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by JD Stahl*
“'Tis the season,” as people often say—in regards to the winter months. However, for many people, it is not always “jolly.” Whether you look forward to the holidays or do your best to endure them, there are many things that can be done to maximize our “jolliness” or (at the very least) do whatever is necessary to sublimate the stresses, struggles, anxieties, or seasonal depression into the precious elemental feelings that one would hope to share with each other during a joyous-but-expectant winter solstice.
In general, many of us can be quite hard on ourselves or others, often projecting our fears, insecurities, expectations, or lack of belonging on our external environments. When focused on the immediacy of any single moment, day, week, or season, it is easy to to forget the times in our year—or life—that we felt free, confident, and supported by our environments.
Just as the seasons change in our lives, so do our surroundings. What the various holiday stories often point out to us during the holiday season is that it can be so easy to get wrapped up in our immediacy and forget all of the people and things that brought us to the present moment. These present moments—all of them—are preciously elemental in who we are.
This, beyond all external projections, is our “gift” that we receive each year, as the sun reaches its lowest point in the hemisphere and is “born again” in all of our hearts. Instead of being visited by three ghosts, however, we are “gifted” with three dark days to prepare for our personal (mental, emotional, and spiritual) rebirth.
As the days become shorter, many of us look forward to the holidays as a way to reconnect with our loved ones, share time with friends, and prepare for shorter days with longer periods of appreciation, whether it be reconnecting with people, setting aside more time for hobbies, increasing our work load to be able to bestow the ones we love with tokens of our appreciation and gratitude, or just be more present to observe and watch as others adapt their personalities to be more receptive at times when they are more vulnerable to the external world.
We often forget, without the extra sunshine and warmth, our primal bodies experience a certain level of hibernation, consuming more quickly the vitamins and nutrients that we ingest. Without our normal surplus of nutrients, our bodies and brains deplete our normal stores, often leaving us to feel depressed, unsatisfied, depleted, less energetic, or generally unable to connect with others. Without maintaining a conscious level of awareness of our diets and physical disposition, these “lows” can so easily be blamed on past trauma, familial discord, traffic, holiday stress, or any other environmental factor that could be a target—including the people we love or with whom we share a special bond.
Being more conscious about these external factors and projections can make it easier to allow our “inner light” to shine beyond our normal daily energy stores. Without externalizing our stress on the environment, our bodies and minds are capable to not only endure difficult times of darkness and depression, but to flourish.
Personally, over the past 44 years, I have had great difficulty in being able to sustain my regular up-beat personality, positive outlook, or productivity during the winter months. When I was younger, it helped (a little) to look forward to the giving and receiving of gifts as a way to “ease the pain” of days without heat or sunshine. However, as I got older, the focus on materialism just made the season a bit colder by merely focusing on consumerism instead of appreciating the joys of family and friends—and to reconnect with the parts of myself that I may have lost touch of over the course of a year (or several years).
Throughout the years, I have used all kinds of “coping mechanisms” to either maximize my time during the holidays so that I could endure the lack of warmth and sunshine that I experienced during the winter months. My favorites, of course, are holiday music and movies. Each year, I put together Christmas Mix CDs for my family members. This not only allows me to focus more on the message of each song, but also help me to reconnect to the meaning of the season—on all possible levels.
Being more present and aware allowed me to adapt to do/be whatever was necessary to support and maximize the time I spent with each family member or friend, giving them the stage to shine by sharing whatever moment or activity that I knew to be important or beneficial to them. In this way, we are all able to focus less on materialism and give of ourselves (physically, mentally/emotionally, and spiritually) during a time that is difficult for all of us—at least physically.
I also practiced being more conscious of my physical body, taking in certain nutrients that are normally missing or more easily depleted, I do my best to remain active to maintain my ATP levels at times when we are unable to get what is necessary from our geographic environments to sustain our energy or mood. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a high-energy molecule found in all living cells that stores and supplies energy. Either mentally or physically, I do my best to remain active throughout the day, even when my body no longer wants to cooperate with me.
Therefore, regardless of what may be going on around me—or what holiday may be arriving in the future—I can always find a way to be “jolly.” Even though my mood is best remaining positive, I am always conscious of those people who were a part of others—challenging, supporting, or otherwise—who gave me the opportunity to prove to myself who I truly am, regardless of what time of year it may be or what season it may be in my life.
Whether we like it or not, all of these people are a part of who we are. When it all comes to close, these people and the moments we shared with all of them are the “greatest gifts” we could have ever received.
* JD Stahl is a teacher, a life coach, a musician, and lover of language infusing good intentions toward the recovery and self-discovery of those whose life paths cross his own inspired by his own mentor, his beloved canine Ginger. JD has published companion books of his own poetry: Fragments of Time: The Dark and Fragments of Time: The Light. In The Tree of Knowledge series, he confronts the conundrums of life and offers inspiration in encouraging enlightenment.
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