Learn how to survive and thrive during the holidays. Embrace acceptance and experience peace and joy in a time of turmoil.
I’ve been watching old black and white Christmas movies, from a time when stories weren’t so cynical.
Movies that told unambiguous moral tales of commitment, redemption, and love.
For the past few years, I’ve mostly stopped watching film and television.
At first, because I was overwhelmed with researching and writing to help people (including myself) discern the truth of the global challenges we face.
And then because I learned of the dangers of screen technology and how the subconscious is programmed while we’re basking in blue light.
But as I take some time to unwind from the stress of so much turmoil, I find myself drawn to a simpler life and time.
In the before times, when I wasn’t consumed by the state of the world, I wrote about the anticipation and dread of Christmas get-togethers.
About the joys and challenges of being with family during a time of year where expectations can lead to great disappointment.
These days, the horror of real world events makes familial squabbles seem insignificant.
But the micro is not easier to deal with than the macro, and in fact offers us the opportunity to transform the world from the inside out.
It is one of the gifts of these tumultuous times.
We can learn to rise above our ego’s view and live into a greater consciousness.
Regardless of religious beliefs or origin stories, this time of year can be a time of goodwill, gratitude, and growth.
In an article I wrote in the before times, I distinguished 3 Christmas scenarios.
I called the first, Christmas Eve White.
This is a holiday fuelled by expectations for the future where everyone is filled with the milk of human kindness.
It is the Christmas of idyllic celebration often portrayed in old movies that can never be emulated and usually lead to a holiday fraught with disappointment.
It’s easy when an angel that looks like Cary Grant comes into the picture to bring magic and miracles to The Bishop’s Wife.
It’s not that the noble heights of forgiveness and peace can’t be attained, but that there is no external force or outside influence that can create that for us.
The second scenario I described as Christmas Eve Black.
This is the Christmas of the cynic, iconically portrayed by Alastair Sim in A Christmas Carol.
There are those who protect themselves by giving up or expecting the worst.
This is a season demonstrated by divisive dialogue and attitudes, fuelled by fear and disdain for those who don’t agree.
It is the Christmas consumed by past conflict and strife and is doomed before it begins.
But there is a 3rd option.
One neither shaped by the wrongs of the past nor by the expectations for the future, but by acceptance of the present.
Peace, love and joy, the emotional hallmarks of the Christmas season, are all available when we are willing to accept what is.
These are the internal states that ripple out to create the world around us.
Contrary to popular belief, acceptance does not equate to approval or even to giving up.
In fact, it is in a state of surrender that one finds access to imagination and possibility, free from the constraints of resistance.
As we take time to slow down during the holidays, to be with friends and family, and perhaps to contemplate the world we live in and the world we want, we can choose what face we will wear.
In the present, we can confront the darkness by shining our light, knowing that It’s a Wonderful Life.
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Thank you for supporting my work and for being the change you wish to see in the world.
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