The approaching Christmas holidays signal joy, happiness, and pleasure for many of us and sadness, loneliness and depression for others of us. It is understandable that those without friends and family to spend the holidays with will be prone to loneliness and sadness this time of year. But others may be just as sad and lonely in the presence of family and friends. Unfortunately, many of us carry old emotional baggage from past emotional pain that keep our minds full of negative self talk that drowns out anything positive. This emotional baggage may be the result of past emotional or physical abuse or neglect, or maybe the result of rejection of a loved one or some other type of disappointment or failure in life. Whatever the cause, this emotional baggage may have lowered our self esteem and self confidence and we continue to feel the pain of these past events. For some of us, current relationships may continue to be dysfunctional rather than nurturing and uplifting and emotional pain recurs with some regularly. Often people who have suffered or currently suffer some form of emotional abuse get so use to it that they come to see the emotional abuse as normal interaction. Happiness and joy are foreign feelings to them and self talk mirrors the emotional abuse received from others. If others around you see you as inadequate or stupid, why should you see yourself otherwise? Of course, this emotional programming is on a subconscious level and may not be easily recognized for what it is.

Your friends and family influence how you think and feel. If your friends and family members constantly make negative or pessimistic statements, you will be influenced to think and feel pessimistically and negatively.
Friends and family members can infect you with THEIR fears. Studies of animals show that they will develop new fears when exposed to peers that are fearful. If your current friends and family members are overtly abusive to you or just negative pessimistic people, you need to protect yourself by removing them from your life or significantly limiting the time you spend with them. Spend time with those friends and family members that make you feel good, that make you laugh and feel happy. If you don’t have any friends and family members that make you feel that way, you need to go out and find some. Go back to school or take some community education classes to meet new people. Take an art class or an antique class. Or join an organization or club, maybe a book club, garden club or some type of organization through your church. Or volunteer to help out somewhere. For instance, volunteer at the local soup kitchen or at the local humane society. By making a point of meeting new people you have the potential to find new friends who make you feel good about yourself. I had a friend whose family spent the holidays bickering and creating unpleasant drama. She found a much more satisfying holiday environment helping serve Thanksgiving and Christmas meals to the homeless and those without families.

Chronic sadness and depression need to be treated by a health care provider. Sometimes medication is a necessary treatment. That said, there are steps you can take to help yourself. First, just because someone else tells you that you are inadequate or stupid or a failure does not make it so. And even if you feel there may have been some truth to it yesterday or today, it does not have to be the case tomorrow. So much of what we receive in life is due to our mindset. We expect to be unsuccessful, and guess what? We will be unsuccessful. The opposite is also true. If we expect success we are more likely to achieve it. Our mindset programs us for success or failure. That is what the law of attraction is all about. Our thoughts create emotions and our thoughts and emotions create our actions. Our actions create our life, our future, our destiny. Our lives today are a direct result of the thoughts, emotions, and actions of our past. If you want to make your life different and better, then you need to take responsibility for your thoughts, emotions and actions and change them for the better. Start but realizing that no matter where your life is now, it is immensely better than that of many people on earth. If you have a roof over your head, a safe environment and food to eat you are significantly better off than many people in third world countries. Begin your new mindset with the awareness of what is good in your life and feel gratitude for those things. Be aware of what IS working in your life and then get to work on what is not working. You can be aware of what is not working in your life and still think and feel positive about the future. Instead of thinking and feeling like a victim, start taking responsibility and create lemonade when faced by lemons.

Decide now that you will choose how you will experience your holidays. You cannot change how others act but you can choose to spend your time with those who make you happier. You can even choose another family if necessary. Your family doesn’t have to be your birth family but can be an “adopted” family. Don’t allow others to control you by convincing you that you “should” or “have to” act in specific ways or do specific things. No, you don’t “have to” spend the holidays with a birth family that sucks your spirit dry. If they persist in “should ing” or “you have to ing” on you, decide that you have a phone call or another appointment that you have to get to right away. Even if the other appointment is by yourself at the local library.

If you want love and respect, you have to love and respect yourself first. If you don’t feel confident or positive, “fake it until you make it”. You have to be YOUR own best friend first. Don’t compare yourself to others or let family or friends compare you to others. You are yourself. You are a unique individual. Instead of looking for external love, encouragement, life values and standards, create them within yourself first. If you need some outside help, find a therapist, counselor, or coach. Decide that you are not going to allow others to treat you in abusive or belittling ways and then make it clear to others. When someone starts telling you that you are unlovable or stupid or inadequate, just state that you are not going to listen to that kind of talk and walk away. Little things like getting enough sleep and eating healthy are ways you can show yourself that you are worth taking care of. You can’t function at your best without enough rest and the right fuel. Physical exercise, even something as simple as taking a 30 minute walk, has been proved to lift ones mood. So exercise regularly. You deserve that time for yourself.

Realize that experiences are more valuable than what money can buy. Instead of more furniture, a fancier car, more clothes, concentrate on finding new and enjoyable experiences for yourself. Start a journal and make a list of everything good about yourself. List all your strengths. Praise yourself in writing when you do something you are proud of. If you feel that you have a lot of weaknesses, list those also and write about whether each is a true weakness or possibly has benefits you have not recognized. I used to think being an introvert was a weakness but I did a computer search and came up with lots of benefits to being an introvert. I thought the same about being overly sensitive. But being overly sensitive can and often does make you more compassionate of others. If you do find a weakness that you do want to change, do some goal setting and create a plan for change. Understand that mistakes are not failures but lessons to learn from. So when you do make a mistake, discuss in your journal why you acted the way you did and how you can avoid a similar mistake in the future.

Find some inspirational books and/or self help books at the library or local book store and read one each week or maybe one each month. If what you read seems uplifting and useful, make notes in your journal and put the information to use. If a particular bit of information or a particular book just doesn’t feel right, get rid of it and start over with another book. You will find that some of the inspirational and/or self help books out there can offer priceless information that can make a big difference in your life. Be selective and find ideas that feel “right” and comfortable for you and then get started on reinventing your life and experiencing a happier life with happier holidays.

Author Bio: WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? You are welcome to reprint my article on your web site, your newsletter or a message board. Just please include this information-©2010 Sharon Ball, Life and Wellness Coach. Get your free report Begin Reinventing Yourself Today at: http://www.reinventingyourselftoday.com

Category: Advice
Keywords: Christmas, happiness, lonelyness, reinventing your life, self help, family