One Down* – Two to Go**

 

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*     – Thanksgiving
**   – Christmas (and other seasonal celebrations) and New Year’s

The holiday season is often difficult to navigate – mentally, physically and emotionally. The frivolity, laughter, glitter and shine often turn to blue. For many, the holiday season is a season of darkness, not light, facing the challenges of resentment, jealousy, quiet or overt anger, sadness, stress, loneliness, and unfulfilled longings – a time to get through, rather than truly enjoy.

Successfully meeting these challenges can be likened to the way white-water rafters approach their task. Beginners watch for the craggy rocks, the problems to avoid, the risks to circumvent, usually ending their runs feeling emotionally and physically drained. Experts focus on the flow line where the currents safely guide them through the roughest areas with a minimum of mental and emotional stress, ending their runs on a high, with energy to spare.

So, I’d like to share some perspectives and strategies to support you to create a nurturing holiday experience resulting in peace in body, mind, and spirit and a heightened sense of well-being.

Body:

Fall and winter are Nature’s time for hibernation -being quiet and lying dormant. The tendency to live frenetically – shopping, partying, and going at ninety miles an hour, is unnatural. The physical stress alone can affect your immune system, resulting in energy depletion, lethargy, and illness. It’s important to take time to relax and reduce stress, to maintain consistent harmony and balance. Some suggestions:

Your body monitors how you’re doing. So, notice levels of tension and/or fatigue. With a cupped hand, lightly tap your arms and neck, and other areas to relieve stress and to increase energy flow and vitality. Is your breathing deep and relaxed, or shallow and quick? Remember always to breathe deeply, especially when facing stressful circumstances.

Nurture yourself. Take time for reflection and being alone. Go to a movie, take a hot, soothing bath, treat yourself to a massage, cuddle up and enjoy your favorite music, take a quiet walk. And, breathe. Release the tether to your electronic devices.

The holiday season is defined by social gatherings and often the focus of such gatherings is food. People often overeat (often emotionally-driven) during the holidays, and then experience guilt. In addition to the usual tips of eating before you go to a social gathering to avoid starving when you get there, and socializing away from the food center of gravity, you might :

Design a conscious eating strategy so you don’t fall prey to unconscious patterns of medicating with food and drink. Savor the tastes, the pleasure of the aromas, flavors, and textures of seasonal treats. Don’t beat yourself up or deny the pleasure. Harmony and balance are the keys. Plan your daily intake of calories, so you have room to indulge and still experience well-being, rather than indulge and feel badly both physically and emotionally. And, breathe.

Stress is a major excuse for eating. Reflect on what’s stressing you and reflect on how you can reduce or eliminate stressors, over and above eating or drinking. And, breathe.

Maintain a consistent exercise regimen to alleviate guilt about overindulging. Your body needs to move to feel well. So put on some music and dance, or shake out tensions and stresses so you don’t become stuck in a holiday funk. And, breathe.

Mind:

During the holidays our internal judge and critic bombard us with how we should act and behave. Listening to this onslaught of “I should” is enough to drive one to Grinch-dom. I must get the right gift. I should go to that party I must eat less. I have to send a card. I need (or don’t) to say what’s on my mind. I need to make this the best holiday ever. I should exercise more. I need to meet someone else’s expectations of me. I should be more joyful, sincere, outgoing, religious, appreciative, generous, peaceful, etc.

In family gatherings; you may feel a need to debate issues, feelings, or past memories. Instead, initiate a truce. Place resentments and grievances on the back burner. You can address them after the holidays with greater thoughtfulness and clarity when extra seasonal stresses won’t affect you.

So, beware of the “shoulds.” Rather than beat yourself up whenever your inner judge tugs on your sleeve, just allow yourself to witness the “should.” Then, breathe deeply a few times and move on. Experiencing guilt indicates you’re allowing your judge to grab you and hold you up to some imagined or impossible holiday ideal. And, breathe.

The focus during the holidays, and all days, is being authentic, allowing your integrity to shine, to be yourself, and not struggle to meet either someone else’s expectations or some ideal you have of yourself that is impossible to meet. This is a good opportunity to practice the Four Ls of well-being: lighten up on yourself, laugh at yourself, love yourself, and leave yourself alone. You can defend against your internal critic and judge by telling it to back off, using whatever silent or oral language works for you.

