The Ghost of Christmas Past: The Stresses of Trying to Recreate That Old Feeling

Can the joy of Christmas be tinged with stress and overwhelming emotions? Absolutely! Join us as we candidly discuss and untangle these complex feelings attached to the holiday season. We'll share personal stories and offer practical strategies to cope with holiday stress, and invite you to reconsider traditional ideas and expectations of Christmas. We urge you to approach the holiday season with mindfulness and intention, making it a time of true joy and peace.

Ever felt that Christmas traditions have turned into obligatory tasks? We've been there! We dive into how traditions can sometimes rob us of the joy they're meant to bring and how creating new ones can infuse fresh happiness into our celebrations. We'll touch upon the concept of peak experiences during the holiday season, pointing out the pitfalls of trying to recreate past memories and the role of media in shaping our expectations. We promise you that this episode will provide you with insights and encouragement to create new, fulfilling experiences and traditions for the forthcoming holiday season! Come, let's redefine Christmas together.

Chapters

• 0:09 Deconstructing Christmas Traditions
• 12:23 Finding Joy in Christmas Traditions
• 19:20 Creating New Peak Experiences for Christmas

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:09

Welcome and thank you for joining us for Coffee with Hillary and Les. Brought to you by State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Center, located in the heart of the Coorthal Lakes, this is our almost daily community podcast about the mind and how you might change it in the most simple and helpful ways. The day we sit staring at the lake and sipping our coffee, having a chat about hypnosis and how to make those meaningful adjustments to our state of mind, Because nothing is more important than your state of mind. Alright, we are on the line.

Speaker 1: 0:44

And it's a marshmallow world in the winter, yep, when the snow comes tumbling down.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Yeah, it's very beautiful out there.

Speaker 1: 0:55

And how many people have that song on their Christmas playlist.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Yeah, probably a lot. I know it plays a lot on, does it? I don't want to get it wrong. C-h-f-i.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Okay, that's the one that converts to Christmas music in December. Yeah, it's a marshmallow world Everything is all covered in snow, so let's talk about Christmas.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Woohoo.

Speaker 1: 1:28

We spent the weekend training future hypnotists. It's just, you know, the wonderful thing about training is we get to think a lot about stuff that's in our minds and how it gets there and how it gets in the place of great influence inside our mind. It impacts our choices, it impacts the things we want to do and choose to do, and Christmas is just one of those great big things. We spent the weekend. I spent the weekend calling it a construction, something that we construct and it's so important.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Now, there are, you know, in our area, you know, most people not all people most people will have a Christmas thing, but some people are not Christmas people and they're celebrating other things, you know.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Or in Hanukkah, season two, and I know that this time of year is just huge for everybody because the days are at their shortest and they're about to turn that corner where they start to become longer, and that is a symbolic day for so many different faiths and religions. It's also just a holiday and it's a festive time, but it wouldn't matter if we were talking about, you know, a different religious holiday, or weddings, or New Year's, right, these are all sort of holidays that are filled with ideas that have been handed to us. I mean, 365 days in a year is really not one more important than another. Yet our traditions, our history isolate certain days, celebrate specific things, and then we load that on with all kinds of things that we might call traditions but are really just ideas. They're ideas and the ideas. There's nothing wrong with any of these ideas, except sometimes, these ideas cause us to feel things.

Speaker 1: 4:00

They cause us to feel like maybe we're inadequate. They cause us to feel like maybe we're isolated or we're alone. They cause us to feel all kinds of things. These are constructions, and it's just. I think it's fun to poke a little fun at this stuff. So if you're a big, big Christmas person, you'll know what we're talking about. And if you're just a good old fashioned human being who lives a life with holidays and family and expectations on those holidays, you know the Americans joke about Thanksgiving being that huge holiday where they have to tolerate their family. You know these are the dynamics, I suppose, and I think it's fun to deconstruct that a bit.

Speaker 2: 4:47

Yeah, you know, society has certainly made us feel like Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It's in the song.

Speaker 1: 4:59

It's in the song.

Speaker 2: 5:00

We didn't write a song, we didn't write a quote. So many songs.

Speaker 1: 5:05

They wouldn't write a song about it if it wasn't important.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Yeah, oh my. So it's this lumping on of. I'm supposed to feel happy, I'm supposed to feel excited, I'm supposed to make everyone else happy, yeah such an obligation. That's where stress comes from Making everyone else happy.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Doing things a certain way.

