Tell me when it’s over!
Yes, it’s possible to rise above the holiday blues with grace.
When I was a V.I.P. tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood — many, long years ago — I once took a dad with two children on a private tour. As we entered the first dark, moving attraction, his little girl threw herself onto my lap, buried her face against my thigh and hollered, “Tell me when it’s over!” Except, as her face was muffled against the skirt of my tour guide uniform, it came out more like, “Dell be when ids ober!”
My heart melted, partly because she left a couple of little, wet, tear marks on my skirt, but mostly because I so thoroughly understood her sentiment. I cannot count the times in my life when I’ve wanted someone one to just tell me when it’s over. Take the holidays, for example.
When, due to age, we’ve lost much of our family of origin and nostalgia is draped heavily over us like a cheesy Santa costume, the holidays become a source of sorrow, if not downright depression. The images of laughing, normal-looking people and their holly jolly gatherings are now ludicrously far afield of our reality. Maybe long ago we had those Christmases, but no more.
What follows is not a list of 10 Ways to Get Through the Holiday Blues. It’s more like 1) a process of elimination, including one popular approach that didn’t work for me 2) another brilliant option which unfortunately usually takes years of practice so forget it 3) and what I do to stay above the surface, that you actually might be able to do, too! Here we go.
1) By way of distraction during the holidays, having an, “orphan’s gathering,” is a well-intentioned thing to do, but doesn’t always fill the bill and can sometimes make things even more painful. Some years ago I had an orphan’s Thanksgiving when my husband and I were fairly new to Florida and far from all that was familiar. It was pleasant, and everyone was invited to bring their dogs, to add to our dogs, which was cheery. The underlying source of my sorrow that season was the sudden loss of one of my sisters, who had died less than two months before. Being surrounded by non-family members only made me more depressed, although I was able to conceal it, I’m fairly certain. I paid a lot of attention to the dogs, which gave me repeated excuses to duck my head under the dinner table if my eyes were filling with tears, and all the while I just waited for it to be over. That was when I learned that it’s easier to be quietly at home with my husband, our dogs and our dog-hating cat. And thank Heaven there are now various virtual face-to-face options for loved ones we can’t be with in person, although even those have their limitations; they don’t work from the afterlife. But these virtual options are often easier, if one is feeling low, than being in a room full of people; we can get off a call much more easily than exiting a gathering, right?
The good news is, the holidays during this particularly benighted, COVID year will soon be over. But how to get from here to there?
2) The holidays would be far more pleasant if we could easily follow the advice of spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle and learn to be in the moment.
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of NOW
I wish! To be in the moment is to be so focused, right now, that we are neither living in the past nor just waiting for the future to hurry up and get here. This takes constant practice, however — years for most people — unless we have some sort of miraculous neurological event resulting in a eureka moment, as Eckhart did. Decades ago, when he had suffered years of suicidal depression, almost overnight Eckhart experienced a mysterious, mind-healing episode and became pretty much completely not depressed. I envy his spontaneous mental transformation and desperately wish I could have one. NOTE: American speaker and author Byron Katie claims to have had a similar overnight spiritual metamorphosis. Hers involved a cockroach, so no envy around that.
In the meantime, if living in the moment is not within your current reach, remember this: you are not alone. You are not alone in struggling to get to that place of enlightenment but you are also not remotely alone in suffering through holiday blues. Although it may be cold comfort, millions of us are not living the Christmas dream. 3) Knowing that, and staying aware of those around you who might be suffering instead of celebrating, may give you just enough fuel to reach out to someone and be their listener. No need to give advice. Just be there. Or, just offer to be there. Call me if you want to talk. I will listen. I am here for you.
How do we spot others who are not leaping up and down with excitement or running to Walmart to join in the people-trampling holiday shopping? In these days of social distancing, social media is the primary place to stay aware. Sometimes a cry of despair from a Friend will be posted blatantly, and sometimes the pleas are far more subtle. Because many of us (who are observing the rules) can’t be together in person these days, Zoom and FaceTime have indeed proved to be morale savers. When we can see and hear someone virtually, we can also see and hear the signs of emotional darkness: withdrawal, subdued affect, forced cheerfulness or, at its worst, a kind of emotional paralysis that manifests itself in unresponsiveness. Wait a moment, because in truth, anyone at that point is probably not going to respond to any overtures of support. And listening to a dangerously depressed soul is going to drag you farther down into a bottomless pit. And so I speak of reaching out to those who are not in a place where only highly professional help will suffice. Holiday blues are one thing, and deep grief another entirely.
Those in deep grief — the early, shocked stage of very recent loss — are experiencing something else altogether during the holidays. Although we can still offer to be available, we can only be respectful of someone else’s grief. The only way through grief is through it, each of us at our own pace. Unsolicited advice to anyone grieving comes from a place of ego, because grief is highly personal and private and staggeringly vulnerable.
Therefore, herein I speak of the more approachable level of just basic holiday misery. If you can summon the energy to be watchful and reach out to a sister/fellow sufferer, it will indeed take you out of your own painful thoughts. Even if only for a while. But each step out of our own heads is a step toward healing. If we can divert ourselves for a few minutes at a time, those minutes eventually add up and one day, fairly soon, we realize that recovery has begun.
I’ll be with you in spirit, practicing what I preach.
