So Much Happier Blog
Fun for the Whole Family
“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.”
This week in the U.S., a lot of people will be spending time with family and friends they may not see very often, cooking up a storm in a time-sensitive sprint toward serving up dinner for the Thanksgiving holiday, and eating and drinking way too much. What could go wrong?
Often people feel a lot of pressure around holidays to act as family members expect them to, keeping the peace even though there are old, unresolved tensions underneath the surface that cause everyone a lot of stress. We try to have a good time even if we're not being treated the way we'd like to be in hopes of helping everyone to stay happy, or at least civil. Any perceived deficiencies in the experience can bring into stark relief the gap between what we currently have and what we wish we'd had in the past, as well as between what we'd like and what currently is. It's a triggering time for many people, especially when we add in the extra demands on everyone's time, gift shopping (or making) for those whose holidays include a tradition of giving, a hectic round of parties, financial year-end activities at work, extra traffic on the roads, etc. This time of year can be a real powder keg. Not to scare anyone, but it's the time of year when the most heart attacks occur, probably because of the soup created by boiling all the above reasons in a pressure cooker.
As I wrote last week, there are times when you're going to be busier than normal, and that's ok. The trick is, when you're busy and stressed, you need to be taking countermeasures to keep yourself sane. Believe it or not, there are some fast, free, simple things you can do to maintain your stability (go back and read last week's blog for more on that), but chief among them that I'll recommend this week is good old EFT. If you haven't yet learned the points to Tap on and the basics of how to do it, now's your chance! I know it may seem like a small, unimportant addition to your life when there's so much going on that's bigger, louder, and more dramatic than the call to pour a foundation of calm underneath it all, but this is something that is easy to learn and that can pay off every day of your life once you do. Imagine being able to help all of your body's systems to relax measurably in just a few minutes, and being able to calm uncomfortable emotions quickly as well. Life becomes so much better when your emotions and even how your body feels are not at the mercy of everyone and everything that crosses your path. The power of having a tool this effective that's gentle and always available has been life changing for me and many of my clients. I know it works from deep personal experience, and my mission is to help others to have access to all of these benefits as well. That means I'm going to challenge you to go learn it now. If not now, then when? What are you waiting for?
There are many helpful actions you can take to boost your happiness and your sense of well being, but there aren't many that can deliver on so many levels all at the same time—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritua—-as EFT does. To really "get" this in your bones, to see it in brilliant technicolor, you need to commit to using it consistently until you have an "aha" moment or three. I suggest practicing for a few minutes daily for at least two weeks, which should allow you to start feeling comfortable with the routine and notice some real benefits if you don't right away. Then, when you're confronted by something shocking, insulting, annoying, or whatever, you can disappear for a few minutes and Tap yourself back to feeling more like yourself again.
Family members will often have very different ways of looking at life than you do, and those may not be open to change. Sometimes the best thing you can do is learn to accept your differences, but that's generally not something that can be accomplished with only the conscious mind. When there are old memories and patterns that trip up our experience of the present, those need to be addressed at the level where they're held: In the subconscious mind and the body itself. EFT does an amazing job of helping us to gently access and lighten the load of stored experiences so that we can become more free from the automatic reactions that arise before we're even aware of what's happening. You don't have to agree with everyone you're related to on every subject, but clearing out the causes of your knee-jerk reactions allows you to decide how you will behave instead of running on autopilot when an old, annoying subject comes up. You'll gain skill with EFT over time, but even the most basic routine can really help you to stay calm when you feel triggered and trapped. Give it a try, and I think you'll be surprised at how a little can go a long way.
Just This
“ In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”
Many cultures have historically celebrated, in some way, the winter solstice, which marks the return of the light—in other words, the lengthening of days after the longest night of the year. The darkest time is now past, and we are once again looking forward to longer, warmer days and the fruition of seeds that are only being dreamed now, until they can be planted in the spring. And yet, there’s not much to do now. It’s still dark and cold, and we feel like hibernating, especially if the fall season was busy and social.
Now may be a good time to remember that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. It’s appropriate sometimes to relax and enjoy the comforts of home, family, and the appreciation of what the passing year’s harvest has brought. In today’s harried world, it’s easy to think that taking downtime is lazy or selfish, but what if this is an important time to bond with those who are closest in your life so that in busier times, you’ll have great memories and the confidence that these people are on your side? Playing games, telling stories around a fire, and catching up on rest are traditional things to do at this time of year, and they help us build resilience for later.
There’s one more week of holiday social activity before us, and then with the passing of the old year and the advent of the new, we all begin to break off again to envision and work toward our own ideas. The new year brings with it a sense of possibility and fresh starts, and many people experience a resurgence of motivation and zestfulness about what is possible. Don’t miss this final week of celebratory enjoyment! It’s important for maintaining your morale to take breaks from your normal stressors and appreciate natural rhythms and the good people around you.