Speaker 2: 5:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Yeah, it's got to be done this way, we've got to have it that way. Yeah, christmas is just so full of that. It turns out to be this creation every year, this thing that we create that is so based on what we did in the past. With this desire to recreate or re-experience what might only be a handful of really positive experiences of the past, we're trying to bring something of the past forward. You know the ghost of Christmas past. There we are, yeah, so I think it's important to see how this is a creation. It's a creation in our lives, a creation of how we were raised and the traditions or the habits as a less loaded word that our family units or our groups have engaged in, the stresses that that causes, and choosing something else.

Speaker 2: 6:48

I found myself this Christmas just feeling not so much overwhelmed but almost underwhelmed, and looking at things that I used to see as exciting to do, as just sort of it's like my mind, instead of the excitement of putting up, I was already placing myself on the day of taking it down, you know, and just not even feeling into it because of the stress of everything else around it. So I think about ideas to help myself with that, and you know, I'm sure that I'm not the only one that that happens to.

Speaker 1: 7:44

Oh yeah, it's one of those things. And, yeah, like we're not trying to kick at Christmas yet, we are trying to understand how we create it. Right, our first experiences of Christmas are as children, and children are wide open. They live in a permanent state of hypnosis, and Christmas is such an incredibly magical time. Right, when you're young, you still believe in magic. There's this magic man that seems to find his way in the tiniest spaces, through chimneys and leaving behind a limitless supply of toys and goodies for kids if they've been good and then there is what's that?

Speaker 2: 8:36

Coal if you've been rotten.

Speaker 1: 8:39

And there's colored lights and special decorations. I mean, this stuff hits us at a very young, open time and it leads us to some of the most wonderful emotions that it lifts us up to excitement and joy many, many times through that Christmas season and that is something that gets. I always think of it as sort of crystallized inside our memory, as something special, something important. And you do that year after year after year, and with each year you adapt your magical views to whatever is in front of you. But that past feeling, that past joy, becomes a quest. Can I recreate that feeling? Can I have that emotion again? And then, as you start to become an adult, you start to feel pressure around it. It reminds me of this joke At first this is the story of aging For me, when I was little, I believed in Santa Claus. When I got older, I didn't believe in Santa Claus. When I became an adult, I became Santa Claus and now I look like Santa Claus.

Speaker 2: 10:04

I was going to say there's an opening at the moment.

Speaker 1: 10:10

I just thought that was such a great meme. So the progress of Santa Claus, so I guess the idea for me. When we think about this stuff, I just really get excited when I see how, in my own mind, things that I think are very, very real are just created by me. They're created by my thoughts. They're created by my experiences. There's nothing wrong with them, but that doesn't make them absolute. That doesn't mean that they have to be. It doesn't mean that I have to continue that way. And if I offered a reframe for Christmas, anything we create can be recreated.

Speaker 2: 10:59

How do you mean?

Speaker 1: 11:01

Well, I'm going to bet money that there's some people out there who are having some negative feelings about Christmas. I know I toy with some negative feelings time to time. We have traditions, things we always do. Here's mine. It's the one time a year that I can usually expect my kids to come home from Vancouver, and this year they're not. Some of them might, some of them might not, but he's made a commitment yet to come home. One son has moved home, so I know I'm going to see him this Christmas. I didn't see him last Christmas. So it's one of these things, an expectation and a desire that Christmas is a time to come home and be with family.

Speaker 2: 12:00

And that doesn't always happen.

Speaker 1: 12:02

And that creates sadness, it creates stress, and it's all based not on anything other than my expectation that I created out of my past experiences and I might suffer over Christmas because of it, or I might embrace the idea that you know I'm going to be a Christmas tree. Anything we create, we can recreate. Anything that we've learned, we can relearn, and just seeing inside myself, you know, all these things that I hold so dear around Christmas, just to be aware that I've created that in my mind and I can recreate that.

Speaker 2: 12:46

So maybe coming up with new traditions or like what what people.

Speaker 2: 12:52

you know. I know one Christmas we had it over Zoom. That may have been during COVID, I'm not sure. But yeah, just finding new traditions, I know from myself. I just simple, I was talking to the students on the weekend about this, this simple idea of, oh man, like Christmas decorations.

Speaker 2: 13:20

So there's this one decoration that I have that created such a strong emotion of me, putting it up when I was a little kid and into my teenage years, like, I always got to put this specific decoration on the tree and it was my favorite and I definitely wanted it when I moved out and you know, mom gave them to me and every year I put that on the tree and I look and I try to feel for that old emotion and it's like waning more and more every year, that emotion.

