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Let Us Celebrate The Season With Charity And Kindness
The holidays are a bittersweet time of year for me. While I am blessed to be surrounded by my loved ones during these days, I am also reminded of all the loneliness and suffering that many people around the world experience.
The holidays should be more than just a time of joy and celebration. It should also be a time to examine our privilege and count our blessings.
I came to this realization many years ago as a young woman living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Coming from a loving, sheltered family, I made the shocking discovery that the holidays were not joyous for everyone.
It happened while I was walking through the Boston Common one evening with a friend. The Common in downtown Boston is the oldest urban park in the United States. It is traditionally always beautifully decorated for the holidays and there is a long-standing tradition of an annual Christmas lighting ceremony that dates back to 1917.
It all began on December 6, 1917, when the Halifax Explosion, the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, destroyed much of the city. Boston officials learned of the disaster by telegraph and quickly organized and dispatched a relief train to help the survivors.
How To Beat The Holiday Blues This Year!
The holidays can be a very difficult and depressing time for some people. It can trigger unresolved emotions from childhood, unhealed trauma from past relationships, or unfinished grief from lost loved ones.
It can also make you feel more lonely, disconnected, and isolated than usual.
Especially for people struggling with existing mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression, their symptoms may worsen during the holidays due to increased stress, social demands, and cultural triggers.
But there are ways to beat the holiday blues and overcome sadness, depression, or low spirits during “the season to be jolly.” There are ways you can take back your power and improve your mood and overall well-being.
First, it is necessary to determine what is causing you to not feel the holiday cheer that everyone else seems to be experiencing.
Several factors can contribute to negative, gloomy thoughts and feelings during this time of year. A common trigger for many of us is that mainstream holiday traditions tend to emphasize spending time with loved ones and family, which can exacerbate feelings of loneliness for those who are socially isolated or have lost loved ones. This isolation can be particularly acute for those of us who live far from family or have strained relationships with them.
Navigating Loneliness During the Holidays
The holiday season is traditionally portrayed as a time of togetherness, love, joy, and belonging. We are inundated with media images of families gathered around a festive table, friends celebrating, and communities coming together.
Paradoxically, for many people, this time of year is instead filled with feelings of loneliness, isolation and disconnection.
The root cause is the societal stereotype and cultural assumption that everyone should be joyful, happy, and surrounded by loved ones during the holidays. If you’re not, for whatever reason, it can lead to feelings of inadequacy, isolation, and social failure.
Holiday loneliness is exacerbated by the stark contrast between our actual circumstances and the commercially driven, idealized versions of holiday gatherings and celebrations we see in advertisements, television shows, movies, and social media. This increases feelings of disconnection, low self-esteem, and even depression.
Loneliness during the holidays can have a significant impact on mental health. Feelings of isolation and disconnection during this time of year can exacerbate existing mental health issues and lead to the development of new ones. The constant reminders of togetherness and joy, combined with a lack of social connections and meaningful interactions, can increase feelings of loneliness, leading to emotional distress, feelings of emptiness and hopelessness, and a decline in overall well-being.
Good Old-Fashioned Human Connection
Recently I met up with a good friend whom I had not seen in a long time. Our friendship began nine years ago when I lived in another province of Spain, adjacent to the one where I now live.
Of course, since I moved, we see less of each other. Once in a while I drive over to see her, and a round trip takes me about two and a half hours.
She is a vibrant, kind woman who, along with her extended family, helped me through a particularly difficult time a few years ago. They always made me feel very welcome when I lived there and tried very hard to persuade me not to move away!
She can be great company, but lately she has not been as present as she was when we first met. You might have guessed why. Yes, indeed, social media on her phone has become a major new focus for her. It has become a significant distraction during our visits in recent months.
Knowing how kind, generous and caring she truly is, I do not take it personally. I realize that, like many people around the world, her social media messaging and texting became an important substitute for the lack of personal interaction and social connection during the isolated, lonely times caused by the recent pandemic. For many, it has since become a habit and a new way of life, and for some, an addiction.
A few days ago, thankfully, she had an epiphany for which one can only pray. Instead of her constantly scrolling through her phone, we spent some quality time together for a change, strolling around town, eating lunch, and talking non-stop like we had not seen each other in years!
Comparison Poisons The Heart, Mind And Soul
When we are going through difficult times, we tend to compare our struggles and suffering to the lives of others and measure ourselves by their perceived happiness, joy and success.
We often do this these days by comparing our own lives to what others post on social media. Then we judge and mentally torture ourselves for not living up to other people’s highlight reels of happiness and good fortune.
Sure, it is sometimes beneficial to self-reflect and strive for more based on the examples of others who serve as our role models. However, when we indiscriminately compare our own life journey to everyone else’s, we end up diminishing our own uniqueness and value.
While social comparison can motivate us to improve and grow, it can also lead to toxic self-judgment, envy, resentment, and extreme unhappiness. Constantly focusing on the highlights of other people’s lives quickly becomes toxic and self-destructive.
However, this tendency is not a character flaw in some of us. In fact, it is a natural evolutionary instinct that we all have. Our ancestors survived by living in social groups. Our tendency to compare ourselves to others is therefore a very common human trait, rooted in our evolution as a species.
Learning To Honor My Higher Self
Have you ever had a conversation with someone that made you feel very uncomfortable, upset, even angry, to the point where you could feel their negative, toxic energy attaching to you? I certainly have, more times than I care to remember.
This feeling of extreme discomfort is usually a clear sign that the interaction you are having with this person is going against your higher self. Yet, even though we are aware of this on some level, we often fail to do what is right for our highest good and instead continue to interact with the energy thief in question to our own detriment.
Truth be told, I have been guilty of this myself many times. Only to face the aftermath of unhappiness and disappointment for not honoring my higher self.
I have recently become increasingly aware of this personal failing and have been actively working to identify my motives for putting and keeping myself in these situations.
I have come so far in my quest for increased self-awareness and spiritual growth that I am willing to explore and deal with the deepest corners of my soul-self. True enlightenment is not only about our brightest achievements, but also about our darkest inner shadows.
Grandma Will Wear Her Big Girl Boots!
I recently discovered a website where you can “rent a friend”. It made me wonder, why would anyone need to rent a friend? Isn’t making friends a natural thing?
Normally, people who have something in common or enjoy each other’s company tend to gravitate toward each other. Even when attending a large social gathering, people tend to find like-minded people in the crowd to interact with. So, why in the world would anyone ever need to ‘rent’ a friend?
Well, the site had a list of occasions when one might want to purchase this type of service. Some of the things on the list included hiring a companion to be your plus one at a wedding, or to go to the theater, sightseeing, dinner, or even traveling abroad.
Essentially, the service connects people with common interests.
Then I wondered, are there really enough people who would use such a service to make it profitable? Apparently, there are and I should not have been be surprised. Our social life increasingly depends on digital technology.
Most of us are lucky if we can count on one hand the friends we can invite to join us on some of our adventures, let alone the few close friends we can count on in good times and bad. It is rare to have friends who have the time, money, or energy to do fun things with us on a regular basis.