Ed Jacobson offered to let me post this chapter from his book, Appreciative Moments, and I quickly accepted the offer. If you’re feeling frantic this week before Chistmas, read this and put things back into perspective. Do his Practices to help you truly savor the holidays. You can get the book from Amazon.com (you can even order it right here by clicking on my bookstore – it is the first book listed). If you would like an autographed copy you can order it from ed@edwardjacobson.com.
Appreciative Moments
By Ed Jacobson
Chapter 32:
A Sane Pre-Holiday Rush, and a Savory Holiday
December holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and others I may not aware of) are special in many ways, much of which can be expressed as More:
- More gift-giving
- More celebrating
- More eating and drinking
- More after-Christmas shopping (giving new meaning to the phrase Many Happy Returns of the Day (-After-Christmas).
And some less-savory aspects:
- More societal expectation that we should be merry and celebratory as the holidays approach. And that we should carry the holiday spirit throughout December.
- More hype and advertising. The message is “If you love your family, and our economy, you’ll go out and do your (market) share. Get out there and Shop ‘Til YouDrop!” It’s hard to keep our priorities straight and to remember what the holidays are about at their core. My understanding is that they weren’t originally intended to account for forty percent of annual sales.
We have two challenges in this frenetic month: (a) Moving through the pre-holiday period with as much calm and enjoyment as possible, and not buckling under the pressures of work, holiday shopping, and our mixed feelings about the upcoming holidays; and (b) being in the holiday period itself in as present and life-affirming way as
possible, without drowning in More. Here are some appreciative ways to deal with each of these challenges:
Pre-holiday Self-Care
1. Give yourself many Stillpoints. I introduced the Stillpoint concept of Dr. David Kundtz in chapter 15. A Stillpoint is a brief respite – a few seconds, or as much as a fifteen-minute break – that allows you to breathe and come back to yourself. We probably need more Stillpoints than usual this week. Here’s a starter kit of Stillpoint Opportunities:
- waiting on line at the Post Office
- pumping gas
- making out holiday cards
- writing a report
- caring for a parent or infant.
This week, each Stillpoint is an investment in our sanity.
2. Cultivate positive images of the upcoming holidays. Picture yourself happily immersed in the settings you’ll be in. Really get into the scene, in your mind’s eye.Picture who’ll be there and what they (and you) will be wearing, smell the smells and taste the food and drink, laugh the laughs, enjoy the private conversations, feel the crunch of the snow beneath your shoes or skis. The more senses you can employ, the more effective the image will be in creating a state of Positive Anticipation. When you feel rushed or stressed this week, call to mind one or more of the above scenes2. Cultivate positive images of the upcoming holidays. Picture yourself happily immersed in the settings you’ll be in. Really get into the scene, in your mind’s eye.
Picture who’ll be there and what they (and you) will be wearing, smell the smells and taste the food and drink, laugh the laughs, enjoy the private conversations, feel the crunch of the snow beneath your shoes or skis. The more senses you can employ, the more effective the image will be in creating a state of Positive Anticipation. When you feel rushed or stressed this week, call to mind one or more of the above
scenes, savor it for a moment, and then resume your business, refreshed and replenished. The more often you can focus on positive anticipation, (a) the more pleasant the preholiday activities will be, in and of themselves and (b) the more enjoyable the ensuing holidays will be. Each time you focus on the positive anticipatory image, you train your brain to enjoy the holidays when they eventually arrive. You’re feeding your brain positive messages like Holidays = Good Feelings.If you find yourself unable to summon up those positive images, maybe you could give yourself a Good (i.e., a Life-affirming) Talking to. (See chapter 19 for more on this.) Seek the counsel of someone you trust, and talk about the upcoming holidays and how to enjoy them. If your holiday plans hold the promise of more distress than you wish to experience, maybe you simply need to consider modifying them. Positive Anticipation is not meant to be Happy Talk. In Appreciative Inquiry, there’s something called the
Constructionist Principle. It tells us that in every situation, there’s more than one truth. It’s usually wisest to choose the truth that’s most life-affirming. That’s not Happy Talk, that’s simply Wise Choosing.Savoring the Holidays
Savoring is defined as the awareness of pleasure, and the devoting of deliberate attention to that experience. Heaven knows, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to be aware of pleasurable indulgences next week: the opening of presents, the look on recipients’ faces as they express (or feign) delight and surprise, the offering of truly savory food and drink, the way-too-many football games and the endless reruns of Miracle on 34th Street, and all the rest.
The more you focus on savoring each separate aspect of what goes on during the holidays, the more you’ll enjoy them and the less taxed you’ll be. If you’ve ever gone to a wine-tasting, you’ll recall being instructed on wine mindfulness: how to view, swirl, smell, sip, swallow, and experience the wine. As a result, you probably paid a lot more attention to your experience, you tasted the wine more deeply and fully than usual, and you drank more mindfully. And you probably consumed less than you might otherwise have.
Applying that example to our holidays, we would try to approach each situation – each present opened, each meal, each drink, each video viewing, and so on – with greater intention to savor. We would “devote deliberate attention” to the experience. Fred Bryant and Joe Veroff at University of Chicago have fesearched how best to do that, as I discussed in Chapters 14 through 16. Here are some of their recommended practices:
- We’d practice Absorption: we’d really get into the food, the drink, the activity in a fully immersed way. We might even limit our conversation, from time to time, to savor the moment. It may be awkward to do be silent and still while in holiday company, but you can create frequent Stillpoints where you remember to pay attention to the experience.
- We’d also Share the Experience With Others. When we not only go through an experience with others, but we also comment on how cool, how meaningful, and/or how enjoyable it is while we’re in the midst of it, we deepen our savoring.
- And we’d Build Memories. This may consist of creating “Kodak Moments.” It may also consist of taking small mementos of particularly meaningful holiday events: a program from Christmas Eve services, a coaster from a restaurant, a souvenir from the place you visited over the holidays (you know, stuff you’d never buy if you were in your right mind), and so on.
There’s no magic to savoring the holidays. There’s just (a) mindfulness, (b) a conscious willingness to focus on the good stuff, (c) an intention to catch ourselves when we’re on overload or going negative, and (d) using that awareness as a cue to give ourselves frequent breaks from the action (aka: Stillpoints). And, of course, purchasing some goofy souvenirs.
It works for me. How about you? Think about your practices for keeping your sanity in the lead-up to the holidays, and maximizing your joy, delight, and meaningfulness during them. Resolve to call upon them in this frenetic time.
PRACTICES
In addition to applying the practices discussed in this chapter, consider the following
Practices:1. Think about your own best practices for staying present and centered in the midst of intense or chaotic situations. When are you at your best in such circumstances?
Reflect on how you can apply those Practices to the lead-up to the holidays.
2. Think about who your most effective role models have been, at weathering the preholiday build-up and the holidays themselves. What’s their secret recipe for remaining centered? How can you apply this recipe? When feeling as though you’re succumbing to holiday or pre-holiday stress, pause and ask yourself, What would your favorite hero do? See what you discover.
3. On a 3 x 5 index card (or on your PDA, or as a screen saver on your computer), note the following three Practices for savoring the holidays. For each one, make a note about how you can apply it. (For example: “Building Memories: Use my video camera to capture special occasions.”)
- Absorption
- Sharing the Experience With Others
- Build Memories
When the holidays are getting to you (when they’re just too much, or not enough), review the three Practices and see if they provide any insights and cues you can use, savor it for a moment, and then resume your business, refreshed and replenished.
The wrapping paper has been picked up and put into a large green yard bag – there are a few ribbon and paper stragglers that will be discovered today, I’m sure, but for the most part the wrappings are gone. Some of the unwrapped gifts are still under the tree waiting to be claimed and put away by the recipient. Most of the dishes are either in the dishwasher or waiting for their turn. The residents of this house are sleeping in – except for me – and I slept later than usual.
