Turning Holiday Dread into Something Meaningful

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When it's NOT the most wonderful time of the year...

It’s a bit ironic that, in what is meant to be our most hopeful time of year liturgically speaking, is all too often approached with a sense of hopelessness. I’m referring of course, to the Advent, Christmas, and New Year seasons. Advent is about hopeful expectancy of the birth of Christ, whose life offers us a chance of redemption and eternal salvation.

Yet when I think about preparing for Christmas and New Years and the actual events themselves from a human perspective, as a single person, it can look a bit dismal. At least, that’s how I viewed it in the past. I dreaded the family Christmas parties where odd relatives like your great uncle pop out of the woodwork only to inquire about your relationship status.

While I’ve gotten pretty good at short responses—“I’ll let you know, Unc, assume no news means just that, no news,” I have come to realize that approaching the end of the year and beginning of another as a time to “check-in” on goals, my love-life, and overall accomplishments was leading me nowhere fast.

Let's focus our attention on what matters most.

If you’ve ever been prey to the “selective attention” test, you know the feeling of idiocy when realizing that the question at hand actually had nothing to do with the purpose of the experiment. In this test, two groups of people pass a basketball, one group is wearing white and other group, black. You’re asked to count how many passes the group in white makes. While focusing attentively on this task, one out of two people will fail to see the gorilla that walks in the middle of the commotion, beats his chest, and walks back out.

I bring up this experiment because I think our human tendency to have selective attention very much applies at this time of year when our self-critic can be at its strongest. That critic tends to turn negative quickly, asking us what steps we have taken in our love life while pointing out the pictures of happy couples in front of a lit up Christmas tree, holding their new baby and wishing the world a Merry Christmas.

Focusing on those around us who seem to be “winning” in the relationship department is like focusing on the number of passes the group of people in white make while overlooking the gorilla right in front of your nose. In other words, evaluating yourself on the basis of your relationship status is, in a word, idiotic. At best, it is a limited perspective.

It is time to expand your perspective.

While I don’t tend to imply that the desire to be a good and holy relationship is idiotic (in fact, quite the opposite!), I do think that allowing that desire to overshadow the hope of the season is absolutely counterproductive. If we reduce ourselves to our relationship status and make that part of ourselves the only game we are playing, then we set ourselves up for failure.

Rather than focusing on new witty comebacks for the annoying relatives at this year’s round of Christmas parties and ways to bolster your online dating profile, give yourself a moment to take your aim and your focus off of relationships, and notice what else is there—I guarantee you there is more.

How can you partake in the hope that this season offers, regardless of your relationship status? How can you take that message of hope and apply it to your life in its entirety? The catechism of the Catholic Church states that “by hope we desire, and with steadfast trust await from God, eternal life and the graces to merit it.”

If your response to that definition was anything like mine, the result is an expansion of perspective. I am hoping for so much more than a relationship—I am hoping for eternal life. I trust that when and with whom a relationship will help accompany me on that journey to eternal life, God will provide it, but am reminded not to confuse the means as the end.

As a counselor, part of my daily job is witnessing my clients struggle.

When I was brand-spanking new, my tendency was to do anything I could to placate those struggles. I’d affirm them, give counter-examples, and offer solutions that might help fix it. As I’ve grown (somewhat) in both experience and wisdom, I have realized that oftentimes, the most loving thing I can do for my clients is let them struggle, and be with them as they do.

Similar to a mother refusing to give into her child’s desperate pleas for candy, both that mother and myself as a counselor are holding back from giving the person what they want in the moment for the sake of their greater good and healing down the road. If a mother can do that for her child and a counselor can do that for their client, believe that God can and does do that for you.

Your single status may actually be a great act of love on God’s part, so take hope in that. He does all things with our eternal salvation in mind. Break your gaze off of those people in white passing a basketball, and work to expand your vision.

While acknowledging that the desire to be in an authentic intimate relationship is a good thing, see the hope in your singleness as well, especially during this time of year. Again, I guarantee you that hope is there, but you likely need to break your tendency to hone in, and have selective attention in order to see it.

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