Is the upcoming holiday season bogged down with a clutter of “shoulds” and “oughts” that detract from your enjoyment of the season?

Are you a newlywed trying to juggle the long-standing holiday traditions of multiple families?

Are you longing to create or adapt holiday traditions for your own family that your children will treasure as they grow older?

On the other hand, perhaps you are adjusting to the loss of a pivotal family member who provided the focus for important holiday traditions.

Often, our holiday traditions include some “emotional clutter” that add unnecessary stress to our lives and hamper our enjoyment of the holiday season.

I have found the following four “clutter-control” questions to be helpful guides for choosing which traditions to keep or adapt, and which ones to let go of completely.

• How meaningful is it for me? - How much of an impact does this tradition have on my life? Is it important to me? Can I let it go?

• Do I love it? – Is this something that brings me joy? Or is it something I simply tolerate? Or does it create added stress in my life?

• Do I want this? – Is this something I need or want as part of my life? How important is it to keep this “intact” or is there a way I can reduce the “clutter” effect?

• Does this need me? – If it is not important to me personally, is it important to someone I care about? Is there something else that I need to consider (or do) about or with this?

As you clear away the excess emotional clutter, you will find a gentle spaciousness that enables you to embrace the richness of those holiday traditions that provide the most meaning to your life and your relationships.

I’d love to hear about your experiences in clearing your holiday-related emotional clutter.

(image credit: The Clutter of Death by GrandWaz on Flickr, some rights reserved)

Am sharing these thoughts from a new Rotarian friend from LinkedIn.  Thanks, John!

Change Your Attitude About Change

by John Bishop, Executive Director, Accent on Success, Greater St. Louis Area

The world is changing. The changes will be rapid, constant and revolutionary. We can’t stop it.

At best, we can slow it down a little. But, change will be coming from all directions and at speeds we have never seen before. If rapid change is inevitable then how can we prepare for it?

Seven Ways to Look at Change:

1. Today’s change is tomorrow’s norm.

2. Change is as good or as bad as you make it.

3. If you are a change oriented leader expect others to paint a bull’s eye on your back and then shoot arrows at you.

4. Substitute the word “growth” for “change.” It will revolutionize your perspective about new things.

5. “When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.”  [Tuli Kupferberg]

6. “Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.”  [Prince Phillip of England]

7. If you can’t control the changing event, change how you react to it.

By changing our attitude toward it and insuring that the changes make things better and not just faster.

By changing our attitude toward it we can make the change in our section of the world better – not just faster.

Our personal attitude toward change will ultimately determine our destiny.

www.GoalSettingForStudents.com/archives.html

(If you like this life skill idea, please send it to others. Thank you.)

The lyrics from the old standard, I Won’t Dance have been stuck in my head the past several days.

I won’t dance, don’t ask me. I won’t dance…with you. My heart won’t let my feet do things that they should do.

This past weekend, I received a couple of requests for charitable donations:

• An organic food retailer whose business I try to support was under “house arrest” as part of a non-profit organization’s annual fundraising drive, and so was soliciting “bail” funds to earn her release from jail.
• A dear friend sent an email inviting me to join a walk for another non-profit organization that serves individuals who have the specific disease her son has.

Especially in these hard economic times, it’s difficult to say no to someone in need. As a matter of fact, when I heard that a family I know (with 3 children), who lost all of their belongings when the apartment complex they lived in was destroyed by a (3am!) fire last week, I couldn’t get my checkbook and email notifications going fast enough.

And it’s really not so much about the money or even about turning down an opportunity for a lovely walk with people whose company I would no doubt enjoy.

So what’s the difference–and why does my heart stop me from participating in one instance and not another?

I’m like an ocean wave that’s bumped on the shore, I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor.

Over the past several years, I have come to the decision to stop contributing money or participating in fund-raising activities to disease-oriented organizations. It’s not that I don’t care about the individuals who are affected by any of these specific diseases. It’s more about the fact that we live in a culture that tends to identify and label individuals more by their disease (or other “shortcomings). So much so that we often lose sight of the wondrous being that they are (and continue to be) in spite of their personal challenges.

Ring-a-ding-ding, you’re lovely.

Over the years, my focus has shifted elsewhere. For me, disease is but a “context”, a sub-text in a person’s life. Instead, I try to focus my life and my work on what can be lovely (even if it means looking underneath and around what’s not obviously so).

So now, when someone asks, here’s what I am able to offer (with a light heart and gracious step): a gift certificate for a Basic “Barebones” Stresswell™ Appraisal plus a complimentary coaching session.

You know what? You’re lovely….you’re so lovely….and that’s why I won’t dance.

(note: image from liltree on Flickr)

I discover the words printed on the inside of the foil candy wrapper, as I pop the heart-shaped chocolate in my mouth. A sort of Valentine’s Day fortune-candy mantra: Be your own valentine.

