Be blessed, not stressed
The holiday season is the perfect storm for some of us to feel stressed, depressed, and overwhelmed. Instead of stressing, let’s try blessing. When your mother-in-law makes comments about how your Thanksgiving dish is not up to par, bless the fact that you are married and have a family to spend the day with (even if they make you a little crazy). When the cop pulls you over to give you a ticket because you are racing to get to a store before it closes, bless the fact that you have transportation and do not have to wait in the cold for a bus. When your boss says, hey can you stay an extra hour tonight, bless the job you have. There are so many little things that can pile up. If we let the pile grow, eventually we have a mountain of hurts. Many people struggle with expressing their feelings especially negative feelings around the holidays when we are all “SUPPOSED” to be joyful and happy and in love like a Hallmark commercial.
FEEL YOUR FEELINGS! Anger, sadness, loneliness, or gratefulness and joy. Feel them so you can process them.
Feeling your feelings doesn’t mean acting on them. You get angry your teenager took the car without permission and wrecked it. Maybe you are even scared because something worse could have happened. However, you do not have to act angry towards your child. You can bless what you do have, let the anger go and decide to hug and love on that teenager who is probably scared themselves.
BLESS WHAT YOU HAVE. Not everyone is alive this year that was last year. Many people did not survive strokes, heart attacks, COVID19, car accidents and other tragedies. We still have a world where mass shootings happen. Be thankful and bless what you have today because you may not have it tomorrow. There are no guarantees in life except we all die eventually. Make the most of your time while you are here.
YOU ARE WHERE YOU WORKED TO BE. This may piss people off but where you are right now is a product of all your past actions. Own it. Take responsibility for where your life is and if you do not like something this is the season to consider, “Where do I want to be? What do I need to do in my life differently to make my life MY LIFE and not a life of someone else’s making?” Those are tough questions because it is easy to blame someone else. It is much harder to see our own part and where we are currently sitting.
Everyone have a great Thanksgiving day. For all my foreign friends, yes I will be in a food coma by 4 p.m. my time. Good luck trying to wake me up.
