Right now, as I write, it is just a couple of weeks before Christmas.
Yesterday, my friend let me know she was coming through town and had a short window if I wanted to meet up. Of course, I wanted to meet up!
We foolishly tried to meet across town at a mall. There were no parking places. None that we could find. When we finally found a place to park at a university, we had about fifteen minutes to visit. Better than nothing!
The crazy busy at the mall reminded me of the years when our communications center was right across the street from a popular mall.
The traffic in front of the mall was dreadful.
I love the holidays. And, when I was in the headset, I grew to dread them.
It seemed like people were particularly nasty around the holiday season.
Disconnected
In the rush to express connection through buying more and more things, people are more disconnected than ever.
Fist fights over parking spaces. Packages stolen from parked vehicles. Lost children. Shoplifters. That was just the mall.
Then, there were stolen yard decorations.
Is there a special place in the southwest corner of hell for people who steal a Nativity scene?
Domestic violence, suicide, and DUI’s all increase.
Of course, there’s mandatory overtime so my co-workers could have some time off, because we were short-staffed. Again. And always.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one, but I was the one inside of my cranky head.
Scheduling time with family around a non-traditional work schedule, so that I could be both available and awake, was a challenge.
So, how do we navigate all of this? How do we manage to be civil, and perhaps loving and kind, when the season is dreadful? How do we find joy in the celebration in the midst of the ugly?
In the silence. The still and quiet.
The most powerful habit you can adopt to help yourself not drown in sorrow is to find some time to meditate.
Meditation
I know, meditation is a scary word. And our expectations are way too high.
We don’t have to sit for hours, or even 20 minutes. Five minutes a day will help you see a significant reduction in your stress levels.
We don’t have to “clear our minds”, whatever that means. We just focus on the rhythm and feeling of breathing. When we realize that we have gotten distracted, we return to paying attention to our breath.
It’s simple. Not easy, but simple.
Try it. Keep track of the doing. Keep track of your mood. Conduct your own experiment and see how well it works for you.
And let me know!
If this proves difficult, or even impossible, for you to do on your own, watch this newsletter for an announcement about an opportunity to learn more about the tools and strategies available through my work.
All the love,
Edie