New ideas, projects, and stimulation will be along soon enough. This week, have fun, sleep deeply, appreciate the love you have now and have experienced throughout your life, and acknowledge yourself for all the good work you’ve done this year. There will always be more to do and experience, but let your actions flow from joy and enthusiasm in right timing. Right now, and always, without doing anything, you are enough.
Thicker than Water
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”
Having reviewed the most basic needs in Maslowe’s hierarchy, we now move into examining love and belongingness needs. Once we have satisfied the physiological needs necessary for survival, and successfully created an adequate sense of safety, the theory goes, we will long for love, affection, and a sense of belonging with family, friends, and other social contacts such as those we make through work and religious affiliations. The family is the first set of social contacts we have in life, so we’ll start there; the relationships we build at home will lay the foundations for the habits, beliefs and expectations of a lifetime. The experiences we have at home when we’re young will resonate throughout the rest of our experience in ways both pleasant and upsetting, such that no matter where we are in our development, we are likely to be contending with the memories of these formative times.
It is a natural human desire to feel loved by one’s nearest relations. We yearn to feel that we’re valued and have a place in the family structure. And yet, there is just so much that can go wrong here! My mother always said that when you have more than one child, you notice that they just come out different. I know I’ve noticed in the course of making friends in life, and growing to understand them more deeply as an adult, that people can be much more different from me than I would have thought possible when I was younger. We don’t choose our family members, and depending on the luck of the draw, we can find them baffling and endlessly frustrating. Despite the fact that we all want very much, on some level, to give and receive love, the true connections that make this possible are often missed as though we’re out-of-control freight trains speeding through the night, driven by conductors behind locked doors. And yet, our family will have more opportunity to know us better than most others ever will. This can all create webs of complex dynamics that defy resolution. It takes an enormous amount of work sometimes to move beyond their ability to continually press our buttons. After all, they co-created those buttons.
“Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”
Every person I’ve ever spoken to who has become a parent has echoed the sentiment that one can never be really ready to have children—it’s such a deeply challenging experience that it cannot be adequately communicated, and that’s probably for the best. If anyone fully understood the reality beforehand, they’d be unlikely to do it, and the human race might be in trouble! Given that, it shouldn’t be surprising that most of us feel dissatisfied with some of what we experienced at home. Most people get no useful instruction in the art of parenthood. They make it up as they go, and the younger they are when they embark on this adventure, the less likely they are to have worked out the recipe for their own peace and happiness beforehand. One cannot pass on what one doesn’t have.
“The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.”
To complicate matters, Nature seems to have set up human development to support the most rapid possible learning of the young in order to ensure their survival. In Spontaneous Evolution, Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman note that until we’ve reached the age of six, our brains are most often in either delta (sleeping/unconscious) or theta (imagination/reverie) states, meaning that they are basically operating in a hypnotic trance. Children this young are unable to analyze the information and programming coming at them from all sides. They just absorb it directly into the subconscious for good or ill. This helps them to quickly get up to speed with the requirements of their environment, but it also makes it possible for anything they observe to be written into their deepest psychology. I find this to be a stunning revelation, and an incredibly strong argument for bringing the most awareness and care you can to your interactions with children—you are, quite literally, creating their worldview with your input into their experience. Sadly, most people have no idea that children are quite this undefended, and children become products of carelessness. Later, when we’re old enough to reason and make decisions for ourselves, we can clear out the jumble of unsupportive programming and experiences, but most of us have a lot of detritus to deal with, and the process of sorting through it is not fun. That’s why we often avoid it and just live with the original stuff!
Giving and receiving love in the context of family dynamics often requires complex skills and a great deal of maturity. Doing this well can be one of the greatest challenges we face in life. Since the desire for love and belonging in the family is not going anywhere, one of the foundations of a happy life is to continue trying to rise to the call of what is necessary in your case to improve your relationships with family over time. One of the skills we all need to build in order to do this is the ability to take over as parents to ourselves; this is an essential element in the development of real maturity. We must learn to give to ourselves what we wish we had gotten from our own parents, whatever nurturing and care was missing in our early days, so that we can feel less needy in the presence of family in the moment. In order to do this well, it is necessary to find a way to accept and let go of the past, which is a tall order for many, I know, especially for those who experiences trauma at the hands of close family members. I’ll write more on how to do that in later posts. It’s also necessary to become emotionally observant enough, as well as courageous enough, to learn when you need to create boundaries, speak up for yourself, and bring behaviors that are problematic for you to the attention of family members if you want to improve relationships that are challenging. There is a world of books written on the development of these skills, and no shortage of professionals who can assist you with instruction, perspective, and coaching here using any number of great methodologies and tools. As galling as it can be to have to do all this work, if you want to live a truly happy life, I think you’ll find it’s necessary, and it does get easier as you learn. You deserve a happy life that’s full of love, connection, and harmony, and your family members deserve the chance to be in loving relationship with you. However far the distance may seem that you need to travel, just start with a small step, and start building momentum.