I can’t help but to have cynical feelings about Mother’s Day every year. My inner cynic tells me that it is a commercial holiday, one of the many that keep our economy stimulated by forcing us to buy crap for our relatives out of guilt. Not only that, but holidays are a time of stress due to our having high expectations of how they should play out. Picture that classic Folgers commercial, where the son comes home for the holidays just in time to get a fresh cup of coffee from his well-heeled, serene-looking mother. Personally, that peaceful scenerio is not how holidays look in my family. How about yours? Are holidays a Folgers moment, a total disaster, or somewhere in between?
Don’t get me wrong. I love my Mother and feel eternal gratitude for her giving me life and raising me to become at least a mostly functional, semi-normal adult. But Mother’s Day, and pretty much every other holiday, leaves me feeling stressed out, even before the joyous day begins (sarcasm intended). I don’t know why, but even though Christmas is months away, I already feel anxiety about it. Why can’t I seem to apply my mindfulness strategies to cope with holidays?
I think the reason holidays are so stressful and drive mindfulness right out the door are a) they entail so much emotional “baggage” (both positive and negative) and b) because of the Folger’s commercial fantasy-induced high expectations. Then, there is the feedback effect of everyone in the family’s emotions and expectations playing off of one another’s and building into a maddening crescendo of anxiety, making enjoying the holiday almost impossible.
In the past, I thought someday I would become a bird so I could fly far, far away from the holidays and not have to deal with them. I also sometimes dream of going on vacation during Christmas, but not only is it not in my budget, I’m not quite that heartless. So realistically, what can I do to experience the holidays in a more peaceful way? Here are some possible strategies. Feel free to add your own:
- Accept people for who they are (don’t expect your family to act like a bunch of Mother Teresas when they are closer on the consciousness evolutionary scale to Lindsay Lohans).
- Keep your own side of the street clean (don’t behave like a jerk yourself and add to the negativity).
- Dwell on the positive and funny memories (try to remember the time you made your Dad’s weird friend puke at the thought of eating okra instead of the one time your Mom threw a fit, accused everyone of being alcoholics, and shut herself in her room on Thanksgiving).
- Don’t take yourself so seriously (yes, we all know holidays are commercial…get over it! They’re not going anywhere, and neither are you).
