The (Post) Holiday Season

The Season always seems to arrive and depart as a surprise to many of us.  "Where did this year go?" We often hear, but don’t we hear this--every year!? I wonder:  If our lives slowed down (just a bit) every day, perhaps we would say something different when this time of year rolls around. Maybe we would no longer think or feel, "time flies", instead we would say, "what time is it anyway?” and we would respond with a resounding, “—oh yeah, it is Now!”

Now is the only time we will ever be able to experience and even then it is so fleeting and illusory that as we try to hold on to it, it too will slip through the very fingers that try to grasp the un-graspable. We are living in an age where we are beginning to appreciate how, now, is the only time that is real.  When we are aware of the transiency of time then we can see that we have a choice in what we do with some of our “now time”.  We can laugh and be happy knowing that we have a choice in the extent of the absurdity in how crazy-busy we allow our lives to get! In fact, we-can-choose to slow down.  We can pause and revel (naturally) in right now. Yet for some of us, while we live in a “free country”, we do not feel we have any command over our day, our time or any amount of real authority over the relationships we willingly participate in; thus our lives.  It is as if our lives are as unpredictable as the weather and that Who We Are is reminiscent of Global Warming—we never know who or what to expect each day, separate from our route routines.  Our lives, and the busy-ness of them become a whirlwind of this festive season as It wraps us up into this endless state of Celebratory Chaos.

Instead of feeling as though we are being dragged and looped around into oblivion by some natural disaster, with a different perspective on our lives we can better navigate some aspects of it, to a degree.

This time of year reminds us that we can still lasso our lives and change what is not making us happy.  Yet year after festive year, many of us resist change;(makes us uncomfortable.)  Fear of change keeps many of us hostage, cocooned caterpillars only dreaming of a colorful, winged life! (Dreaming-of-a-colorful-winged-life…) While the possibility of growth is alluring for some, needing to change our ways has little if any real appeal. The smart caterpillars soon realize that without change, suffocation ensues (and all the brave, little caterpillars fight, with all their might—for Flight!)

Every year, at this post holiday time of year, it is fair to say that some of us look into what is moving our lives in an upward/forward and positive direction.  Post holiday is also when we reflect on what and all that is dragging us into that dark, unexplainable, repetitive Vortex of The Every Day Stagnation of our lives… When the Vortex is not a happy place of upward motion, modifications to our world can happen, and bring to us a brighter place of Now.  However, when we resist the necessary changes in our lives to propel us to that joy, it is usually due to the physical and intellectual inertia and fear of the necessary transition for growth.  (When we do not resist what we know needs shifting, the river of our life is a steady, more pleasant flow, rather than a tumultuous current.)

Each one of us knows, intrinsically, what prevents our Joy every day and when we settle and accept that which hinders our happiness, we feel the sadness in our hearts. We feel how we are literally blocking ourselves from living a happy existence. (and a happy existence is what we are meant to have!)  When we resist--the natural movement of life—life will eventually force us into altercation with ourselves, thus inevitable alterations within our lives will occur—sometimes when we least expect it. These altercations I have seen every so often with myself. I used to “look the other way”, when just the thought of change exhausted me, until I saw how the cycle of life is forward movement. I learned, rather harsh lessons whenever I did not move with the natural current of my life.  The unpleasant Vortex of my every-day stagnant routine, would hurl me up like a tsunami and my world and I could not resist its unraveling.  Eventually I got the hint and would heed The Calling, "Hey You, this segment of your life is not benefiting you, you need to do something about it...now!" And so I’d let go of the trying to demand certain aspects of my life-to-go-the-unnatural-way-of-resistance, when I knew that resistance of any kind was not necessarily “the best way”.  I learned, through exhaustion, that surrender was the same as “the path with least resistance” and that path was the most natural.  We need to know what to hold on to, what to let go of (and whom) and then understand what things and events in our lives that are within our control.  When we understand this balancing act and are able to implement its teachings into a system that creates happiness, then –Life becomes a state of Flow rather than the unnatural Vortex of Resistance so many of us stay stuck in.

This is a significant time of year.  It is when we feel our most deeply--if we take the time to recognize how and if we feel at all.  (Wished for Aha Moments are summoned here!)

It is the time of year when we are our busiest and at the same time we throw ourselves with abandon into the routine of lights, sales, gift-wrapping, and the Memory-Telling-of-the-stories-of-our-lives.

It is the time of year where we Let Go of what we know we cannot cling to in the coming New Year:  Loved ones who have passed on; relationships that are more of a bad habit than they are lovingly reciprocal.  We toss out the old and bring in the new from our closets to our attics—to-our-loves.

This is the time of year when we might think:  Are we truly happy?  Even the Dali Lama had to prove that happiness has scientific benefits! (Do we always need science, statistics and media coverage to know what truths lie in all of our hearts and bodies?)

Could Christmas time and the New Year, bring out in us what we miss, what we love, what we still want, what-we-still-dare-to-dream? What-we-are-grateful-for? What meaning our life has or has not?  Could all the lights and fanfare and folly of-this-Season really be nudging us to take-a-closer-look at what and all that is important in our lives--the sub-tle-ties and memories that haunt and adorn the Christmas trees?

At this time of year isn't a resounding p a u s e in order?

It is a time when we hide Who We Truly Are and wish for that Some One Special to Un-Wrap all of us--expose us to ourselves and to them. (perhaps even to everyone.)

This is a time of year for hope and happiness and wish-ing for those we loved who have now gone, (to-come-back) just for the holidays, just for their gift of presence in our lives.

(one-last-time?)

This is the time of year—we can all make a Special-Time

(All-Year-Round).

We can make all of our time, the time for remembering; for caring; for loving--for being; for giving and for, forgiving-of ourselves and of others.

This is A Time to Remember—Now…