Speaker 2: 14:03

And then this year I find myself not even wanting to put it up because it now and one of our students mentioned this and it makes so much sense that it almost, like it, brings on a negative emotion because I can't find that, you know, younger, happy Christmas emotion right With my family around and all that. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. So now I'm questioning that right, I'm trying not to get sucked into it and I'm questioning it and I'm going okay, what can I do to change this up a little bit so that I can understand it more, or start something new, or yeah?

Speaker 1: 15:00

Yeah, we turned things from what were, you know, in earlier times, just a joyful experience, and it was that joy that we felt so wonderful, we felt so high, we felt so uplifted. And that joy is something we're trying to recreate. And then it becomes something we call a tradition and then that sort of turns it into an obligation and that obligation doesn't give us the joy and we keep on doing it and we start to feel frustrated and we start to have these negative experiences and, you know, it's just so important to see that it was just a creation. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that traditions are lovely and creating new traditions are lovely, but maybe just no tradition. Maybe real choice is to say this time I'm doing things completely differently.

Speaker 1: 15:55

You know, I just think about, you know, being a parent and the stress I would go through trying to figure out making sure all my kids felt like they were being treated equally and fairly and that every one of my kids was getting, you know, the same amount of stuff and the same number of boxes, and that resulted in this massive number of boxes, because I had a ridiculous number of kids.

Speaker 1: 16:25

I had six kids. I had all these boxes right, and it's stuff, and instead of, you know, feeling that joy that I wanted, the joy of giving to my kids and seeing them happy, it became a stress. I'm like I'm getting up Christmas morning hoping things don't go awry. And some Christmas mornings over time, some things did go awry, some things didn't work out, some kids were disappointed at for a few moments, or maybe even for the day, and just all the weight that I carried because of that. You know, all that weight on my shoulders and it really is. To me, the magic is understanding where the magic of Christmas comes from. It's actually coming from those first times you experienced something that raised you up, and so, in many ways, what Christmas is is a reaching back and trying to repeat rather than a looking forward and trying to create.

Speaker 2: 17:31

Yeah. So I guess that would be our reframe, and technique is is, first of all, understanding why you might feel stressed, why you might feel, like myself, a little low this Christmas. You know I have Christmas songs going through my head like where is Christmas or I don't know, something like that. But once you understand where those feelings of stress and feeling a little low, and you know if you're feeling those things maybe you're not but once you understand that they're coming from the past, which everything does right, pull everything from the past but they're coming from those formative years of having that high, oh my god. There's gifts, there's food, there's family. You know, you mentioned something really interesting on the weekend this idea that suddenly some of our families go from. Well, why is mom so happy suddenly? Why is she, you know, cooking? Suddenly she's wearing her favorite outfit suddenly, oh my gosh, this must mean that this is a really good time, right when maybe other times are not so good.

Speaker 1: 19:07

There's probably not a single element of Christmas that doesn't contribute to this incredible state of joy that we experienced at some point and we're struggling to find again. And, yeah, I always come back to the fact that those peak experiences were really one of a kind, they happened once and that became standard. You seek to achieve, you know, and, like I said, you can apply this to just about anything. I think these ideas, that these are constructions, these are ideas, these are suggestions accepted by us that were coupled with peak emotions, happy, positive emotions, that became something in our memory, that was so wonderful that we would want to repeat it or we'd want to do a new experience like that. And I think it applies, you know, I think of that kind of construction to apply to the way, you know, many young women approach their weddings, or the way I've met students in the past who think that their college experience should be a certain thing and they're seeking to have that college experience that they saw in the movies or that they saw.

Speaker 1: 20:28

You know, that their parents described right, which is really, you know, a four-year period of time, and their parents always tell stories from like, four different days, right, like the whole idea is constructed on a few small experiences that were peak experiences and wonderful unto themselves, but they create in our mind this expectation that is really hard to meet and I just think and this is what we worked on with our students this weekend we can take Christmas and make it fresh and new. We can create new peak experiences this year, doing things that we haven't done before, trying recipes we never did before. You know it sounds sacrilegious, I know, but you know I remember a couple of years ago we tried having roast beef on Christmas and not a turkey right. And these are just opportunities to just invent new things, new opportunities for peak experiences, and sometimes in spite of or by letting go of, you know, those ghosts of Christmas past.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Yeah, so go out and watch the 10,000s Hallmark Christmas movie.

