Time for reflection – Peace and Joy

As Christmas is now a fading memory, and we welcome in 2015, perhaps we can reflect for a few moments on the spirit of the Christmas season, with the following verse:
May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope;
The spirit of Christmas which is peace and joy;
The heart of Christmas which is love.
Was this a reality for you? Or was your experience very different to this? For many people it is the most stressful time of the year, especially when the season seems to start earlier each year. By the end of November there were early reminders all around, trees and lights quickly appearing, carols constantly playing in the shops and on the radio, people and traffic building around the shopping areas. Whether we liked it or not, we couldn’t get away from it, could we?
So did all those things help to bring the ‘peace and joy’ of the Christmas Spirit to you, and were you able to really enjoy the real spirit of Christmas, when it finally arrived? Or were you worn out by the build up and the expectations of achieving the perfect Christmas, and ultimately putting up with people and circumstances which caused you undue stress and little ‘Peace and Joy’.
How do people experience ‘Peace and Joy’? We can all experience it very differently, like any other emotional response, our attitudes and beliefs can affect it. It may be something to be attained, which can constantly allude you. If you imagine for a moment that your experience of emotional feelings are like the waves of the sea, ebbing and flowing, or crashing and rolling; that then creates the awareness of feelings coming and going no matter how mild or severe. Therefore, all emotional responses can be replaced with something new, and never stays the same. There are of course exceptions to the rule i.e. depression, where the emotions are suppressed, and support is needed to regulate emotional responses again.
The important issue here is that we can achieve feelings of ‘Peace and Joy’, even though at times it may be fleeting. People may then discount this, if the feeling state does not last, and does not fit what they expect it to be like. If the expectation is that we have to feel ‘Peace and Joy’ to enter into the spirit of Christmas, and then we are unable to feel it at that time, the chance is that negative emotions will override any fleeting feelings of ‘Peace and Joy’ we may have had, which will then go unnoticed.
The key is to be in touch with positive emotional responses to events, and let go of negative thoughts and feelings, especially about ourselves, if what we do, think and feel does not match with external events. Then, when we are more in tune with ourselves, there is more chance of experiencing moments of ‘Peace and Joy’ at any time of the year.
If your goal in 2015 is to learn how to have a more positive approach to life, please contact us to discuss how we can help you. Please contact me or my associate, Cate on: 01925 658322 to arrange an Initial Consultation.