The Sunday Paper

For many of us, the holidays are a complicated time. So many emotions come up. So many memories flood our brains. It almost requires a daily practice to keep them all in check and from bubbling over.

I’ve found that this time of year requires a delicate dance. You may be feeling festive, joyful, or celebratory one moment, and then all of a sudden feel flooded with emotions from holidays of the past. You may find yourself missing people who are no longer part of your life, longing for traditions you no longer have, or struggling to implement new traditions. You may find yourself caught up in the madness and then find yourself trying to do your part to do less and keep it simple.

I find myself really cognizant of people’s swirling emotions at this time of year. Some fear that they can’t give what others are giving, others are anxious about not being able to keep up or keep it all together. I’m also mindful of my own emotions. One moment I’m decorating the tree with my granddaughter, laughing and dancing to Christmas songs, and the next moment I’m overwhelmed by memories of my kids when they were little and tears fill my eyes.

What comes to mind when you think about the holidays?

Do you groan, feeling burdened by all you have to do? Do you dread going shopping for gifts or cleaning up after Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or other holiday celebrations?

Or, do you feel a sense of fun, delight, and joy in the celebrating and in the giving and receiving?

Which part of you is in charge of the holidays - your judgmental, ego wounded self or your spiritually connected loving adult?

Think for a moment about the little child in you - the child who may have loved the holidays. What delighted you about Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or other holiday celebrations? Most kids are really excited about receiving gifts, but many children also feel equally excited about giving gifts. Did you enjoy decorating your house?

Or, were the holidays a sad time, a time of heartbreak due to not having enough money? Or a time of loneliness due to the loss of a loved one? Were they a time of stress in your family? Was there abuse around holiday times?

Do the holidays delight you, or do they fill you with dread? For many people, the holidays are fraught with emotion and difficulty. 

Whether it’s enduring mealtime with a dysfunctional family or facing feelings of loss and loneliness, the holidays can be stressful and disruptive to your body, your emotions, and your routines.

Emotional baggage of past holidays and unresolved issues between family members can turn holiday gatherings into disasters. While you may or may not be able to resolve issues with others, you can take steps to heal your own emotions.

Energy healing tools such as The Emotion Code® are designed to help people let go of Trapped Emotions, emotional baggage from difficult and traumatic events. Working on yourself, or with a certified Emotion Code practitioner, you can identify troubling emotions that have become lodged in your body and release them forever. This makes it easier to forgive others, and yourself, so you can celebrate the season with greater joy.

In addition to clearing emotional baggage, here are additional tips to make the holidays more joyful, calm, and bright:

The holidays are a special time of year for most people. They are a time of friendship, of giving, of sharing, and of being around the people you love and those who love you. Unfortunately, what makes the holidays so special for most people makes them intolerable for a narcissist.

The narcissist must be the center of attention. In the holiday season, there are a lot of things to attend to, and trying to become better than everyone else at the family gathering, the concert, the staff party, or any other event can be impossible. Rather than trying to accept this, the narcissist moves to devalue and destroy the happiness of those they are around, showing their complete inability to express empathy and to simply enjoy the fact those around them are having fun.

What if you’re vegan? Or you eat a whole food, plant-based diet free of processed food, oil, and sugar, and your friend is gluten-free; your sister is Paleo; your nephew is allergic to nuts, and your in-laws love sausages and donuts?

The sources of stress can go far beyond food, of course. One of the things about family is, well, we can’t choose them. Holiday gatherings can bring together people with widely different political and social views. It can be enough to make you want to skip the holidays entirely.

But, don’t despair.

You can bring people together over a shared meal and shared values — whether you observe Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, or just want to share time with friends and family.

In this article, we’ll focus on planning and preparing delicious and healthy holiday food, while also looking at how to extend those strategies to present a loving and welcoming table for all your guests.