In our media and commerce-driven world that equates material gifts with a measure of true love and interprets “being alone” as a desolate fate, such words could have wreaked havoc in my soul. However, while I’m not currently “in relationship” with another, I’m neither desperate nor lonely.

I had spent the day fondly recalling stories about my late husband and his annual ritual of sharing handmade valentines with the women and children in his life. Alex had abhorred commercialized holidays, and preferred to bestow gifts at times of his choosing, but his annual valentine sharing adventure remained a nearly lifelong habit. He’d scour the stores in mid-late January for lace doilies, heart-shaped stickers and other intriguing decorative materials.

Some years, he’d feel lazy and grouse a bit if he felt that the recipients of his treasured creations had not shown adequate gratitude and/or recognition of his artistic efforts. Then one year, we heard about our god-daughter, who had treked out to the curbside mailbox every afternoon for 2 weeks, in anticipation of the treasured envelope that would bear her name, scrawled in large red marker. In 2006, he struggled to complete the task, yet cheered our hearts with his pink and red concoctions even though they arrived closer to mid-March as our minds had begun the shift to St. Paddy’s green.

By Feburary of 2007, he was too ill to complete the task one last time and steadfastly refused any assistance. While his tradition was ending, his teacher-artist daughter sent him a handmade valentine mobile, which we hung over his hospital bed in the living room. A fitting tribute and gift of love, to this gentle man and caring father, who–in an earlier career as a math teacher–had shared his fascination with the work of Alexander Calder while teaching mathematical principles by creating mobiles in the classroom. And in the wee hours of the morning of April 7 2005, that delicate heart-shaped mobile cast candle-lit flickering shadows on the living room wall as Alex bade a reluctant farewell to his full and complex life.

Nostalgic thoughts and loving memories of a man who sometimes seemed larger than life, and who continues to dwell in my heart as the “silent partner” he promised to always be. Understandably, he’s a lot more silent than before, yet I continue to feel his love and support each and every day, but especially this Valentine’s Day.

And in the way that fortune cookies often provide a gentle reminder of oft-hidden truths, I feel myself comforted anew by the gentle validation: I am my best valentine–my first and most constant friend. And the more that I care for and nurture myself, the better friend and valentine I can be for others each day of the year.

I’m heading back home tomorrow.  It’s Wednesday, January 2 and I’ve been here in Cleveland with my mom since Sunday evening, November 25–having been called back at that time after only 2 days back at home in Lansing.  And in all of October and November, I had spent less than 30 days at home.

Much of that time (except for several business and family-related trips sandwiched in between), I was again with mom–coordinating the move to her new home within the retirement community in which she’s lived for the past 8 years:  from her 3-room apartment on and independent-living floor to one room on the assisted living floor.   Following a fall (and a broken hip) last May, Mom had spent the summer and fall shuttling back and forth between rehab/skilled care, respite and the hospital.  All in all, about 6 transfers within a 5 month period.

So it wasn’t surprising to have her wonder aloud at one point in August:  “When do I go HOME?”  Of course, the question became even more poignant as I invited her to clarify what she had meant by “home.”  Had she meant her 3 bedroom apartment (which I had begun to realize no longer held her “aura”–although it still contained her furniture and belongings)?  Was it the family home on Edison Road–where she had lived with Dad for most her marriage and raised her family?  Or did she mean she was ready to die (to go be with Dad, who died nearly 20 years ago)?  At that moment, she wasn’t able to offer a distinct answer to my question–except that she found herself getting confused when she tried to picture and/or remember where various mementos, furnishings and other belongings were currently located.  However, she also added that “no, I don’t think I mean that [i.e., going to be with Dad].

In light of her responses,  I found her description of dream she had had of my dad the night after our conversation to be particularly fascinating.  She reported that Dad had appeared wearing a long white robe (like a priest’s alb) and that they sat together on a park bench talking for a long time.  Then, suddenly, Dad moved quickly away from her–as if he were in a hurry.

November 8–her 93rd birthday was also the day we moved her into her new 1-room home, having accomplished the physical consolidation and move of her furnishings and belongings the week before.  I had been intrigued that her new room–filled with her most meaningful things and decorated with a wealth of photos that summarize her family life–already contained her spirit, even though she had not yet set foot inside the door.

Throughout the months of November and December, I suspect that she has struggled (in her spirit) with her own sense of home.  Caught between the losses inherent in the downsizing process and the stability offered by our promise that she would not need to fear another transfer, I expect that she’s needed to decide on at least one level whether she has “enough” to continue on.  Is there enough to make her life meaningful and purposeful?

My month with Mom was fascinating and inspiring, to say the least.   I was privileged to serve as witness as she apparently made the decision that she could and would salvage what’s left of her life to keep on.

And now, as I prepare to return home, I find myself exploring what “home” means to me.  My friends have assured me that my aura remains strong in the dwelling that I’ve called home for 18 years.  I’ll be spending some time however, inviting a sense of curiosity about the sense and concept of home.

I’d love to hear what it means to you.