Holiday Expectations 2

A year ago an essay was written about the expectations that each of us carry into this holiday period.  All that was written last year is as true this year, as it was last year and many years before.  Therefore, I encourage you to return to Holiday Expectations  (Dec 2009)  and reread what was written as a preface to this addition.

One of the characteristics of this Power for Positive Living blog series is that almost everything contained in the various blogs remain timeless year after year.  They offer positive guidance for us when we are adolescents all the way through our senior years. 

Even with this knowledge and living experience, it can remain a frequent challenge for each of us to implement what we have learned during our life journey into allowing us to enjoy healthy and positive lives on a daily basis.

Recently I was sharing a feeling of excitement about a blog content with a friend.  Since I had written it, the content was of value to me.  My friend chose to respond with the comment: “I’ve heard it all before; there is nothing new”.

Even with all of my years of professional and personal experience and this person being a historical friend of long standing; I was disappointed at his response.  Yes, the response was true to him, because one cannot know me for long without learning that I have  value, belief and behavior systems which I freely share with others.

After pondering the exchange, I found myself with the typical human responses of wanting to find someway to blame him for disappointing me.  He was not being supportive.  He did not listen to my sense of excitement.  He chose to focus on the repetitive aspect of the content rather than my feelings.

However, I finally realized that part of the responsibility for my feelings was placing my own expectations on him.  I had an idea of how he should have responded and he chose to honor his own expectations rather than try to meet mine.  I was the one with the feelings of disappointment.

So, whether it is the holiday season or not, we are continually facing the challenge of placing expectations on ourselves and on others.  If I meet my own expectations of myself, I tend to be happy; if not, then I tend to be disappointed in me. 

The same is true when I choose to place expectations on others; they have the same choice to honor my expectations or not and I experience the resultant feelings.  

During this holiday season, we need to remind ourselves that the world does not revolve around our wants and needs.  People behave to meet their needs, not ours.  Others think about us far less often than we do!

Each of us is free to decide whether to honor the expectations we place on ourselves during the holidays and other times of the year, just as others may want to place on us.  Reality encourages us to realize that often people make choices about our expectations for them that are different than what we prefer.

As with all of our choices, holiday or non-holiday, the way we choose to feel and behave each day is always personal.  When we set expectations for ourselves and other people at a realistic level, we experience the outcomes we actually wish to have happen.

Each day our personal joy and happiness of setting and receiving expectations are waiting to be chosen!

Comments welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Healing

Since it seems impossible to go through life without being emotionally hurt by self and/or others, we often find ourselves dealing with the various processes of healing.

Handling the lost of family and friends during the holiday season is a special hurt that the season tends to make more difficult for many of us.  The holiday period of Thanksgiving through Christmas tends to focus us on the happiness that comes from being with others who are special to us.  If one does not fit this pattern due to his or her feelings of losing someone close, these days can be most difficult with healthy healing being stressful.

Our world does change when we lose a loved one.  There are many possibilities on the type and degree of change that occurs, but there is no doubt that changes of some type will take place in our world.

Any study of group dynamics will demonstrate that the addition and/or deletion of a person within a group will alter the way the group acts as individuals as well as a group.  How the group and the individuals within it decide to manage this change is usually an evolving process and can be short or long in its implementation.  Our family is in the middle of that process.

This past fall my sister passed away.  The birthday month of October began the process of change for us as a family and as individuals.  The value and manner of celebrating birthdays started to change.  Without the presence of my sister, our group celebration was different as were the feelings of the individual family members.

November brought the ‘family’ holiday of Thanksgiving.  With a key member of our family not present, we appeared to be without a common direction.   There seemed to be no one available to replace the role that my sister has played in how our family celebrated this holiday.  While other family members and friends supported us, our new ways of managing our loss have not evolved.   We still hurt and our healing continues to affect our feelings even in a season where the focus is on family blessings.

December brings the Christmas holiday season, supposedly the most joyous holiday of the year.  As our family’s prime motivator of this season, the loss of my sister is already being felt as we prepare for Christmas.  So many ‘traditions’ that we experienced as a family unit will never be repeated with her absence.  We face the challenge of building new ways of celebrating this holiday. 

December is also a difficult month because this is the time that Evelyn and I lost our mother to cancer on 21 December 1982.    It took us a long time to rebuild our holiday joy after that loss.  I expect a long time to rebuild my emotions managing my sister’s loss.

Part of our family’s healing process is going to be structuring new ways for us to celebrate our blessings and joys during these months of October, November and December.  We will do part of it as a family unit.  Each of us will develop unique and individual ways to heal as we manage our thoughts and feelings during this part of the year.  


The relationships I have with my nephews will evolve as we respond to the changes that come from losing their mother as a member of our family unit.  As her sons, they will decide on what type of relationship they want as brothers without the presence of their mother.

Our family is not alone.  Many of Evelyn’s friends will also be adjusting to life without her presence.  Her Sunday school class will miss her helpful and encouraging spirit.

Our healing for this and other losses is always a personal and usually a private process.  Some of us will use a primarily internal process.  Some will turn to the support and interaction of being with other people.   Others will turn to a spiritual and religious focus. 

Regardless of the time or method that we take to do so, each human seems to have his or her own way of healing from the hurt of loss.  I remain most thankful for this blessing of being able to heal as a human from the hurts I do experience in life.

 Comments Welcome.   Email: silverchatline@gmail.com