What comes after Thanksgiving?
That’s the question recently posed by my dear friend and fellow writer Susan Rau Stocker in her wonderful blog The Many Faces of PTSD. Her insightful answer below gave me a much needed perspective now that the holiday season is in full swing. I hope it increases your enjoyment of the holidays as you take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
What comes after Thanksgiving?
I know: We’re tempted to say Christmas. But Christmas is a month away, and here we are at the end of November, “the gray month,” with more than we can possibly get done between now and December 25th. So, what comes after Thanksgiving? STRESS. WORRY. AGGRAVATION. SPENDING. COMPARING OURSELVES TO OTHERS. TV SHOWS AND ADS OF PERFECT COUPLES, PERFECT FAMILIES, PERFECT HOMES, PERFECT VACATIONS, PERFECT CHRISTMAS TREES AND . . . RELAXED PEOPLE.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking more along the lines of the Grinch. This seems like a great time of year to take the dog and head off for the hills. “Come on, Max. We’ll be back in March. Maybe April.”
It’s not that I don’t love Christmas. I do love Christmas. I just don’t love what’s happened to it. Actually, it’s the same thing that has happened to weddings, funerals, birthdays, homes, cars, clothes and so much else. Everything seems to have out-grown itself. Almost everything is super-sized and as inflated as a balloon. Almost nothing has retained its meaning and simplicity.
How can we keep our heads about us in the midst of “holiday” rage? Road rage is only the beginning of the ways stress zaps our kindness to each other. Does it seem to you that most of life has become competitive instead of cooperative?
So, how do we keep it simple and real while those around us are in a race for the greatest and best, the snazziest and most elegant, the flashiest and finest? And do we need reasons to concentrate on simplicity? I know a pervasive, underlying reason: good health — mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual.
We need to disengage from the racing subway where we’re holding on to the straps for dear life. We need to sit on the mountaintop, if only in our imaginations, and stare out at the cosmos. We need to remember how little we are and how big the world is. When we look across the ocean or the mountains or the star-studded sky, why do we feel so much better? Because we regain our perspective. All is well. God’s in Her/His/Their Heaven. I have a deck of “Angel Cards” and one of them says: “”God keeps all the planets in the sky. Surely God is holding you, too.” I LOVE that thought. I guess if Jupiter and Mars are hanging in orbit, we humans can stay in our lanes, also.
What comes after Thanksgiving? A chance to re-position ourselves in a sane, safe, sweet, simple life we re-create, re-new, and rejoice in. Love, Susan
Susan Stocker is a blogger, novelist, and Marriage and Family Therapist with Masters degrees in Communication and Counseling. She served as a mental health ambassador to China in 1998 and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, and many other organizations. Her published works include Only Her Naked Courage (2013), Heart 1.5 (2013), The Many Faces of Anxiety (2013), The Many Faces of PTSD (2010), and Heart (1981), as well as her blog The Many Faces of PTSD (manyfacesofptsd.wordpress.com). She is on a lifelong journey toward Becoming Herself. You can contact her at sraustocker@yahoo.com.
It was a really dumb thing to do. In my defense, I was standing on a small wooden platform 30 feet up a tree. Given that I’m not a fan of heights, the logical part of my brain was not fully engaged. I was on a high ropes course, the kind that has zip lines, wire walks, and other obstacle course elements suspended far above the forest floor. It’s basically a torture device.
So I stood there with a thin wire running from a harness at my waist to an equally thin wire above my head. And I was supposed to step off the platform. I could’ve backed out, of course. But that would have meant a humiliating climb back down the 30 foot ladder in front of the group of students I was supposedly leading on this excursion. Not a very attractive alternative.
So it was with a sigh of relief that I stepped off the platform. And then the full weight of my 6’ 3” frame cranked the support line tight around my hand. My palm felt like it was pinned under a semi. Gasping in pain and realizing my stupidity, I wrenched my hand free. Dangling unceremoniously from a cable that could have easily held a small elephant, one clear thought penetrated the fog of pain and humiliation – I should have trusted the wire.
Have you ever tried to hedge your bets? Play both sides? Put one foot into a fluid situation while attempting to keep the other firmly on solid ground? How did that work out for you? Obviously there are times and situations where it pays to be cautious. But there are also times when we just have to choose to trust. To step out. To risk. To dive in. With a relationship. With a business venture. With an unexpected opportunity.
So how do you know the difference? How can you tell when to be appropriately cautious and when to take the risk? By asking yourself one simple question – is this worthy of my trust? For me on that ropes course, it was. I paid the price for not going all in.
