This is a seasonal post. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we have family that we may or may not get along with. We love them, but they may make us a little crazy when we spend too much time with them. This is just a family thing for most of us. However there are families that have an easy time being together, that is also true. Decide who will be at your Thanksgiving get together. Make it easy on yourself. Break it up—you usually don’t have to have everyone in at one time, as there are other holidays. This is not the last one ever.
Before the holiday gets here, try to not overwhelm yourself with too much to do. Maybe the food is important but I would say it is not as important as the time spent with family in a calm way. Try and make it easy on yourself if you are hosting.
Prepare ahead of time, have other family members bring something, have it catered, have sandwiches. Make it simple so you can enjoy your time together. There will probably be people who are strongly opposed to the idea of not doing everything themselves, and that is OK. My point is that when you are stressed and trying to make everything work out in an extreme way, you lose the reason that you got together in the first place. Remember it is Thanksgiving.
This is another level of personal work. Be forgiving of your family for their lack of perfection. None of us are perfect and I suppose that if we recognized that more often, we would be very forgiving of others. When we recognize our basic humanity and human frailties we lighten up a bit because we are pretty much in the same boat. Be forgiving of yourself and it is a beginning of understanding how we all have issues and we sometimes feel bad for our shortcomings. It would be nice if we had love in our hearts for ourselves so that we could be more loving of others.
There is a simple little something that has helped me endless times:
I forgive you, I release you, I let you go, so that you may come to your highest good and I may come to mine. We do forgiveness work for ourselves, because we are the one who suffers most when we are not forgiving.
It seems like Thanksgiving is one of those times when we might reflect on our lives and how we have so much to be grateful for.
Blessings for a great holiday!
To submit problems, contact Juanita Sanchez, psychotherapist, by email at [email protected] or through High Plains Journal.
