🎄 The Emotions of Christmas
Are your emotions like a string of fairy lights?
I think the emotions of Christmas are just like the strings of fairy lights we have to patiently disentangle every year!
I imagine you will be having your fill of emotions over the break. I've picked three that may be useful to name (even if not all the theories agree with their inclusion in the list of emotions*) as you disentangle the emotions of Christmas.
✅ Nostalgia - This is a feeling of longing to go back to a time where things were better or pleasurable. The follow-on feelings can be difficult or pleasurable. The thing about the Christmas period is that there are so many distinct memories that it is very easy for the mind to find the playback for memories, even when they are false or edited. Nostalgia is often wonderful to experience. And, perhaps naming it can help you place the past and set you up well for being open to the 'now' and the newness of what is here.
✅ Envy - When there is so much broadcasting (through social media/social events) of what others are doing, it is easy to start to get caught in envy. This can lead to some of the harder feelings such as loss or sadness. These are important to feel especially when it helps us understand our wants and needs and sets us on a path of creating that in our future. However, sometimes it takes away from our best self by creating bad behaviours. For example, in some cases promote performative behaviours such sharing your plans in an exaggerated way, either the predicted joys or the predicted pain or bitterness. By naming our own envy perhaps we disallow it to control our behaviour in a way that doesn't represent who we want to be.
✅ Adoration - When we adore something, some place or someone it is a powerful feeling. Sometimes we find this so overwhelming we can get resistant to it. We wipe away the tears before others can see them when we hear a moving choir song, we break the hug with a loved one before it seems 'too much, we pull ourselves out of being lost in the aesthetic beauty of an object in case it seems superficial. I'm going to personally practice staying in adoration over this break.
My advice would be pick one emotion, doesn't have to be one highlighted above, and keep an eye out for it over the break, keep it in mind, notice it and notice it's impact on your behaviour. Perhaps that will prevent us ending up with a wieldy, unusable ball of tangled energy we stuff into a box and kick to the back of the house to deal with next year.
*There are many theorists and researchers who have claimed the distinct number of emotions e.g. The 12 that the Discrete Emotion Theory suggest, the 27 emotions from the Berkeley crew, or the 34 suggested by Darwin.
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