Speaker 1: 21:53

That's another form right Like.

Speaker 2: 21:54

I think Hallmark brings like I personally reached to Hallmark to try to get those feelings.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Isn't? It, isn't that funny? It's funny because they do. They trigger past experiences, but they are also right now becoming other people's new Christmas traditions. Yeah Right, for me it was. It was, you know, a Christmas Carol with Alistair Simms, in black and white, a beautiful story of redemption, and that was. I saw that when I was a kid and I had to watch it every year. And then, as an adult, I'm sitting in the house and everybody's out Christmas shopping and I'm alone and the Christmas tree is in the corner, and on comes PBS and PBS is Doing a nice presentation of it's a wonderful life again. Another little black and white movie. But I was like 40 years old and I'm watching this movie yes.

Speaker 1: 23:03

Anyway, I sat and watched that by myself and that has become the new Christmas movie that I have to watch every year and you know that when I was a little kid it was all the Christmas specials and we would put them on the calendar to make sure we were sitting in front of the TV when Frosty the snowman or Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was going to come on the TV.

Speaker 1: 23:27

Yeah, I love to Rudolph and here Hallmark is creating a whole new set of Christmas movies that people want to watch, because they just generate in them those Emotions that they seek, that they're yearning for, that this holiday time seems to represent to them.

Speaker 2: 23:44

I wonder if people re watch. You know, we we rewatched. It's a wonderful life. We rewatched red Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. You know that was like the thing to watch. I wonder if people rewatch Hallmark movies. I get a feeling like maybe not, because there's 50 new ones every year.

Speaker 1: 24:12

There's just no time same plot, different little towns in, in in America.

Speaker 2: 24:21

But same story, oh my gosh. So yeah, I guess. So Our message to you is that there can be new ways of looking at Christmas and when we, when we notice it, the trick, the magic is Noticing. Okay, now I know where those emotions are coming from the stress, the feeling low, the feeling, anxiety, that kind of stuff. Now I know where it's coming from, because up till now maybe I didn't. And so now I have the choice to make a change, right? Oftentimes we run through life thinking we don't have the choice, we don't know where things are coming from. So I feel like, you know, I'm the Chestpiece on the chessboard and I'm being moved around, yeah, right, so noticing that the past is influencing what you're feeling right now, and then, once you notice that, you actually probably feel better.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Right away. It's amazing that, just just bringing the unconscious to the conscious, how it changes you immediately to just say to yourself yeah, I have this stress, this desire to recreate an emotion. I'm really somehow attached to an idea or a thing or a tradition and it's not making me happy. Yeah and then to say to yourself well, that's just a good intention, to try to relive something beautiful from the past. There's nothing bad about that, but unfortunately it's not working and it's a little disappointing, disappointing yeah and then that creates being aware.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Like you said, that I just sorry, I just thought that was just. That's the big insight when you're aware that all of this is coming from a good place, there's nothing wrong with you. You're completely normal. You want to have a wonderful, positive experience and you're kind of trapped in this process of trying to recreate something out of the past and then to step up and say you know, be aware, the reason that was so wonderful in the past was because it was a new experience and so really the opportunity is for me to create new, wonderful, fulfilling experiences.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Yeah, I think that's so true. So Maybe give that some thought, maria. I'm certainly gonna give it some thought over the next couple days. What are those new experiences? We have this beautiful friend that she she brought a Yule log into our Center the other day and it's just so wonderful, she. She made it with her dad, she made it and there's candles in it and they're gonna go to a ceremony and just have fun burning it, right, and that's just something simple. That Just is new and it really got me thinking About these new things that we could incorporate instead of just doing the you know Gotta, put up the tree, put on the decorations, set up the little village. Maybe you know, like, do these things? Get all your gifts in the mail by November 1st because Amazon takes over. So, yeah, just these new things you can think about doing and be open to it, be open to new things and be open to create your own creativity, right.

Speaker 1: 28:18

Yeah, yeah, you've still got a million really great Christmas ideas inside you.

Speaker 2: 28:26

Mm-hmm. So that's all for today. 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: 28:34

We'll talk more about it tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 28:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:37

Yeah, the ghost of Christmas present.

Speaker 2: 28:39

Yeah, alright, see you later.

Speaker 1: 28:44

We hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little. If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at song hypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the state of mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online In-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwsommehypnosiscom. The link is in the notes below. While you're there, why don't you book a free one-hour journey, meeting with Hilary or less, to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you wanted to be? Bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow.