It’s the most wonderful (& fallback-inducing) time of the year
It’s the most wonderful (and fallback-inducing) time of the year! What with both my kids’ birthdays and holiday happenings, our family and inner circle that gets swept up in the madness now refers to this month as Livecember. There are a whole bunch of expectations for December to be magical…and there are parts that are...
But, even that expectation that I should find joy in every moment this month when joy is often at the farthest reaches during the holiday season can send me tumbling back. And as I try to connect to and curate joy in the form of thoughtfully selected and assembled gifts, an evangelism for keeping up tradition, and capturing these precious and fleeting moments in time, in my childrens’ lives, I find myself growing ever more resentful.
Alis Anagnostakis asked me yesterday, “Why do you do it? Why is this all so important to you?” My answer surprised me… “Because I don’t come from a family where most put a lot of thought into gifts or traditions. I have very few memories of gifts I received throughout my childhood that were well-thought or presented, celebrations of holidays and big events, traditions that were established and kept. I want my family to experience these. I want to capture these moments in memories so we all can hold onto them, reconnect to them.” And in this response I found the values I hold that compel me to over-extend, to consume every moment in planning, or executing, or producing. And I realized what was lost in my being in the gripness. What moments and memories were we actually locking in when my son and I fought over his disinterest in helping me with the handprint tea towel tradition?
As I recounted this story today to Dana Carman, he observed, “It’s not just you offering these things to your family. Your commitment to this is your giving them to yourself, to the child in you who did not receive them, to the part of you who longed to be thought of.” And then he invited me to put my left hand over my heart to honor that hurt and pain; my right hand over my heart to tell that part of me, “I see you, I hear you, I am thinking of you;” and then to open up my arms and breathe and receive.
I am so incredibly fortunate to have such excellent company as I move in the experience of myself in my bigness and smallness. Being able to reveal all of me to people who will embrace me as I recount stories of me at my worst, giggle with me at the absurdity of my bumbling cast of characters, and then reconnect me to the practices that I hold, but sometimes struggle to gain access to on my own, is the biggest gift.
If you’re like me, you may have been noticing yourself showing up with far fewer capacities than you would like to possess in these last days of the year, what with the wrapping up the projects in addition to the presents, the family visits (already had one of those), high expectations (for self and perhaps a bit from others). Should you find yourself needing good company for the journey, great questions to help you make sense of your fallback and the values it comes in protection of, and practices to hold you in your fullness and help you locate what you need (including the very practice that Dana guided me through), Ghost Light Asynchronous is here at the ready.
