong emotions. My whole life I have prided myself on being cheerful and positive. But eventually I realized that I was shutting myself off from parts of my own experience so that I could stay cheerful.

Recently I learned a form of meditation that I have started practicing whenever the opportunity arises to change those old patterns. When I notice an emotion I take a moment to just feel it- not to judge it or analyze it or think about it but to just feel the sensations of that emotion. Then I make a conscious choice to welcome it- even if it’s despair. Even if it’s anger. I just say inside myself “welcome.” I greet it with compassion and curiosity. And after I have gone back and forth between those first two steps for as long as I need, I let the feeling go.

Consider making this your holiday prayer: when that commercial or Christmas carol stirs difficult emotions in you, I invite you to take a moment to feel your feelings and be present with them. The spiritual path does not always stay on the surface where everything is sparkly and cheerful, the spiritual path travels to deep places of memory and feeling, of uncertainty and meaning, of connection and solitude. When you notice that your holiday experience is different from the superficial images of cheer, could you explore that contrast as an invitation from the spirit to choose a journey of the heart and spirit?

Whatever is arising for you this holiday season, what would it feel like to integrate that into your holiday celebration? Your observance doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. You could curl up alone under a blanket and read a book that comforted you in childhood. You could take a walk outside on a day that matches your mood. You could bring chicken soup to a friend who is struggling, and feel that connection. You could invite some friends or family who would understand to just sit in the dark with you enjoying the flicker of candle light or fire light.

However your holidays unfold for you this year, know that you are never separate from the spirit. Welcome the festive and the difficult alike with an open heart, because the spirit is in all these things.