Family and friends are about to come together. But that doesn’t mean they will be together.
A virtuous or noble label does not disguise dysfunction or division.
The relative who:
- Talks too much
- Brags about themselves
- Eats with their mouth open
- Incessantly shares unwelcome opinions
- Talks (and talks and talks) about things of little interest to you
- Or yells at the television…
…may appear to be the culprit wrecking your holiday experience.
The troublesome truth, however, is it isn’t them that’s making your life difficult. It’s you.
A mentor set my life on a better course by once asking me, “What do you love about your ex-wife, the mother of your daughter?”
Until that question had been asked, I had despised my former partner. Which meant, of course, that I viewed her actions through a lens of venom.
Which created the false truth that she was poisonous.
By answering my mentor, I changed the lens—and my experience of her changed. The venom dissolved.
Wayne Dyer wisely said, “When you change how you see the world, the world changes.” The same holds true for the people in our lives.
Consider how you want to feel over the holidays. Does it make sense that another person determines your experience?
The “happy” in holidays is up to you.