You may overeat, or over drink, to take care of and nurture yourself, perhaps to find sweetness and comfort from food where you cannot find sweetness elsewhere, perhaps to distract yourself from boring people or events, or to deny what you’re feeling. So, be aware of what’s eating you and reflect on whether food or drink are the only alternatives. And, of course, breathe.

Spirit:

No one consciously wakes up and says: I’m going to be a jerk today. The opposite is normally true – almost everyone is trying to do their best and, in their own mind, operate from positive intention. So, when it’s easy to become stressed and react to what we perceive as others’ rudeness, insensitivity, or stupidity, take nothing personally. Use these opportunities for your spirit to come through, be accepting of others, and look for the noble humanity in others. For example:

When a shopper inadvertently bumps into you or cuts in line;
When a driver cuts you off;
When someone inadvertently says something you take to be critical or demeaning;
When a family member brings up an embarrassing or unpleasant past event in your life;
When a retail/service person doesn’t meet your expectations for quality service;
When someone forgets to thank you for your gift;
When your family doesn’t decorate the house, or prepare food, exactly as you would;
When the priest, minister or rabbi offers a sermon you feel you could have given better;

Be appreciative and grateful for all you have, come from your heart, not your mind, focus on what you love and what truly gives meaning to you, and on what this season means to you – whether its family, community, or religion. Stressful events present opportunities to be bold and brave, allowing your light and joy to shine, no matter what anyone else is doing. Wherever you are, wherever you go, know that you are a blessing! And, breathe!

And if in doing your best to take care of yourself, you feel overwhelmed, ask for help. Speak with a counselor, a coach, or minister. Folks in the helping professions are aware of, and sympathetic to, the pain which people experience at this time. Yes, this too shall pass, but if you find yourself swept up in the blues of your holiday, it will pass more quickly if you seek support.

So, gift yourself and use this time to practice following your own flow line as you navigate the white waters of this holiday season.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• Do you find yourself getting sick during the holidays? (Note: the main cause is a weak immune system. Another major factor is the stress of dealing with our families.)
• What stresses you during the holidays?
• Are you attached to how folks react to the gifts you give them? If so, why?
• Do you tend to overeat or over-do during the holidays? If so, do you ever consider if you overeat or over-engage in too much activity to fill some type of emotional hole?
• Are you really, really happy during the holidays? How can you tell?
• Do you take time for, and care of, yourself during the holidays? If not, why not?
• What are you doing differently this year to reduce stress during the holidays?
• Who’s driving your holiday activities? You, your friends, your family, others? If it’s not you, why not? How do you feel about having others dictate how you spend your holiday time?
• What were the holidays like for you when you were growing up?

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(c) 2018, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful. Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com

You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering

Are “Difficult” People Really Difficult?

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If you Google “difficult people,” you get 3,060,000 hits; “difficult people at work,”188,000 and “working with difficult people,” 302,000 hits. Hmmm

There’s no question that in most every organization (including home and playground), we come face to face with folks who test our limits, who push our buttons, who frustrate, upset, antagonize and otherwise annoy us to where we just want to scream. We often refer to such folks as “difficult,” or irritating or rude – folks whom we just cannot work with or be with.

From my perspective, however, the question is not so much what makes them “difficult,” but what we tell ourselves about them that makes them difficult, that is, what is it in us that supports or triggers our reactivity. What are the stories and characterizations we tell ourselves about these others that bring us to label them as “difficult (e.g., S/he is so (fill in the blank with your negative judgment, criticism, or descriptor)” that categorizes them as difficult?”

When we inquire within, i.e., when we ask ourselves, “What is really, really, really ‘true’ about this person’s being difficult?”, experience suggests that it’s not so much that another’s behavior is all that egregious, outlandish, off the charts or aberrant. More often, it’s the story we tell ourselves about that person we take as real, a story we assume is true.

So, when we feel the urge to label another as “difficult,” a first step is to check out the reality of the story, my story, my “facts.” How so?

Here are three self-reflective questions to ask:

1. What is that person doing, or how are they being, that is problematical for me, that leads me to label them as “difficult?”

In other words, ask yourself “What are the observable and measurable behaviors that point to their being “difficult?”  Often, when we’re caught up in reactivity, or feeling flooded by our emotions, we lose sight of the observable facts and simply respond with a knee-jerk judgment along the lines of: “Well, it’s nothing specific. I can’t point to any one thing exactly, s/he’s just being an “a–hole.” Because we feel so attached to our story, we often fail to grasp the details that indicate the person is, in fact, difficult. So, ask yourself, “If someone gave me the same feedback (judgment) I am directing to that other person, would I know exactly how to do, or be, differently? If not, you’re telling yourself a story and you’ll need to be clear on the facts.

