Oregon Armories

Coping With Stress During the Season to Be Jolly

Real-life holidays may not be anything like the Hollywood “Brady Bunch” holidays. While radios and store Muzak blare Ho-ho-ho and Fa-la-la, we sometimes find ourselves feeling the contrast between what we WANT in their lives and what we HAVE. We may be grieving for people who are not with uswho may be gone because of military duty, illness, divorce or death. We may grieve for losses due to financial setbacks, depression, rifts in relationships, or relationships we want but don’t have. The contrast between what “SHOULD” be and what IS can sometimes be unbearable. When we find ourselves with this kind of stress during the holidays, it’s time to E-E-E-K our way through the holidays.

E-E-E-K stands for Experience it, Explore it, learn to Embrace it, and Kreate something with it to heal our lives. These are mind-body-spirit skills that will enable us to heal ourselves. We often try to numb the pain, not understanding that only when we feel it, can we heal it. Sometimes we try to numb ourselves because we feel overwhelmed by it all. Still other times, we numb ourselves because we don’t know what else to do. E-E-E-K-ing our way through painful holidays is a practical and effective way to transform the pain into gain.

Let me explain. For many years, I have shared an analogy with my counseling clients that has helped many to understand and cope with their emotions. Maybe it can help you, too. Emotions are much like ocean waves. Let me ask you a question: What happens when you fight an ocean wave? Yes, you get knocked off balance faster than if you had gone with the wave. The same thing happens with emotions: when we resist or fight them or try to pretend that we don’t have them, they grow stronger and they knock us on our keister! It’s the old principle of “What you resist, persists.” When we flow with the wave, it passes through us and back out to sea. When we flow with our emotions, they pass through us and out of us.

Many of us are taught to resist our emotions from the time we’re babies or toddlers: “Don’t be angry,” “Don’t be sad,” and so on. Or we’re afraid to feel our emotions because of what we might do with them. We confuse feeling them with acting on themsometimes because we have been on the receiving end of someone else acting out their (out-of-control) emotions.

When we feel-and-release our emotions, we don’t need to dump them on those around us. This is a bit like catch-and-release fishing. We first catch the fish, then we look at it to decide what to do with it. If we decide that we don’t want to keep it, we take it off the hook and let it go into the water. With our emotions, we allow ourselves to experience them, decide if we want to keep them, if not, we let them flow through us, just like an ocean wave flows through usin to shore, and then back out to sea.

Next, we Explore them. What? Spend more time and energy paying attention to what we already don’t want to have in our lives? Yes; it’s the emotions that are the most difficult to catch-and-release that need thisso we can release them.

When we realize that an emotional wave has not released, and has not moved out to sea, then it can be helpful to ask ourselves some questions: What events or circumstances are they connected to? Are these in the present or the past, or some of both? Does the size of the emotional wave match the size or significance of the event? If not, what else is this wave about? Many times, it is this process of connecting the waves to corresponding events that allows us to release them. When it does not, it often guides us to what else we need to do in order to release them.

Many times, the next thing we need to do is to Embrace what is happening, what has happened, or embrace ourselves in spite of what has happened. Look for the good that has come as a result of the difficult or painful events. This is age-old advice. But how do we do this? Nature shows us the way. For some of my childhood, my family lived in a northern Wisconsin farm house. We rented the house; someone else rented the barn and the fields. I watched as the cows were fed and milked. I watched as shovels full of stinky, brown muck came out of the barn, and were piled up in the barn yard. These piles were shoveled over and over and eventually shoveled into wagons my mother called Sunshine Wagons. Then the tractor was hooked up and took their stinky loads and spread them on the fields.

When the manure was cured by turning it over and over, exposing every particle to the sunshine and the fresh air, over time, it transformed into fertilizer. This is what we do in our own lives. We recycle the manure life has dumped in our lives by turning it over and over, exposing it to the light and fresh air. When it becomes fertilizer, we load it into Sunshine Wagons to spread it onto the fields of our hopes and dreams, fertilizing them with Nature’s Best Nourishment: pain turned into gain.

That is, we Kreate something beautiful and beneficial out of what we have, no matter what it is that we have. This heals us. There’s a Chinese proverb that says, “Tell me, and I’ll listen. Show me, and I’ll remember; Involve me, and I’ll understand”. Making something tangible can be a wonderful way to be involved in this process and therefore to understand it. It is also a great way for those of us who “learn by doing” to learn this process of transformation.

We can start by finding something that represents the difficult or painful event or circumstance. It can be a stick or a pine cone from outdoors. It can be a scrap of fabric, a piece of metal or wood. It can be any object you have around the house, or find. It could be a photo or memento.

Once we have chosen our item, we work with it, take something away from it, add other things to it, decorate it, even tear it up and reform it into something else. There is no right or wrong way to approach this. Do what occurs to us. Follow our instincts.

This is one kind of Creative Handwork. We listen with our Inner Ears; follow our Hearts; listen to and obey the directions of the Still, Small Voice. We do this as we start with one thing and ‘kreate’ something else with it. It is through this process of Creative Handwork , that we are healed deep within. And as we transform this object, the pain inside us is also transformed into gain.

Finally, we contemplate what we have made. This sets us free. We look at it with the eye of an artist. We notice its colors, shapes, and textures. We see the shades of light. We turn it this way and that; look at it from every angle. We listen to it with our hearts. We receive the silent messages that come to us. It is as we do all of this that the pain is released and we are set free.

This is how by E-E-E-King our way through the holidays, we find that we truly can have Joy, Peace, and a Happy New Year.

About the Author

See Sharon’s Holiday Stress Blog: Tips for Staying Balanced Through the Holidays. Read her tips, read tips shared by others, and add your own. Go to this link.

Sharon M. Barnes, MSSW, LCSW is the Scrap Lady. She Helps People Create Beauty and Benefit from Life’s Scraps. She provides Powerful Tips, Tools and Training to help people discover their own pathways to healing, joy and fulfillment. She teaches Creative Handwork and Contemplative Handwork as one of many powerful, fun and simple tools to help people heal, thrive, and realize their dreams. You can find more info at http://www.AcademyofCreativeLiving.com Mrs. Barnes is a speaker, workshop and retreat facilitator. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a counseling practice in three office locations in the south Denver Metro area. Sharon is happy to answer your questions. Call her today for a New Tomorrow. You may contact her by phone at 303-987-0346 or by email to:

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