4 Ways to Value and Build More Joy Into This Holiday Season
The holiday season sometimes feel like brief moments of joy thrown together with an awful lot of unsettled intensity. Attending to those easier times doesn’t mean we should ignore the unpleasant, but we can aim to not get so caught up in it. It is often expectations, anxieties, and perfectionism that amp up our holiday experience. Focusing on what we value and giving those times our most direct attention, we end up with a happier and more restorative holiday season.
Give happier moments your full attention, as you would a meditation
Whenever you catch yourself distracted from a moment of ease, come back. That could be through spending a few minutes alone, or with a favorite person or pet. It could mean taking in a party while the room feels full of connection and excitement. Or savoring a favorite food. Notice when you’re distracted by future planning, problem solving, or past conflicts, and in an unforced way, immerse yourself in a joyful moment.
Let go of expectations and comparison
Don’t ‘should’ on your holidays by thinking they should be better or resemble that family’s holidays or resemble holidays from ten years ago. These holidays will never, by definition, be the same as any other. If something truly has you down, even that gets complicated by ‘should’—like thinking you should be joyful when you’re not. Ever find yourself doing something because you should, instead of wanting or needing to? Whenever you notice ‘should-ing,’ see if you can note the thoughts and come back to whatever you feel best.
Let go of perfection
Check in with what you value and want to give to others. Ease, connection, what most comes to mind? Let go of stories about what must unfold in some precise way to meet your holiday standard. Wishes are one thing (I hope we’re all happy and healthy), perfection is unlikely (everyone better get along this year for once).
Sustain yourself
Let go, when you choose (and without hassling yourself), of how you typically live while keeping up with whatever keeps you strong. How little sleep and exercise are okay before you implode emotionally? How much indulging before you feel miserable the next day and maybe one after that? How much stress relates to getting physically run down? And then, always remember that practicing gratitude and giving to others may be one of the most valuable, sustaining choices we have. Happy holidays!
Mark Bertin is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics. He is the author of How Children Thrive: The Practical Science of Raising Independent, Resilient, and Happy Kids, a regular contributor to Mindful.org, HuffPost, and Psychology Today. Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit developmentaldoctor.com.
The community here at Sounds True wishes you a lovely holiday season! We are happy to collaborate with some of our Sounds True authors to offer you wisdom and practices as we move into this time together; please enjoy this blog series for your holiday season.
To help encourage you and your loved ones to explore new possibilities this holiday season, we’re offering 40% off nearly all of our programs, books, and courses sitewide. May you find the wisdom to light your way.
Self-Compassion & Self-Reflection: Recommended Reads
Exploring the Science of Self-Compassion
The Art of Empathy by Karla McLaren
What if there were a single skill that could directly and radically improve your relationships and your emotional life? Empathy, teaches Karla McLaren, is that skill. With The Art of Empathy, she teaches us how to perceive and feel the experiences of others with clarity and authenticity—to connect with them more deeply and effectively.
Informed by current insights from neuroscience, social psychology, and healing traditions, this book explores some of the following:
- Why empathy is not a mystical phenomenon but a natural, innate ability that we can strengthen and develop
- How to identify and regulate our emotions and boundaries
The Science of Compassion by Kelly McGonigal
Stories, dynamic meditations, and innovative writing exercises to spark creativity and spiritual awakening.
The best writers say their work comes from a source beyond the thinking mind. But how do we access that source? “We must first look inside ourselves and be willing to touch that raw emotional core at the heart of a deeper creativity,” Writes Albert Flynn DeSilver. In Writing as a Path to Awakening, this renowned poet, writer, and teacher shows you how to use meditation to cultivate true depth in your writing—so your words reveal layers of profound emotional insight and revelation that inspire and move your readers.
The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren
Emotions—especially the dark and dishonored ones—hold a tremendous amount of energy. We’ve all seen what happens when we repress or blindly express them. With The Language of Emotions, empathic counselor Karla McLaren shows you how to meet your emotions and receive their life-saving wisdom to safely move toward resolution and equilibrium. Through experiential exercises covering a full spectrum of feelings from anger, fear, and shame to jealousy, grief, joy, and more, you will discover how to work with your own and others’ emotions with fluency and expertise.
Here is a much-needed resource filled with revolutionary teachings and breakthrough skills for cultivating a new and empowering relationship with your feeling states through The Language of Emotions.
Awakening Compassion by Pema Chödrön
On Awakening Compassion, Pema Chödrön, one of the Western world’s best-known lojong teachers and practitioners, shows you how to use your own painful emotions as stepping stones to wisdom, compassion, and fearlessness. You will learn how to make friends with the painful parts of your life experience and how to use your natural courage and honesty to transform even the most difficult situations.