2. Do you allow your story to cloud your view of that person?

When we create stories, we create a set of lenses or filters though we choose to view (judge?) that person. Or, another analogy – if I choose to believe another is lazy, then I turn the “radio dial” in my head to the station that features only “laziness” tunes and, as such, I’m always on the lookout for, listening for, ways that person is behaving that I can characterize as lazy, in order to prove the truth of my story.

If I choose to believe my boss is friendlier with a colleague and is ignoring, or rejecting, me and my work, then I turn my internal radio dial to pick up “rejection” tunes and look for, and listen for, incidents which support me to say, “See, there she goes again; she likes that other person and is not concerned with me or my work.”

The point is, we consciously or unconsciously create distortions that support us to prove “I am right,” that “my story” is true. We look to internalize/save lots of evidence to prove our story. We don’t stand back and ask ourselves, “Is this the whole story?” “Is my story, really, really the truth?” “Is there any chance I’m distorting things just a bit?” In fact, “Is this person, perhaps, not the ‘worst person’ in the world I make him or her out to be?” “Could I be mistaken?”

3. Do you behave a certain way toward that person based on your story?

The bottom line is that our stories influence our behavior (at work, at home, at play in just about all of our relationships). Our stories (and their attendant beliefs, thoughts, assumptions, preconceptions, misperceptions, etc.) trigger our emotions and feelings and it is our emotions and feelings that drive our behavior (often unconsciously) towards the other.

So, its important to take steps to become “conscious” of our stories. Two questions can help in this inquiry: “How am I behaving toward another based on my story?” And, “Am I building a case against another, or attempting to solidify a case against another, based on my story?”

A next step is to become curious as to whether, in fact, I am perpetuating another’s behavior as a result of my story. Am I contributing to that other persons being “difficult” through my story and reactivity?

Yes, there are “difficult” people in the world. The question is whether some of these folks are really “difficult” in and of themselves or whether I am a major contributing factor to their being ‘”difficult” through my story, and, more sincerely, honestly, and self-responsibly, how do I know the difference.

Finally, I invite you to reflect on the following thoughts that might inform your inquiry into “difficult” people and your stories about them:

Everyone is in “chapter three” of their life and often we base our criticisms and judgments of another on the assumption we know what went on in “chapter one” and “chapter two.” Truth is, we don’t know. This approach can often support us to be less judgmental and give the other the benefit of the doubt and, thus, be more open, accepting, understanding and compassionate in the way we relate to others when we, initially, want to judge them as “difficult.”

No one (read: no one) ever gets up in the morning and says, “I’m going to be a jerk today.” Maybe pause, take a few deep breaths, feel into your arising reactivity (mental, emotional, physiological) and ask yourself why this well-meaning, decent person would choose to behave in a “difficult” manner. Be curious. Breathe again. And see if you still feel as reactive. If you do, be curious as to why. What does being reactive get you?

Some questions for self-reflection:

• How do you generally react at work (at home and at play) when you come across a “difficult” person?
• Do you ever give a “difficult” person the benefit of the doubt? If not, why not?
• Do you ever make judgments about folks assuming you know all about them (chapters one and two) and what makes them “tick”?
• Have you ever been the “difficult” person? How so? If so, how does acknowledging this make you feel?
• Have you ever asked colleagues, bosses, friends, spouse/partner or child(ren) if you’re a difficult person? If not, would you? If not, why not?
• Have you even been judged harshly or unfairly? How did you feel?
• Have you ever been told you were quick to judge?
• Do you ever make up stories about people? How do your stories support you or make you feel?
• Do you ever feel compassionate towards “difficult” people? Do you ever defend “difficult” people?
• Do you ever justify your own “difficult” behavior while admonishing others for behaving in the same “difficult” way? What’s the difference?
• When the choice is between seeing another as a human being or a villain (“difficult”), which do you normally choose? Why?
• What one or two baby steps might you take this week and next to discern the facts about someone you might have labeled as “difficult” to see if your “story” is really, really, the “truth?”
• How did you parents or primary caregivers view “difficult” people when you were growing up?

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(c) 2018, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful. Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com

You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering