Author: thecopingblog

I was talking with someone recently who has worked in the Student Life office of a university for the past 20 years. She said, “It’s amazing how students have changed over the past 20 years when it comes to their sense of responsibility. Nothing seems to be their fault; there’s always an excuse. Just in the past few months, a student on work studies was caught on tape stealing money out of the cafeteria register. Her excuse? ‘I was planning on paying it back. I really needed the money for a textbook.’ Another student was drunk and unruly outside a bar, and punched a police officer who was trying to calm him down. His excuse? ‘I was drunk.’ Another student attacked a girl at a party, pushing her into a table. She hit her head and had to be hospitalized with a severe concussion. The attacker’s excuse? ‘She was hitting on my boyfriend.’ It’s unbelievable. And even worse, the parents defended their kids. It used to be me and the parents against the misbehaving student; now it’s the misbehaving student and the parents against me!”

Accountability is a key part of any coping plan. You must be careful, however, and not confuse accountability with self-blame. If you’re like many people, you might automatically assume it means, “taking responsibility for what happened.” Not always. Accountability means, “recognizing that you are responsible for evaluating your role in the event.” In many cases, you must choose not to blame yourself, not to form a pity parade, and not to make it all about you as a sufferer. When coping with stress, accountability means empowering yourself to choose how best to evaluate your stressful experience, and how best to resolve the subsequent emotions you feel.

Look again at the examples above. In all three cases, the students are clearly responsible for their actions. Taking money with the intention of paying it back is still stealing and shows a lack of conscience; being drunk is no excuse for assaulting a police officer, and indicates that one may have a drinking problem; attacking and severely injuring someone simply because she is flirting with your boyfriend shows a lack of impulse control. In each case, if the students appropriately evaluated their behavior, they would have discovered personality and behavioral issues they should address.

Also, in the examples, notice how the parents get in the way and prevent some self-discovery by their kids; they enable and justify their kids’ behavior by defending them. The parents’ actions almost guarantee that each student will not appropriately evaluate their (the student’s) role in the situation. So, what’s with the parents? A good possibility is that they fear looking like they are ineffective and failures as agents of childrearing. They are unable to say that their kid is accountable because it’s an admission that, “I, too, am accountable because I did a lousy job of raising this person to be a responsible adult.” What we have, therefore, is a situation where both parents and child are at fault, but neither is willing to face that fact.

These examples illustrate a fundamental problem facing society today, a problem alluded to by the Student Life Officer: More and more parents today seem to feel that only they are capable of deciding what’s good for their kids. Many of today’s parents are defensive when teachers, police, and other agents in society try to enforce rules of behavior; parents feel that’s an intrusion on parental territory—only parents can rightly determine what’s best for their child. This message is beginning to permeate society: a parent complaint to a school board can get that book banned; parents are deciding certain courses—such as, Algebra—are not needed to get a job, so school boards should remove those courses as diploma requirements; parents are micromanaging the classroom and dictating to teachers what they can teach—Florida has banned classroom instruction from elementary school through college of any topic dealing with DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion); an amendment to a Florida law said that parents should determine if their child should be promoted to 4^th grade (the amendment was eventually removed).

The sad result of these actions is that we are producing generations of kids who cannot think for themselves, who fail to acquire a social conscience that includes personal accountability, and who develop low self-esteem that makes them passive, anxiety-ridden, and dependent on others for guidance. In short, too many parents—driven by a need to protect their own fragile egos—are dumbing down their kids intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

by Amanda Green

This week we continue college student Amanda Green’s description of some of the stressors she feels contribute to mental health problems in college students.

However challenging it might seem, developing human connections is important for teenagers as they start to live away from home. Unfortunately, building physical and emotional relationships with others can damage teen stability. Take a college boy and girl who sit next to each other in Writing class, and after a few days, begin taking an interest in each other. Suddenly, their minds are consumed by possibilities. However, today even something as simple as dating is confusing. Not only is the boy no longer expected to initiate the connection, he is not even expected to limit himself to one girl, or even a girl, for that matter. With so many factors up in the air, it is no wonder that even though wanting to build a physical or romantic connection is so natural in teenagers, few of them are able to achieve it. In fact, some refuse to pursue relationships because of the stress that comes with it (which I think is part of the fun).

Then there is a related teen stressor that adults often overlook: the difficult position of having to balance fun now versus success later—a tradeoff that has been ingrained in us since our childhood. I remember the first time I declined to go to the park with my mom to walk the dog because I had an essay due. She didn’t know whether to feel proud or disappointed. Now in college, many of us feel that we have to uphold the same standard. This is fine to some extent—prioritizing school work during the week to be able to relax on the weekend can be a good thing. However, continuously turning down hanging out with friends because of looming assignments due next month takes the “work now, play later” ideal to the extreme. Some take it even further: they don’t allow themselves to go to bed until a piece of work is complete. Needless to say, sleep deprivation neither reduces stress nor allows them to produce their best work. Of course, some rebel against this prioritization and preparation and prefer to procrastinate work every week until Sunday night. What some don’t realize is that completing work does more than just free our time and allow us to participate in other activities later. Having work looming over us is very mentally draining and does not let us fully participate in the present moment.

With the rise of technology and social media, distractors are arguably more powerful than in the olden days. However, even older generations experienced this same struggle. Even if the pull away from their work came from going to the movies rather than Netflix, the concept is the same. Teens are constantly stressed by getting distracted from work and feeling guilty for it. Think about it: Aesop’s story of the Hardworking Ant and the Lazy Grasshopper is as old as the sun. Generations have long been raised and guilt-tripped by the very same words.

However, there are still some obvious generational differences. One of the biggest mismatches between today’s generations and prior ones is the number of opportunities available. When my parents were growing up, it was the standard to attend the local state school until the end of high school and then pick a university in the region, at most one or two hours away from home. Now, at least considering an out-of-state college, if not an international school, has become the norm. While this explosion of possibilities can really maximize individual potential, it can quickly become overwhelming. Decision fatigue is real. When faced with so many schools to pick from, so many majors to pursue, and within that, a myriad of classes to attend, it is no wonder that registration week is universally acknowledged to be one of the most stressful times of the semester. For some, it is even more stressful than finals week. At least, for exams, the instructions are clear: there is nothing to choose, except for a seat and a pencil. 

When considering the pressures of today’s day and age, namely indecisiveness, uncertainty, reputation and finding balance, it strikes me that these stressors are more or less the same as they have always been. In fact, it is unfair to even say that they affect only teenagers: adults also experience similar emotional strain. One thing is sure: teenagers these days carry around with them a whole lot of baggage. This becomes most obvious during long nighttime walks and inebriated conversations—almost everyone seems to have some internalized tension or trauma to unpack. On our shoulders sit a strange mixture of unanswered questions, internal conflicts and unprocessed feelings, but the steps we must take to move forward are unclear.

However, at the very least, teens should try and resist the urge to label themselves as victims of circumstances. The causes for adolescent anxiety and depression are not external but internal. In other words, teens are not so much affected by the world around them as they think. Some details of the world might have changed, yes, but teenagers are the same as they’ve always been.

As a teenager in college, I believe that the stress that comes with growing up is normal, but we’ve just become too sensitive to it. We should expect ourselves to feel stressed in uncertain situations. We should expect to feel insecure about ourselves. How could we expect otherwise, when we don’t yet know who we’ll grow up to be? At the end of the day, all teenagers want is to grow up to be somebody—and to enjoy the process. If we accept that the pressures and stressors of this generation are to some extent inevitable, then it becomes clear that the best we can do is live with them. Only then will growing up begin to feel a little easier.

by Amanda Green

[NOTE: Mental Health America reports that over 10% of our youth experience levels of mental-health problems—such as depression—that impair their ability to function at school. Amanda Green is a college student who has graciously agreed to share her views on the stressors that impact college students, and that no doubt contribute to mental health problems. Amanda’s post will be in two parts, Part I this week and Part II next week.]

Recent years have seen a mental health epidemic that disproportionately affects the younger generations, and is highly contagious. According to the World Health Organization, one in seven adolescents experiences a mental disorder. These rates are as high as we’ve ever seen—soon, our workforce will start to feel the consequences. On the other hand, standard of living has been increasing steadily in the past few decades. Anyone who grew up in the depression will tell you that youngsters have it so much better than they did. Nevertheless, depression, anxiety and all their disordered sisters persist to plague children as young as ten these days. Children used to carry with them only a baseball and glove to play with, and their bookbag. Now, they carry heavy burdens of ill-processed feelings. What happened that triggered this change? Is life harder for teenagers nowadays, or are there other factors contributing to this steep decline in adolescent mental health?

Seventeen-year-old Joshua just received an acceptance letter from his top choice for college, one of the best schools in the South. However, he is not happy. All his friends will be going to the state school nearby and he feels conflicted. Should he follow his friends or his dreams? What if his school is not all he expects it to be? Now in senior year, he finally has a stable friend group. It didn’t used to be this way. In fact, becoming part of this group had been difficult enough. Would he have to go through all of it again in college—awkward conversations, lunches alone in the common room, being asked to find a lab partner in Chemistry class and having no one to turn to?

Some may label Joshua an introvert, or having social anxiety, but in reality his doubts and fears are not a disorder—they are normal. Even as we live in a society as modernized and civilized as ours, we are still only primates. And our natural response is not always a condition that must be cured. In fact, we should expect and even hope ourselves to enter into a state of stress when we are faced with uncertainty. Evolutionarily, this makes sense. Our ancestors wouldn’t have lasted long if they had fearlessly entered any uncertain situation with little regard to consequences. Our fight or flight is triggered to save our lives. Suppressing these instincts won’t do us any good. Does this mean that teenagers should stop taking anxiety medication? Not exactly. If these feelings of stress are determined by professionals to be so frequent or so intense that they are unmanageable, then medication may be appropriate. However, we should focus on pinpointing the causes for adolescent anxiety and stress to try and lessen their effects, rather than put children on medication as soon as they start to show symptoms. After all, those symptoms may be normal responses to change.

We are also faced with another question: what are the causes of teenage anxiety and depression? Some blame technology; some blame unrealistic beauty standards; some blame the stars and astrological signs; some blame Donald Trump. While the specific situations that cause stress in adolescents may have evolved with time, I believe the underlying factors that contribute to these feelings are universal and have affected generations long before ours. In other words, times have changed, but teenagers haven’t. Humans have always sought to be accepted by others, a desire found across cultures, social circles, and even in species that have lower cognitive abilities than humans. However, this desire can work against us, for it can quickly become obsessive and cloud our other aims. For instance, teenage college students may neglect class work to go out at night and be part of a lively social circle, which can impact academic performance. Additionally, many teen choices are affected by their concern with how others perceive them.

A concern with social acceptance can damage teenagers’ mental health for two reasons: First they sometimes deny their nature in an effort to fit in, such as by going to parties instead of staying home. Not only can this choice become mentally draining, it can also strip them of their identity because they live for other people rather than themselves. Second, trying to fit in is an endless race. And it is exhausting. As our circumstances and social circles shift, we so often find ourselves having to start rebuilding our reputation anew. Take college, for example, where teenagers take new classes every semester. To become comfortable in every class took some effort in the first place. As they near the start of the Spring semester, they know they’ll have to do it all over again. (To be continued next week.)

Welcome to 2024! I’m willing to bet that this year will be filled with news reports that have the potential to be very upsetting for many people. Can disturbing news be so upsetting that it actually traumatizes people and causes significant increases in stress levels? What about adult TV viewers? Can their stress levels be affected by the saturation TV coverage of real events on 24/7 news networks like CNN, FOX, and MSNBC? Regularly, we see in-depth coverage of mass shootings, horrible scenes of combat carnage and destruction, and gut-wrenching interviews with survivors of trauma. This year, of course, will also include election issues that have the potential to be exceptionally stressful for viewers. At a time when statistics show an alarming increase in mental-health problems, the question arises: “Can frequent depictions of war, murder, and political mayhem on TV traumatize the viewer to the point that psychological problems develop?”

            In 2001, Propper and her associates were teaching a course on sleep and dreaming at a college in the Boston area. The course was already underway, and students had begun recording and documenting their dreams, when the events of 9/11 unfolded. Thus, the researchers had an opportunity to assess trauma themes in dreams both before and after 9/11, and to relate them to amount of TV viewing of the 9/11 coverage.

            Analysis of students dreams before and after 9/11 demonstrated not only that post-9/11 dreams changed significantly compared to pre-9/11 dreams, but also that the dreams could be linked to amount of TV viewing of the horrific events. After 9/11, dreams contained more threat and danger themes and images, and more negative emotions expressed. These themes, images, and emotions tended to increase as the amount of time watching TV coverage increased. Thus, to the extent that dreaming can reflect efforts to process and resolve trauma and conflict, the authors concluded that extensive viewing of TV coverage of the 9/11 events served to increase trauma and conflict in viewers. It is also of particular interest to note that the students who spent more time talking with friends and relatives about the events of 9/11 did not show these threatening themes and negative emotions in their dreams. This finding is consistent with evidence from clinical psychology showing the therapeutic effects of talking with significant others following a personal trauma.

   Propper and her associates believe their results show how media coverage of an event can negatively affect the emotional well-being of viewers. Reporting an event is one thing; saturating coverage with repeated replays over an extended period is quite another. Furthermore, if that coverage makes talking with friends and relatives less likely, then the negative effects of the saturation coverage are greatly compounded.

            You might ask, “Should I switch channels when coverage of horrific events is on?” No, at least not all the time. That would be avoidance of facing uncomfortable aspects of reality. Such avoidance on a regular basis would help make you unable to process and cope with troubling realities. Face those realities, but make sure you talk them over with others to help you manage your coping efforts.

            Avoiding troubling TV political news, of course, can be easy: Just watch the channel that reflects your beliefs. However, would that selectivity also be an example of avoiding facing uncomfortable aspects of reality? Yes, it would, and in fact it could be more psychologically damaging than simply avoiding all political news. Selectivity of channels would not only allow you to avoid facing messages you dislike, but also would provide you with justifications for doing so. Like total avoidance, adhering to news outlets on a regular basis that support your beliefs and help you both avoid and degrade the unpleasant, will likely obstruct your ability to process, evaluate, and cope with troubling information. Do not be afraid, therefore, to familiarize yourself with positions that run counter to your opinions. Doing will help you accept reality and to evaluate information logically and calmly.

            TV coverage of horrendous events, of course, is only one potential source of stress to a consumer. How about newspapers and magazines? The January 22^nd issue of Time has a section called, “The Top Risks of 2024.” Included are warnings that: (1) political dysfunction in the US might worsen; (2) the Middle East war could widen and pose risks to global stability; (3) NATO could be drawn into the Ukrainian war; (4) current weather patterns can have negative consequences for world agriculture, disease, energy, and political stability; (5) dictators may continue to upset efforts at cooperation and solidarity among stable nations around the world. Had enough? There are more but you get the idea—this is frightening stuff.

   Based on the possibility of these risks becoming reality, would it be reasonable to predict that mental health problems in America will continue to increase; that the use of recreational mind-altering drugs like alcohol and marijuana will surge; and that hostile and aggressive actions among people will proliferate? Maybe so. However, you need not succumb to excessive anxiety about these possibilities. You can arm yourself against emotional upheaval by exercising and living a fairly healthy lifestyle; by educating—not indoctrinating—yourself with verifiable facts; by having healthy, adult, rational interactions with others; by empathizing and understanding the needs of others; by serving those in need; by enjoying nature—hearing the birds chirp, smelling the vegetation, seeing the vast array of plant colors, and basking in the warmth of the sun. Psychological research documents the beneficial effects of these coping tools that are all around you, tools that we know can combat anxiety, depression, and other debilitating feelings. Use them.

You might hear the word “accept” and say, “You want me to quit? To give up? To admit I’ve been defeated?” People often confuse acceptance with giving up and being resigned to the inevitability of stressful events swirling around them. In the context of coping with stress, however, being passive, powerless, helpless, weak, and ineffective are not at all what we mean by acceptance. Acceptance may be the first step in coping with stress, but that does not mean you must tolerate things or give up. In a coping context, acceptance means directly facing the stark realities of life, especially those over which you have no control. For instance, you have no control over your mortality. However, you can purposefully adopt health-enhancing behaviors that improve the quality of your life. That’s acceptance. Some folks, however, fail to accept their mortality by avoiding the thought, making it more likely they will engage in health-compromising behaviors that reduce their quality of life. As another example, some people grieve and mourn over the loss of a loved one, but they accept the reality of the death and process it in appropriate ways. Others have difficulty with the passing because they fail to accept it in symbolic ways; this failure robs their lives of purposeful and satisfying actions that foster a healthy self, grounded in a social conscience.

Acceptance also operates at a group level. The Washington Post reports that 36% of Americans do not accept Biden’s 2020 election as legitimate. They refuse to accept the reality of the vote – at least the presidential vote – and they service their denial by supporting non-productive actions like seeking retribution through hostile and aggressive actions toward the “out” group, the other tribe. Just as denial at an individual level damages healthy and beneficial stress-reducing efforts, so it is at a group level when denial generates dependency, conspiratorial paranoia, and increased stress.

Acceptance of stressful challenges can take a lot of time and work because you must engage in emotional, behavioral, and thought acceptance. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. You’re worrying over nothing.” Does that comment make you feel better? It shouldn’t because it advises acceptance by denial – just deny what’s worrying you. But you listen to this advice and say to yourself, “Yeh, you’re right, I shouldn’t be anxious. Everything will work out. I’ll just stay calm.” Do your words make you feel better? Probably not, and you continue to be bothered by troublesome emotions and thoughts, in spite of your comforting words. This lack of synchronism is a warning to you that you are asking yourself to deny something, in this case the part of you that is anxious and fearful. Denying yourself is a dangerous, self-defeating game that sabotages coping efforts, and your mind gets trapped in denial.

Leann is a perfectionist. “I get so anxious and angry at myself when I fall short of perfection. Why can’t I be like my brother who screws up but stays laid back, so cool, so in control? But me, I’m there biting my fingernails off! I have trouble finishing projects on time because they have to be perfect. I’ll never get promoted; I’m such a klutz.”

As a general rule of coping, instead of criticizing herself for who she is, Leann needs to accept who she is and examine the benefits of her traits, even the ones she finds troublesome. By doing so, she can increase her sense of control, personal empowerment, and autonomy, and allow herself to adapt and synchronize those troublesome traits with accepting her emotions and actions. Once she accepts that how she feels is a part of who she is, then she can think about her emotions a little differently. She’s mad at herself for being overly perfectionistic, but now – rather than denying her emotions by trying to eliminate them – she can pause and consider the positive aspects of her perfectionism: she is less likely to make foolish mistakes; she is showing others that she cares about the quality of her work; she is more likely to seek creative solutions to a task; she is less likely to depend on others for completing a task; she demonstrates how her actions are consistent with her values.

Michael J. Fox has been quoted as saying: “Acceptance does not mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is, and there’s got to be a way through it.” Acceptance means functioning in the real world, finding “a way through it.” It means recognizing who you are and, if you are displeased with some of your traits, modifying them to meet the demands of reality.

*Coping problems involve avoidance. When stressed, ask yourself, “What am I avoiding, and why?”

*Allow happiness to emerge in your life by acting in ways that bring you satisfaction.

*Coping well does not mean living up to others’ expectations.

*Relationship troubles? Ask yourself, “Who do I feel I have to be in this relationship to make it work? Do I like myself in this role?”

*Accept your thoughts and feelings, but do not be ruled by them.

*Your emotions are not the problem; your inappropriate actions servicing the emotions are the problem.

*Your actions must be consistent with your conscience, values, and standards.

*Focus on optimistic actions, not words. Thoughts without actions are fantasy. 

*No personal pity parties. You have no right to have the corners of your

world padded for you.

*Success is easy. You must also learn to fail.

            Welcome to 2024! I guarantee you it will have coping challenges. For one thing, it’s a presidential election year (groan). For another, it’s a leap year. That’s right, an extra day to hear all those politicians pontificate about their prowess. So be it. At least the stress of Christmas is over for another year. Hope yours was a merry one. Now it’s time to face the new year and put those new year’s resolutions in order. Aaron is ready. He resolves that this year he is going to find a new job. Sure, it was the same resolution he made a year ago but this time he’s serious. Plus, he says the economy is looking better.

    Sorry, Aaron, but right out of the gate you are showing us how not to make a resolution, how not to attack a challenge: First, you have an excuse for last year’s failure: you say you weren’t serious last year, but this year you are. The excuse says you have not accepted the reality of your situation; if you did, you wouldn’t need to say you’re serious. Second, you focus on external factors like the economy, rather than on what you may have done wrong to fail in your search last year. In other words, you haven’t taken accountability for your actions. You have a lousy strategy based on chance external factors, and you haven’t worked on a plan of action that corrects previous mistakes.

            So, what can we learn from Aaron? When failure occurs, effective coping requires taking action to correct errors, not focusing on excuses “out there.” The former action is under your control; the latter excuse is not. After a loss, coaches say, “We’ve got to correct our mistakes, and that’s what we’ll be concentrating on in practice. We can execute better.” Coaches do not say, “We need to petition the league for better refs, and make sure we don’t get that crew again. They screwed us!” (Florida State comes in here as an exception!)

            New Year’s Resolutions generally don’t last. Here are six reasons why:

   First, the very fact that you pick a specific date to begin your transformation into a better person shows that you are procrastinating, and are not motivated. Picking a date is artificial and means you are just kicking the can down the road.

            Second, many folks use resolutions to motivate themselves. “I’m joining a gym on January 2^nd and that will help me lose weight.” This resolution puts the cart before the horse. Resolutions must be the result of motivation to do something, not the catalyst for generating motivation. Resolutions should be connected to a specific motivator: “I want to lose weight, so I’m joining a gym”; “Warm weather will be here soon and I want to look decent at the pool”; “The boss invited me to join in a jog last week and I nearly died of exhaustion. That’s no way to get a promotion. I have to get in shape.” To lose weight, look better, or get a promotion – those are specific goals and motivators that increase the chance of success.

   Third, resolutions tend to be overly general. A resolution must involve specific actions and specific goals: “I will eat a piece of fruit for lunch instead of a sandwich”; “I will do a 30-minute workout at the gym 3 days a week”; “I will walk my neighborhood (or my treadmill) for 30 minutes every day.”

    Fourth, resolutions are usually unrealistic. “I will run a marathon by Spring”; “I will lose 30 lbs. by February”; “My resolution will help me reinvent myself, create a new me.” These resolutions are grandiose, unattainable, and unrealistic, and will lead to disappointment, frustration, and self-criticism.

            Fifth, your resolution must connect personal values to actions. Specifically, you must engage in values-oriented thinking and make your actions consistent with that thinking. Consider these disconnects: “I care about my health” (your value), but you put off investigating diets (an action); “I want to get in shape” (your value), but you put off joining a gym (an action); “I love being with my family” (your value), but you put off spending more time with your kids and spouse (an action). If you truly value those things, then you must admit to yourself that your actions are inconsistent with those values, and you must work to correct that problem. Connecting actions to values requires a much deeper commitment than does making a simple resolution. To cope with everyday life more effectively, identify your values, the things that are important to you, especially those that involve others. Then devise a plan that will help you coordinate your values with specific actions that are compatible with those values.

            So far, we have been talking about New Year’s resolutions. But our observations extend to any coping challenge. The keys to being successful with New Year’s resolutions are no different than the keys for being successful when dealing with any stress in your life: (1) Accept your current situation and be accountable for evaluating your role in it; (2) make a plan of action that results from your motivation to change, not a plan designed to motivate you; (3) include realistic, attainable, and specific actions and goals in your plan; (4) connect your plan to your values, especially those that consider the needs and welfare of others; (5) begin now, not at some future date.  

It’s amazing how people let the most trivial things bother them and add to their stress. For instance, on the last day of work before the Christmas holiday, Rachel passed someone in the hallway. She didn’t even know this colleague who said to her, “Merry Christmas.” Rachel replied, “I’m not a Christian, so I don’t celebrate that stuff. I also think Christmas is a ridiculous time when stores gouge the public with their overpriced merchandise. So, spare me the Merry Christmas crap. I find it offensive.” 

Complaints about politically-correct (PC) language increase around holiday time. You know, the “happy holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas” comment. Those who whine about this issue seem to forget that PC language boils down to courtesy, respect, and empathy for others who have a perspective different from theirs. Christmas 2017 I remember passing a couple of old guys in the grocery store, and heard one of them say, “Now that he’s president, I can say Merry Christmas if I want. No more of this happy holiday garbage. If they’re Jewish and don’t like Merry Christmas, tough!”

To one degree or another, we all see ourselves as the most important ingredient in our life recipe. The strength of this self-serving bias varies from person to person, and even within ourselves at different times. Any way you look at it, however, the bias is there and it has the potential to make certain language distasteful to those who refuse to accept that there’s a world out there beyond their personal space.

Being conflicted about using Christmas language can be a particular source of stress in interpersonal relations. Witness Rachel and her merry co-worker. And the grocery store guy seems to want to shove his Christmas down Jews’ throats. Here’s a coping thought: Let’s soften our life recipe to acknowledge the importance of ingredients other than ourselves. Let’s ask ourselves, “What determines how others remember me?” The answer is, “People remember how you make them feel.” With that thought in mind, what sort of daily legacy do you want to leave? Do you want people to remember you as someone who made them feel undervalued and inferior to you earlier that day? Or, do you want them to remember you as someone who made them feel good because you seemed to understand and respect their perspective?

Why not adopt a little humility, and decide that life is not all about you? Why not take the time to make others feel worthy of your respect? Doing so will remove concern from your mind about frivolous, nonsensical things like PC language. You will feel more empowered and independent; you will feel more productive; and those feelings will bring you more personal satisfaction. Most important, you’ll have more pleasant interactions with others.

Danny is one of those guys who greets life each day with a smile. His co-workers love him because he’s always ready to lend a helping hand and believes in teamwork. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and loves to defuse conflict with a light-hearted comment. On the last day of work before the Christmas holiday, he was exiting the building and passed an employee he didn’t know. He said with a big smile, “Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, or bah humbug. Choose your preference!” His colleague laughed heartily and said, “Right back at you!” And they both went their way with a smile.

Last week’s post noted how the holidays can be a tough time if you lost a loved one during the previous year. Suddenly, someone who was a part of family celebrations and joy is not there. Grief is magnified by holiday family traditions.

Grief often leads survivors “inward” to focus on their emotions, and dwell on how their loss has broken their emotional stability. This focus is certainly understandable. Unfortunately, though, because holiday time is so strongly associated with happy times for most people, the inward spotlight magnifies sadness, despondency, frustration, guilt, anger – a literal flood of overwhelming emotions that can be devastating. That’s why an inward focus on grief – while OK in small doses – can ravage the coping process if it becomes a daily addiction.

Fortunately, the holidays provide ample opportunities for an “outward” focus to help the aggrieved “live through” their grief. Christmas, for instance, amplifies the need for a parent who has lost a spouse to bring the magic of the time to their kids. The grief-stricken – in a spirit of empathy – can also reach out to others who have fallen on hard times, and discover that this outward focus gives them a way to move forward with their own grief, and honor their departed loved one.

I remember many years ago when a friend of our family suffered a great loss when her son-in-law was killed in an accident several months before Christmas. Her daughter, Jill, now a young widow in her late 20s, came to live with her mom temporarily while they both sorted out their emotional lives.

My mother invited them to join us for Christmas dinner. Before dinner, my mom handed each of them a wrapped present. Jill was dumbfounded. “But I have no present for you,” she said. “Yes, you do,” my mom replied. “Your presence is our gift.”

I was in college at the time and thought that comment was pretty cool. Years later, however, I saw the comment in a new light.

Giving vs. receiving – we generally separate these actions as distinct, but they’re not. When Jill accepted the gift from my mom, she also gave my mom something very special in return: the blessing of fulfillment and satisfaction. It sounds corny but I think my mom received a gift of feeling part of the family of humanity; mom discovered that a simple gesture to someone in distress – “Yes, Jill, you are saddened and in pain, but life endures through the pain.” – offered mom the special gift of receiving through the act of giving. So, looking at Jill and my mom, who gave and who received?

For me, the lesson here is pretty straightforward: Are you in emotional pain – depressed, saddened, hurt, upset, guilty, angry? No matter what time of year, focus on what’s “out there” and how you can be a part of it. After all, it’s life out there. Accept and receive from others, and in doing so, you will discover that you are also giving, and bringing honor to the memory of your loved one. Give your service and help to those who, like you, need support, and you will be blessed with the contentment of receiving in the act of giving.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

I was reading one of those annual letters many families send out during the Christmas season. The writer’s family would be having Christmas for the first time without a woman who was a mother, a mother-in-law, and a grandmother for the family, and they planned to celebrate her memory. Many people do not associate “celebrate” with loss of a loved one, thinking instead of “mourning” during that first holiday without a loved one. Mourning is an important part of the coping process, but in the long run, we will cope much better with personal loss if we resolve to honor departed loved ones by celebrating their memory, focusing on how much they contributed to our life, and considering ways to honor their memory. With that message in mind, here’s a piece that Dr. Carlea Dries wrote on December 12, 2016, words I like to repeat every year at this time.

HOLIDAY GRIEF

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… except when it’s not. The holidays usually mean the coming together of family members. Ordinarily this is a welcome time of festive gatherings, exchanging of presents, and special memories made near a roaring fireplace. For some, however, this Norman Rockwell image is drastically different from reality, particularly when recent loss of a loved one is involved. Let’s note that “loss” is not limited to the death; it can also include divorce, hospitalization, incarceration, active duty without a holiday leave, or a family member who moved away. 

Recently, I attended the funeral for my great aunt. Though Marge was 93 and in failing health, her death hit our family rather hard, especially her daughters and sister (my grandmother, who is now the only one left of the original 11 siblings). The sermon during the church service (paraphrased herein) highlighted how this first holiday is going to be different: “You’ll notice the quiet. You’ll notice the missing [specialty food]. You’ll notice the missing chair at the table.” 

While I was at the repast, a good friend of mine texted to say that her parents are getting divorced after more than thirty years of marriage. This news was unexpected and rendered her numb. She just kept asking how it could be real and why, if it had to happen, it had to come so close to Hanukkah. This was supposed to be the first time she would be hosting her family, and now everything was changing. 

How do you cope with the first holiday season in the “next normal” or “new normal”? How do you hold on to a sense of control when things are clearly out of your control?

The most important thing to do, discussed in other blog posts, is to recognize what is in your circle of power. My grandmother can’t bring her sister back. My friend can’t convince her parents to stay together. So, they must try to do what they can: accept what it is and move forward from that point. Yes, that’s easier typed than done.

Some feel consoled by leaving a place at the table for the absent person, but many others find that much more discomforting because it is a visual reminder of the vacancy. You may, therefore, choose to remember the person in a smaller way. I have made ornaments with pictures of departed relatives, reminding me of times we spent together. Every year for Thanksgiving, my mother makes her aunt’s stuffing (though Aunt Petronella called it “dressing”). My mother-in-law uses a picture of her mother as the angel for her crèche. A friend video-chats with her husband who is stationed overseas. For the past 14 years, my father brings homemade goodies to the staff at the nursing home where his parents finished their earthly stories. A colleague mentioned that she has a “moment of reflection” during which everyone present shares a memory, story, or image of those who cannot be with them – one even sings a favorite song!

These simple gestures become meaningful traditions that do not overwhelm us with intense feelings of loss. Rather, they celebrate the lives and connections we had to those who are absent. 

Other coping suggestions include planning a totally new activity that literally takes you away from the familiar reminders of the absent one. Go on a mini-vacation. Celebrate with a different group of people. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or shelter. Service to others is probably the most effective way of coping with personal loss. Keep your mind and body distracted, not to the point where you are ignoring, denying, or detaching from the loss, but to keep you focused on something productive instead of painful. 

No matter what options you are comfortable choosing, you must give yourself permission to feel. There will be moments when you want to do nothing but sit in silence. Other times you will want to do nothing but scream. You might even find yourself smiling or laughing and then feel guilty because how dare you be happy when you are missing someone?! Have “the big, snotty cry” if that is what you want to do. Let yourself feel. Take the time you need. It’s okay to say “no” to invitations; just be sure you don’t let your mourning stop you from living.  

There was also a message of comfort in the sermon for my Aunt (again paraphrased): Marge lives on in your hearts and memories. If you listen in the quiet, you can hear her. If you feel in the still, you can sense her. Remembering means no one ever leaves.

You might not feel better today. You might not feel better tomorrow. But at some point, you will feel that you have moved to the next normal and that will be the next best thing.