With an informal teaching style, both playful and insightful, Pema Chödrön makes this timeless way of bringing compassion into the world easy to understand and apply to your own life. More than seven hours of practical, compassionate guidance for shedding your cocoon and meeting your world with fresh appreciation. Includes a nine-page study guide with lojong slogans and additional resources.
The Force of Kindness by Sharon Salzberg
Distill the great spiritual teachings from around the world down to their most basic principles, and one thread emerges to unite them all: kindness. In The Force of Kindness, Sharon Salzberg, one of the nation’s most respected Buddhist authors and meditation teachers, offers practical instruction on how we can cultivate this essential trait within ourselves.
Through her stories, teachings, and guided meditations, Sharon Salzberg takes readers on an exploration of what kindness truly means and the simple steps to realize its effects immediately. She reveals that kindness is not the sweet, naive sentiment that many of us assume it is, but rather an immensely powerful force that can transform individual lives and ripple out, changing and improving relationships, the environment, our communities, and ultimately the world. Readers will learn specific techniques for cultivating forgiveness; turning compassion into action; practicing speech that is truthful, helpful, and loving; and much more.
Love under the surface
One of the things I have been starting to notice is the “secret language of love” that can be felt under the surface of what is happening. I am noticing it with friends, with Sounds True authors, and with co-workers and with all kinds of people. I am calling it “secret” because it is not spoken about or acknowledged; I find myself noticing the feelings of love but not voicing them for fear that I will seem inappropriate or out of context or that there is no basis for me to be having the types of feelings that I am having, so better to just keep it to myself.
I can give a concrete example: Recently, I traveled with two co-workers to California to video record a lecture series. We met at the airport and spent 5 days basically glued together working on this project. One person in our group is a producer who has worked at ST for 13 years. The other is an audio-video technician who has worked at the company for 10+ years (interestingly, before this trip together, I knew both of these people had worked at ST for quite some time, but it was all a blur to me. I only found out their actual longevity at the company during this trip). And during this trip, we all found out a lot about each other, about each other’s personal lives and families and early upbringing. The curious thing to me was at the end of 5 days I felt so connected and bonded with these two men who work at Sounds True. Previously, I had been in short conversations with both of these people, in the hallways, in meetings, at Sounds True parties. But we had never spent any real time together, let alone three meals a day for 5 days, traveling and working as a closely-knit team.
The experience made me reflect on what it must be like for people who play on sports teams together or even people in the armed forces or other groups of people who work closely with each other in intense, collaborative settings. I felt in my core how “tribal” I am by nature, how instinctively I become part of a group or pod. And most importantly, the huge amount of love that is potentially present right below the surface between me and other people if I am willing to take some time away from the “task orientation” that I usually bring to work and instead simply listen and tune to what could be called “the relational field.”
And what I am finding is that whether it is through dreams (night dreams as well as day dreams) or spontaneous love eruptions that I feel in my being, there is so much love under the surface in so many of my interactions with other people, interactions which on the surface appear fairly tame and functionally-oriented. Underneath, there is a wild, upwelling of heart. It feels risky to say so, but how strange that what so many of us value the most – love—has become something that needs to be whispered or only voiced in socially appropriate ways. I want to sing about it from the rooftops. But since I can’t sing, I am writing this blog post instead.
Why does the love we feel under the surface for so many different kinds of people need to be kept secret and not voiced? Because we are afraid that someone will think we are being sexually inappropriate or crossing a boundary? What if we could make our sexual boundaries so clear and reliable and trust-worthy that our voicing of the love we feel would not be misunderstood or misconstrued, but instead simply received as the heart’s outpouring of the recognition of how our souls are touching and co-creating. That is the type of wild love I wish to voice.
Getting Started: Finding Your Full Truth and Inner Freedom
Truth has a fullness to it. If we want to hold it in its essence and in its entirety, we need to acknowledge all aspects of it, even the ones we do not like. This is no easy task, but if our intention is to truly sit on the throne of our lives, then facing ourselves is essential.
When we acknowledge our shadows, we will face all the feelings that we’ve locked up inside: all the embarrassment, desire, instability, anger, or whatever has been hidden for so long. As uncomfortable as it is for a time, we also free ourselves—because then we really own ourselves. We grow in the process, becoming an example of what is possible when we take ownership of ourselves and our lives.
To get you started on your journey to your full truth and inner freedom, consider these questions for reflection taken from my new book, Freedom Is an Inside Job. I also offer you a short video on befriending your darkness.
- How have you hurt people in your life? What part of your personality inflicts this hurt? Can you look at this part of yourself directly, without giving excuses or justifications for what you do?
- What do you dislike the most in people’s characters? What does such dislike trigger in you?
