The 9 Stressors Leading to the Holiday Blues

I will also post this on your blog. When I think of the term blues, it is a static term that in reality is a process of thinking and feeling, which is not static but is constantly changing. So because I cannot physically represent the word in the theater of my mind, I will treat is as an emotional state. So, all I can do is give the term blues my meaning. To me it means to be emoting a depressing thought. And even that is vague, but at least now it is an adjective. I also give the word blues the meaning of depressing and or disheartening, another adjective.
To me, both of these words are emoting states – states where one is emoting. Emoting is when the map does not match the territory. We feel this difference as an emotion. Emotions are not right or wrong, they are sign posts to the accuracy of our maps. When the territory is better than my map, I am joying. When the territory matches my map, I am feeling good, or feeling happy. When the territory is worse than my map, it is saddening, or depressing, or other negative states of emoting.
So the problem with the blues is not the blues, but the map. The map is created by our beliefs, values, interests, judgments, etc. This is an interesting subject because just today I had a discussion with someone about this and they kept using a cognitive distortion of – HAVE – I have to do this, I have to buy presents, I have to spend x amount of money, etc. And they were experiencing the state of the blues. This HAVE is a cognitive distortion and creates a disempowering state. It was this disempowering state and how it reflected their map of the holidays.
I had them change their language to WANT – even though at that moment they did not WANT to, they had to get their power back. Then we looked at values, when in their life did they get the value that they HAD to buy all these presents or spend all this money for the holidays? I was not challenging or trying to change the value, it’s their value, I was just trying to get them to find out where it came from and if it serves them. Now, this person worked from a meta-program that was externally referenced, they were enculturated. So, they kept the value and reframed the state and language from HAVE, to WANT, and finally, because they wanted that value, we change the language to GET TO – and that changed their state – and this state changed how they emoted and their kinesthetic.

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Jared,

Great article and great points. Here’s my take on it all:

The holidays are indeed a time of celebration. Whatever your religious beliefs, there is a story to tell, so tell it! Live into the meaning of the story by being joyful, no matter what you are doing. Simple enough to say but hard to practice? Not if you’ve been practicing all year. Here’s the deal on that:

* Find joy in something (many things?) DAILY!
* Joy that you are alive! (Everyone reading this post can do that)
* Joy about your spouse, kids, pets, home, car, life, breathing, workplace (joy that you are employed?)
* Celebrate the sun, the moon, the rain, the clouds the traffic, the dead grass on your lawn.
* Take comfort in the wind, the ocean, your kids’ argument, your business victories and losses.

Get the point? Everything (truly everything!) is worth celebrating, even failures and there are no failures, EVER as long as you learned something when things don’t work out as you originally wanted.

Imagine a world with no disappointments and think about the lost lessons. If everything went exactly as you wanted, what would you ever learn? How would you ever improve yourself?

If you practice joy and celebration daily, extending joy to the holidays and whatever stress you manifest (because nothing is anything until you make it so), becomes part of who you are.

And when you find joy in everything already, the holidays are just that much better.

Everyone have a great holiday and thank you Jared again for raising this topic.

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I’ve not celebrated any holidays since the early 1970s. The reason was initially rooted in religious choices. However, over time I came to appreciate that abandoning the holidays was one of the best decisions I’ve made, roughly equivalent to shedding excess weight, or recovering from a substance dependency.

At one time I believed the myth that depression and suicides increased during the holiday seasons, particularly around Christmas. Turned out that myth was largely false, and has its roots in seasonal affective disorder. Nonetheless, the performance anxiety associated with the holidays is undeniable: Parents not wishing to disappoint children, relatives struggling to please a growing and far flung family, the January credit card bills, deciding which friend’s party to attend and which to decline, packing on extra pounds, the inevitable hangovers, fear of finding that lump of coal in a stocking, and more. No longer having to deal with that is quite a relief. But that’s not the best part.

What I have come to appreciate is that joy should be a constant state of being, never associated with an externally imposed date or schedule. Our emotions, sense of well being and peace of mind and heart simply do not work on some annual calendar-driven bio-rhythmic clock. We cannot genuinely turn it on and off based on when we imagine someone was born 2000 years ago, or when someone else decided it should be the year of the rat, or when the moon is in the seventh house.

We are each made with the capacity for experiencing joy with every sunrise and sunset, with every laugh of a child, with each well-prepared meal, and with every warm touch of a dear friend or loved one. It is within us to revel at a blue sky and each passing silvery cloud, or to marvel at the raw beauty of an ice-encased barren tree sparkling in the sunlight, or to thrill at a star-filled night sky, or to experience gratification in a personal accomplishment, There are no limits in an endless universe to our ability to take joy in the uniqueness of each passing moment, no matter where we are or what we may be doing.

I’ve learned that there are few bigger mistakes than setting our joy clock for December, and then afterward counting the days until the next official calendar block during which we’re granted some abstract social permission to give a small gift, express and experience joy, or gather with our families and bow our heads in gratitude for what we have, Rather than simply periodic joy, we paradoxically engage in ritual denial during the intervals between the all-too-short concentrated bursts of frenzied holiday merriment. Those who miss those holidays due to business obligations, accidents, financial limitations, illness or military service understand that let down and sense of missed opportunity. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Sans holidays of any kind, I’ve learned that joy need not be disbursed in lumpy intervals with sharp peaks and long deep valleys, but instead can be a continuous flow, if and when we choose to take it as it was meant to be. If we can open our eyes, minds and hearts to plug into the abundant sources of joy all around us, it will power us with a continuous flow of energy instead of the holiday surges that later run down and then have to be recharged on some artificially forced seasonal calendar basis.

Without doubt, the official holidays do provide some fairly universal, uniform and orderly scheduling for time away from secular pursuits. That’s great for business and commerce. It also provides what might otherwise be a challenge to obtain, an extended opportunity to engage with family and to be a bit more introspective about our roles, goals and ways to fill those holes in our souls.

However, I’ve come to understand that holiday seasons do not bring joy to people. People bring joy to holiday seasons, the same boundless joy we can bring to any day or time we choose. Break the habit. Plug in.

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