Tis the Season For Too Much Time with Your Family, Wink Wink
As holiday time rolls around once again, it's not a holly and jolly experience for lots of us. It can highlight our feelings of being alone, missing loved ones who've passed or not meeting our expectations of what a good holiday should feel like. As I have my own family, I do try to have a few traditions we follow every year so they have good memories of the time we've spent together. I put mint chocolates in their stockings every year and we have homemade hot chocolate as we decorate the tree.
Possibly I may rely too much on chocolate! And we almost always see a holiday light display at the zoo or local park.
I don't think my kids dread hanging around me YET. I do see glimpses of Christmases to come where they're like "did you hear Mom repeat herself again." My girls are particularly good at sharing knowing looks over things I say. Holiday time and everyday, I do my best to raise them in a functioning home. Check out the definition I like below:
(Functional families encourage and provide: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Respect is the Holy Grail of functional families. All people in the family, brothers to sisters, mothers to fathers, parents to kids must be respectful as consistently as possible. Being considerate of each other is the tie that binds, even more than love.)
Now, back to my hopefully functioning home. Their father and I did divorce but, I'm proud to say we did it as well as it can be done. How did we manage this rare occurrence? 1. We put our children first. 2. There was mutual respect between us. 3. We rose above our individual feelings, the pain, and hurt and got on with it. We divided our stuff, our money and that was it. I'm not condescending to anyone who wasn't this lucky or who couldn't get past their hurt feelings. It's an incredibly hard process to go through. Also, my ex husband and I are both children of an alcoholic parent. Maybe the numbness that seems to persist in our emotional lives was a bonus in this situation or maybe you could even go so far as to say it contributed to the divorce. It may have on some level. We did go to counseling to work on our marriage, but it didn't work in the end.
I am by no means saying I have all the answers. I hope you can relate to my stories and find some peace by following some of things I've done to find comfort (counseling, meditation), serious soul searching as to why I do and say certain things, know thyself, is a saying for a reason. I've also read many self help books, which I will do a whole post on the material I've read which helped me. (Listen to books if you don't like to read, it's well worth your time)
Again, I'm writing this blog because I notice so much unnecessary suffering. People don't get the help they need. They don't ask for what they need. Too many of us stumble along and live the best way we know how too.
I'm here to tell you, it's not good enough! Live your best life! Figure it out. Figure yourself out. WHAT DO YOU WANT? One thing every self help book I've ever read says the same thing, the answers you're looking for are within you. Someone else isn't going to make you happy.
Forgive me if I transgressed off my topic a bit : ) I'm a Gemini, I have two personalities! : ) There's lots of advice on the holidays and how to handle your family, the following link has some great tips:
I may not post the next week or two. Comment if that makes you sad! Comment and Subscribe to the blog if it helps you or you just like reading it. My upcoming topics will be: Chasing Boys, The Big D, and Love Yourself! Take Care and Talk to you Soon!