- What if instead of pointing the finger at what you don’t like in others, you pointed the finger at yourself? What might you see if you did that?
- What would it take to transform your own shadow? Not destroy it, but transform it. What are the incentives to change?
- Can you show compassion to your own shadow? Can you use it to ignite certain positive actions and not get stuck or entrenched in it?
Zainab Salbi is a humanitarian, author, and media personality. She’s been featured by CNN, MSNBC, Oprah, People, The Guardian, HuffPost, and more. Salbi resides in New York City. For more, visit zainabsalbi.com.
Buy your copy of Freedom Is an Inside Job at your favorite bookseller!
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6 Stress-Busting Techniques from a Cardiologist
For many heart patients, stress is the elephant in the room – not only around the holidays, but all the time. When we discuss why they missed their goals for proper exercise, nutrition, abstinence from smoking, and proper sleep, stress is often the reason. Here are some stress-management tips taken from a series of lectures I’ve given – I share them with the hope that they help manage stresses in your life.
Adaptogens
When I talk to patients about stress, I begin by describing adaptogens, or herbs that appear useful in stabilizing physiology and improving anxiety and stress. I do this because so many of them are already using pills — typically benzodiazepines like Xanax and Ativan — and my goal is to get them off those prescription medications ASAP. Frankly, substituting one pill for another is something most patients accept faster than any other technique. I’ve had success in many patients using L-theanine 200 mg twice a day and ashwagandha 500 mg twice daily, usually together. Even elderly patients report they feel less stressed and more functional. Rhodiola is another adaptogen I like because it’s been studied in heart patients and shows benefits for their symptoms. I recommend 100 mg a day.
Breath-work
There are many styles of breath-work, but I find I can teach my patients the 4-7-8 breathing practice in the office in just a few minutes, and they use it right away. I refer them to an online video created for children, and ask them to practice this at home and use it in their daily routine:
Meditation
Teaching meditation is a longer process than the first two techniques, but has been shown to benefit heart patients and should be taught routinely. I ask them to study the Kirtan Kriya taught by Dr. Khalsa because it’s only 12 minutes and is supported by great research results at UCLA. When I tell them that they may slow aging and improve their memory while dealing with their stress, they’re eager to use it in their lives.
HeartMath
This is an online program using heart-centered breathing and positive emotions to restore balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It requires purchasing a cable that clips on the earlobe and connects to a smartphone, tablet or a PC. I recommend it to patients because it resembles a game, is easy to learn, and is supported by published scientific studies showing lower blood pressure, lower cortisol levels, improved memory, and better school performance.
Yoga
Different styles of yoga have been studied in a variety of serious stress disorders including cancer, post-trauma, and addictions, and has been found to be beneficial even when tested using rigorous scientific study design. Yoga can be adapted for the elderly using only a chair; it provides a sense of community, and offers some cardio benefit as well.
Massage
My patients ask me if massage is worthwhile, and when I tell them that medical benefits have been identified for this therapy, including blood pressure and stress reduction, they’re excited.
Will these six tips help offer something for everyone? Unfortunately, there are people who aren’t willing to try and stick with these practices, and others who have unrealistic expectations. There are other approaches to consider, including essential oils, music, exercise proper nutrition, hormonal balance, and improved GI tract function. I refer challenging patients to holistic psychiatrists and counselors.
I remind my patients of a story about a man speaking to a religious leader repeating over and over that he was frustrated with the stresses in life. The leader suggested they take a walk, and stopped in front of a cemetery. The man asked why they stopped there and the leader replied, “They are the only people who have no worries and stress, for the rest of us, we need to manage and work out the issues.”
Looking for more great reads?
Dr. Kahn is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Director of Cardiac Wellness, Michigan Healthcare Professionals PC. He is a graduate Summa Cum Laude of the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He lectures widely on the cardiac benefits of vegan nutrition, mind body practices and heart attack prevention. He writes blogs for MindBodyGreen, OneGreenPlanet, Aloha.com, Forksoverknives.com, and for Readers Digest Magazine as the Holistic Heart Doc. His latest book, The Plant-Based Solution will be released in January 2018.
Pleasurable Weight Loss with Jena la Flamme
How you feel about your body and how you relate with pleasure matters more than what you eat when it comes to successful, sustainable weight loss. With Pleasurable Weight Loss, Jena la Flamme brings you a comprehensive, life-changing approach that starts with your mind-helping you relax, build self-esteem, and develop a sense of joy and trust in your body.
Filled with inspiration, recipes, and practical guidance for women of all ages and body types, here is a powerful guide for transforming your relationship with food and exercise-a natural, enjoyable, and lasting path for looking and feeling your best.