Hi folks, just a note to send love to you and yours at this time. The holidays are so wild, in that they can be the best of times for so many people but also the worst of times for so many others. So my message is to just do your best. If they’re the best of times for you, maybe give a little extra love to someone you know that’s having a tough time. Even a little text message can be a very powerful thing, trust me on that. And if they’re the worst of times for you, try to give a little extra love to… yourself. Just try. Do your best to make it through, and talk to me in January. One more week. Try not to build it up too much; just let it be what it is. And today is Saturday. Tomorrow will be Sunday. And then it’ll be Monday after that. Also go to the Archives of this blog and scroll back to February of this year for some posts on self love, culminating with a talk at Unity church that I had the honor of giving. And scroll down to November and December of the last several years and you’ll find a bunch of posts about the holidays and other topics that might help. Some of the titles might even amuse you…
Whether you like the holidays or not, they illustrate how we’re “feeling our thinking” really, really well. So just take an innocent look and see what’s going on in your head. Take a look at the lens through which you’re viewing things. I just looked through the Archives myself, because I could’ve sworn I’d written about helping this one client with Christmas. It was all about the holiday lights. I guess I didn’t write it up, though, so we’ll talk about it now. So she hated Christmas for various reasons. Usually the overarching reason is that it sucked really, really badly in the past, and this memory gets flushed up every year at the same time. And it’s often pretty big stuff, like death, divorce, etc. But since this is a new year, a new Christmas, and nobody has ever been to the past (since it’s not a place), then I have to be feeling my thinking about Christmas through this past lens; I’m not feeling Christmas 2016 itself. The mind is a very, very powerful thing, but we’re finally starting to figure it out. I am on a mission, folks, as are many others, and it’s my honor to share it with you. And life has thrown some interesting things my way recently to make sure I can do the work and not just talk about it. So we’re all in this earth thing together, and I always have your back if I can. Back to the story…
So my client hated Christmas, and she specifically hated Christmas lights. So I asked her something like, “Can they just be lights?” And she thought about it for a second, and then she sort of lit up herself. And she said something like, “Sure, I don’t see why not. They can just be lights… And you know what? They’re quite beautiful.” Bam! And I heard back from her later, and she said Christmas that year was a WAY better experience than it had been in previous years. And it was simply because we had met and she had learned the rules of the game. She learned that when she sees Christmas lights (or even thinks about them) and gets angry or sad or whatever, her mind just superimposed the past onto the present and a feeling arose. And instead of diving into the story with the chatterbox and bitching about it, she firmly reminded herself that, “Wow, my mind is so powerful. It is NOT the past right now, it is the present. And those past times are memories now. And clearly I’m still carrying feelings relating to that time, because I sure do feel them now. But I understand feelings now: they are actually energies, and they are leaving, they want to leave, they have to leave; energy moves, it is the law. So good riddance. I’ll just let them leave. Which means I’m getting cleared out, right now in this very moment. Hallelujah! And these energies can be here while they’re here, because I know it’s just old stuff that wants to leave.”
The other piece would be to take a look at those old times that are being flushed up to see if any new, fresh thinking needs to be done. Just open up and see if anything floats up. I’ve often described that kind of thinking as using our built-in wisdom or common sense. And we do it with total self-love! Even if we’re mad at ourselves. Because withholding love from ourselves has not worked. So we look at the situation with a fresh mind, A Clean Mind (which came with the package – that’s the whole point of this work), and maybe we see that we could forgive ourselves more. Or maybe we see that we could forgive someone else more. Maybe it’s appropriate to reach out to that person and maybe not. Maybe it finally sinks in that I’m ready to release this… for good. That it’s something that happened, but it’s a memory rather than something that defines me. I’m taking my power back, and it feels really good. Christmas can just be Christmas, new each year, without my past superimposed onto it so much.
This particular client might or might not like Christmas going forward, but it can never rule her again. Because she knows the rules of the game. She knows that if she sees Christmas lights and feels a certain feeling, it’s not coming from the lights; it’s coming from how she is seeing the lights. And now she can look with love at how she’s seeing the lights. And since she knows she has a good source of thinking that’s built-in, she can use that as her rudder to navigate the whole thing. And maybe the lights will even turn out to be fresh, new, and beautiful.
A final thing to mention, and this is important, is that the holidays can flush up old, big stuff. And, yes, I know that writing this earlier would’ve been more helpful… But better late than never. I’m doing my best, too, folks! And I’m seeing this more now than in recent years, so it has become fresh for me to write about. So the holidays have this way of flushing up old, big stuff, usually with family dynamics. The most general thing I can say is to do your best and not be hard on yourself. That is HUGE! When you’re dealing with big stuff, being a jerk to yourself will not make things better. We’ve all tried that, anyway… The other thing is to take a long term view. Sometimes something is going on that seems like it might ruin Christmas in a given year, but maybe it’s what needs to happen to make the holidays much better for years to come. So take a long term view and just do your best, in total self-love.
And this isn’t meant to be a downer post, so for those that are loving these times, excellent! And for the others, just try to keep it light and have as nice a time as you can have yourself. Okay, that’s enough. I imagine our next visit here will be at the start of the new year. And I’m guessing it’ll be a big year for us. Because we’re going to be walking in love more and more. I’ll explain more then, but it’s a big deal. Because when we’re triggered or feeling low, we’re often feeling unloved. But the evidence seems to point to that being literally impossible! Wow, that sure would be good news… So all the best finishing out 2016, and I’ll see you in a week or so. And then 2017 will begin, and we will continue our journey of understanding the earth scene more and more. And more and more peace will result, a deeper peace that’s always underneath the comings and goings of those feelings on the surface. And… enjoy all the Christmas lights! Because they are quite beautiful 🙂