PURGING ANGER. FINDING FORGIVENESS.
If you’ve never felt irritable, resentful or angry, skip this section. If there is no one you’ve felt challenged to forgive – even for a day, yourself included – cruise on to the next tool. (The rest of us will catch up later.)
However, if you find yourself carting around more than your share of unease, disappointment, frustration, or resentment because of a relationship or life situation – or if you find yourself on anger overload, raging at the moon – stick around.
Tired of Lugging Around Anger?
Tool number three is where the rubber hit the road for me. Where my spinout found traction. (Just short of the cliff!) In this section, I highlight two
Some creative, last-minute holiday ideas that are gentle on the environment as well as the spirit.
LOW-STRESS GIFTS
Gift a service. Housecleaning, clutter clearing, yard work, car detailing. Pamper with a massage, facial or pedicure.
Gift art lessons, music lessons, dance lessons or a pottery class.
Gift an introductory coaching session in an area of interest. A writing coach for a blossoming novelist. A nutritional coach for someone wishing to change their eating habits. A creativity coach for someone who needs a jump-start back into their art.
Gift your time after the holidays. Help with a project or take someone out for a play date.
LOW-IMPACT GIFT WRAPS
Remember how Grandma used to press and save wrapping paper? Start your own tradition of “re-use.” Silk drawstring bags with beaded tassels can hold all kinds of goodies and be used by the recipient the next season for their gift wrapping. The year’s recipient can toss in a “fortune cookie” wish as they pass it on. What fun you will have watching those fortunes grow within your circle of family and friends!
Take stocking-stuffing beyond the fireplace mantel. Come
One of the stressful aspects of holidays is when traditions collide with life circumstances. Add to that the expectations exalted by the media for a ho-ho-holiday and you have the recipe for stress and the ho-hum-holiday blues.
If your life looks anything like ours, you find the picture shifts – not so predictably – from one year to the next. All sorts of transitions can occur in a year’s time. Relocations. Job changes. Children leaving home. Children moving back in. (Yipes!) Aging parents. You name it. Life does not stop for the Kodak moments of the past to catch up with the present.
With all that in mind, Ray and I want to share a little secret that has maneuvered us through many holidays with low to no stress.
Ritual-making. The kind of ritual-making that supports tradition but does not need tradition for its power. Add a dash of creativity to the mix and you will uncover
“… listening to divine guidance through the emotional chaos.” Suzanne DeMarchi, Cheshire, CT
REFRAMING
In this section, I define reframing, give you a few “under fire” examples, and finish with some reframing exercises to try for yourself.
What Is Reframing?
Reframing is changing the context (the frame) within which you view a challenging person or situation. Seeing your concern in a new way (reframing) allows you to make choices and take actions that can open the door to possibilities that were not previously “available” to you because of a limited vantage point.
Let’s Look At A Few Reframing Examples From B’s Pages
I was struggling with fears about our relationship when these words poured onto my morning pages. Seven months before Ray left, before HE even knew he was going to leave, Spirit wrote,
“Do not give up on him. He needs you to be light ... The way may not be easy … but you knew that from the beginning of this arrangement … He may need to find another woman … to see you anew … You must not walk away in frustration. He will not renege … Know this and remain true.”
Arrangement. Another woman. Remain true.
Spirit shot those words through with surgical precision. Past my censor. Past my “emotional chaos.” Their purpose? Gently start the process of reframing an event that had not yet taken place. The part about “another woman” saving our marriage was just too
“She clearly demonstrates how to bring journaling to the next level.” Devra Ursem-Phillips, Visions Unlimited Coaching
Writing “Under Fire”
For a demonstration of the first tool at work, pick up
Bernadette’s Pages and flip to any page. (With exception to the Intro’s and Afterward, of course.)
Writing under fire provided a journaling intensive that saved my life. (Dramatic but true.) Desperation overflowed from a pretty blue journal with a fluffy white kitty on the cover into comp books, steno pads, loose-leaf paper – and anything else remotely close to paper – when the angst hit. Venting anger. Flushing out remorse. Dear God letters. Ray-you-asshole letters. Therapy work. Dream logs. Synchronicity logs. Gratitude logs. Spirit dialogs. Ego dialogs. Guess you could say journaling helped me to map out the expressway and every alternate route available when confronted with an emotional traffic jam.
Two Gifts And Amplified Synchronicity
In the fall of ’93, Ray gave me a copy of
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Struggling with a loss