From Holiday Hell to Holiday Health
Everyone has a different experience around the “holiday season”, for some it’s a time of rest but for others it’s a time of stress!
Today I want to share a single, simple tool that can help with many different versions of holiday stress. That tool is encapsulated in the phrase: "Making Life Wonderful."
No, this isn't some cheezy Christmas gimmick about it being "the most wonderful time of the year" or anything like that. Rather, it's a contrast to what we do that makes the holidays most stressful - try to get things "right".
This distinction between trying to get things right vs making life wonderful comes from Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's thinking on Nonviolent Communication. He proposes that we're always either playing the game of "who's right?" or the game of "sharing from the heart."
Trying to get it "right" implies that there is some external standard of what is correct, how things are supposed to be. The weight of should hangs over the whole relationship. We're left with the fool's choice of going along and trying to live up to the impossible standards of doing things perfectly (because such a thing isn't possible), or rejecting the game entirely and attempting to opt out (only somewhat possible)!
When we shift our focus toward making life wonderful, we can get down to the fun work of meeting our own and others needs, finding out who we really are together, and making art out of the imperfect circumstances in front of us!
This doesn't automatically solve hard questions like which grandparents get the first visit on Xmas day, nor can it teach you how to get the exactly appropriate gift for a work event, but it DOES cut through the root of things like people-pleasing behavior. We sacrifice our own needs because somewhere we've fallen prey to the idea that you can do a perfect job, and that you should. We've been taught to base our sense of validity on this, so sacrificing our own needs to try to make everyone else happy seems natural.
When we're coming from a "who's right?" paradigm, someone also has to be wrong, has to be other, or less than. But when we're coming from "Making Life Wonderful," everyone gets to be valid. We can honor our diverse needs, and the feelings that act as our compass to fulfilling those needs.
Instead of a realm of shame and blame where someone's needs must be seen as less-than, we can enter an orientation that includes all of us with the intention of making life wonderful.
It's the intention here that matters, because we won't always succeed in making life wonderful in a way that everyone recognizes as such! Watch out for that old perfectionism again - the point isn't about getting the perfect results, that's not possible. The point is about where we're coming from, and that can make all the difference. Rather than stressing about getting it right ourselves, or judging and blaming others who can't seem to live up to our exacting standards, we could settle down into the perfectly imperfect state of being HUMAN, and make the best of it together!
Apply this tip just by trying on this new orientation, and aiming away from shaming, blaming, or shoulding - watch how wonderful things can get! If you want more details about how to work the specifics of this compassionate stance, join us for the Winter Compassionate Communication Intensive - class 2 happens tonight (12/14), and class one is archived for you to catch up. We go into detail about the simple pivots that can make all the difference in our human relationships, and how to put them into practice! See you there!
