An Unprecedented Holiday Season
For many of us, this holiday season has and will continue to look different than we planned. From favorite traditions to travel to who is around the table, like much of 2020, our holidays will be unprecedented. This uncertain season has the potential to bring up a whole host of emotions for us: sadness, anger, anxiety, maybe even joy or apathy. There is no right way to feel. However, we have discovered that many of us feel the desire to disengage and isolate instead of living wholeheartedly into this unknown reality.
If you’re feeling disillusioned or uncertain this holiday season, here are a few ways to wholeheartedly embrace this season:
Embrace Reality
If you’re upset, be upset. If you’re sad, be sad. If you’re a little relieved, be relieved. The first step to wholehearted living is to acknowledge and welcome your feelings.
This is hard.
Denying how we’re feeling can seem like a good way to cope. And while it may keep us from engaging with the negative emotions, it also robs us of the opportunity to engage with any positive emotions.
As you do your best to make sense of and live into this season, we encourage you to create space to mourn what was and make way for what can be. To explore what might be, we have to acknowledge the sadness of what isn’t and choose to surrender expectations. This year will look different—there’s no hiding that. But change often makes way for us to explore and connect in new ways.
Stay Connected
Social distance doesn’t have to mean disconnection from the ones we love the most. Even if we can’t connect in the ways we’re used to, we can make conscious decisions to reach out for the connection we all so desperately need in this season.
Staying connected in this season might actually look like staying away. It may look like video calls, drive-by gatherings, virtual games, and app-connected movie nights. Loving the people in our life this season might even look like having hard boundaried conversations about holiday gatherings and expectations. Connection looks different this year, and that’s okay.
Rethink Traditions This Holiday Season
For many people, the holidays hold a special place of tradition and nostalgia. This year, we have an invitation to rethink and recreate traditions. As we intentionally acknowledge and grieve the traditions we can’t partake in, in the same ways, we can also see this time as a rare gift to create new traditions.
Instead of hustling around this year—always on the move from one thing to the next—perhaps you accept the invitation for a slower holiday season. One spent with your nuclear family or family of choice in smaller gatherings. You may have the opportunity to check off some of the “someday” activities you’ve always said you didn’t have time to do.
Make the cookies. Play the games. Go for a walk in the winter wonderland. Create a slower pace. Have deep, meaningful conversations. Find quiet space and soak in the magic of the season.
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Wherever you are this season, we are holding space for you and inviting you into exploration. Remember, two things can be true at the same time–we can be deeply grieved for what was while embracing what is.
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