Title: What Causes Holiday Stress? Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2003 by Margaret Paul Web Address: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 708 Category: Family Relationships, Emotional Healing

WHAT CAUSES HOLIDAY STRESS? By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

The holidays are supposed to be a time of celebration when friends and families get together to share food, fun, gifts, and love. They are supposed to be a time of giving, caring and connection when we celebrate important and meaningful events.

Why, then, are they often so stressful and what can we do to make them more fun and peaceful?

Changing holiday season from stressful to peaceful depends upon one thing: INTENT. Your intent is whatever is most important to you in any particular moment or situation.

At any given moment, we are always in one of two intents. Put in simple terms, it is either more important to you in any given moment to:

1) Be loving to yourself and others, or 2) Get love and approval

Your intent determines your behavior and your feelings. Let’s take an example.

Peggy is married with two children. Peggy grew up in a family where she was trained to define her self- worth through other’s approval – that is, Peggy believes that if others value what she does, she is okay, but if they don’t, then she is unworthy and unlovable. Therefore, Peggy’s almost constant intent is to get love and approval. She does this by trying to do everything perfectly – house has to be perfect, food has to be perfect, she has to get everyone perfect gifts. She believes that if everything is perfect, she can have control over how others feel about her and she will get approval she believes she needs to feel worthy.

So how do we process what is coming at us now, let alone, what will be there in future? There has to be a way to sort through this landslide of facts and fiction, to go over each piece and determine for ourselves its inherent validity and relevance to our lives.

In each epoch in our history there were major transition points that affected all of humanity. These were marked by chaos and fear, upset and upheaval, all related to a convulsive present and an indeterminate future. Examples would be “Agricultural Revolution,” when, as a species, we stopped wandering and gathering, and started cultivating fields and growing our own food. Then came “Industrial Revolution,” where there began vast process of mechanizing our work. In all such cases, an old way was leaving, while new way was being born. During these transition phases, chaos and upheaval were signs of times. Many current writers are suggesting that this is also case today, with present Information Revolution; and I would agree.

In previous times, as cited in above examples, some sense of order had to be derived from chaos that was all about. Some way of making sense of whole unfolding process was required and basically had to be invented on spot. It was never a question of “not living through it” because change was already upon population. It was always a matter of “how” to live through it and minimize impact on day to day life.

History repeats itself, we are often told, until a particular lesson is learned. What is history trying to teach us right now? “That we appear not ready for great leap forward we are about to take?” In part this may be true, but what else? I draw sustenance from an old Myth that says: “when a person is ready, what is there waiting for them becomes visible.”