The Global Conversation

Tag: holidays

  • ‘Tis the season

    This is that special time of year when we dream about peace.  We visualize prosperity and proclaim that old acquaintance be forgot.  We experience the giving and receiving of gifts and most people find themselves feeling rather charitable.  Yes, compassion fills our hearts and olive branches are extended.  The world’s armies put down their guns and break bread with their opponents.  We all come together and unite for a fleeting moment on Christmas Day.

    Well, at least that is how all the songs and movies depict it anyway.  What actually happens for many this time of year doesn’t quite fit the bill of “joyful and triumphant!” Many people find themselves stressed over the financial burden of the holidays or the pressure to purchase the perfect gift for their special someone.  How could I not mention those in recovery and those who are still suffering with addictions?

    This time of year can be very challenging to the newly sober person.  There are Christmas parties where even casual drinkers drink too much.  The expectation is to let loose and live it up.  For a recovering person, this isn’t an option and most people can’t understand that.  For those with addiction, one is too many and a thousand is never enough.

    But the end of the year is a great time to reflect over the past twelve months. It is good to look at our lives from time to time and decide what is working for us and what is not.  For many, we will look at our physical condition and decide that it is time to make some changes.  Come January 2nd, the gyms, yoga studios, Pilates classes and the YMCA will be standing room only for three or four weeks.

    Deep inside, all of us are yearning for the same things:  happiness, joy, contentment, peace, and freedom.  We just have no idea how to get it.  Does it come from things? Does it come from others? If you love me, will everything be okay?  Do we attain happiness from money, food, sex, drugs, being right?  What is it? And why do we have such a difficult time finding it and holding on to it?

    I believe we have set up a system of living that just flat out doesn’t work.  Most would say, “If I had more money, I would be happy.”  The facts simply don’t prove that.  Very few people who win the lottery actually find happiness.  Many end up in a deeper pit of despair in a very short time.

    Happiness is a decision. Not a simple one, I might add, but it is a decision.  And it would seem many of us are simply incapable of making that decision. Why do you think that is?  Is it our ego? Are we hardwired for “my way or the highway”?  Isn’t it time we break out of the “do it my way or else” paradigm?

    I believe that we are becoming more conscious with time. I can look as far as my own life and see that my own beliefs have changed drastically since I was a child.  I have expanded my view of the world and strive to continue to do so.  I can also see in the children of today that they appear to be well-equipped to take us to a higher place.

    I choose to believe we are going there.  In fact, I believe we are already there; we just don’t know it yet.  When asked, “Why do you strive to change the world’s view of God?” my reply is simple.  It would appear to me that the world’s perspective of what God is and wants for us isn’t working.  Now, I am not going to force my belief on anyone, but I do not hesitate to bring it up in conversation when I see the opportunity.  I know my perspective of God changed, so why can’t others?  Why can’t we all keep an open, flowing, and ever-willing-to-change view of God?

    Let me ask you this: If given the opportunity to be right or be happy, which would you take?  Now to take that one step further.  If all you had to do was consider that what you believe to be true about God may not be the whole truth, and by doing so could bring you to a higher state of happiness, joy and freedom, would you take it?

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist.  He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation.  You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • So You Want To Change The World? Series Part Two

    Part Two: Joy to the World (and We Mean It)

    Within the holiday season, it becomes very, very easy to be focused on everything but being happy. Much of the time and energy spent this time of the year is fixated on guilt about spending too little or too much, worry about future parties and plans, and relief only when the busyness season has come and gone. The only change we seem to want, is a change of pace. But is that all we really want?

    When we look to change our world, we first need to change our basic ideas about the holidays, and in turn, life and time itself. As noted in Conversations With God For Teens, the Three Way Path includes the extraordinary choice to Spread Joy. No matter how busy the moment, how rushed the event, we can easily find joy in it, and let it be known to the world. Regardless of what faith, culture, religion, or traditions that have been adopted, we can enJOY the holidays. By simply being happy, during Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, and every holiday in between, we can be joyful – and be merry.

    In the classic movie, Miracle on 34th Street, we are reminded that “Christmas isn’t just a day…it’s a state of mind”. I will go along further and say that the holidays are a state of being – one that we CHOOSE to embody and embellish.  We choose to embody joy, and so we choose to live in a state of blissful euphoria. By living in this state of joy, we live in the highest state of ourselves. As we become the pure manifestation of unconditional happiness, we love everything – and everyone – for who they are and what they choose to be. So why save it for only ourselves?

    Just as in Frank Capra’s motion picture It’s A Wonderful Life, sometimes we forget how often and how deeply we affect the lives of everyone around us. When we spread joy, the energy of the feeling ebbs and flows through the incredibly intricate patterns of our relationships. As we send out this feeling, it is received warmly by our friends, our family, and the universe itself. Whether we confirm our experiences with laws of physics or the ways of karma, we know that what we put into the world will be what we receive, and what the world will receive. When we share our giving and receiving, joy becomes a never-ending cycle, with no beginning and no end, that only circulates in the upmost elation of life itself. Sounds like a great gift for any generation.  

    In the remainder of the holidays, 2012 will come to pass. We are all set to make our New Year’s resolutions, and this year we will truly decide to change our world, and change ourselves. So for 2013, I will spread joy – I will be the grandest version of the greatest vision I ever held about how happy I truly am. And if we ALL spread that message, it will bring joy to every teen, across the nation and across the globe. In the new year and the new season, spread joy – because it’s contagious!   

    (Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • I see you…even when you are not ‘here’

    As we transition into the first week of December, the radio stations are also transitioning into their holiday musical line-up and beginning to play Christmas tunes, some stations devoting their entire program exclusively to “sounds of the season” 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all the way up to Christmas Day.  So during my early-morning commute today, I was not surprised to hear Elvis Presley crooning “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas Without You” and Jon Bon Jovi belting out “Please Come Home for Christmas” and Mariah Carey sorrowfully singing “I Miss You Most at Christmastime.”

    I’ve heard these particular songs hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.  But today these three melancholy tunes caught my attention in a new way, one which invited me to think about how many people, myself included, are physically separated from their loved ones not only at Christmas, but for prolonged periods of time, whether that separation is as a result of children growing up and moving on to the next chapter in their lives, or due to a special friendship parting ways, or perhaps a loved one who has left this earthly realm to continue on in their eternal spiritual journey.

    These physical separations have the potential to stir up a wealth of emotions and confusion, especially when the way we desire our relationships to be experienced is entirely different than the way in which they are actually physically showing up – or not showing up – in our lives.

    But are we as separated from our loved ones as we imagine ourselves to be?

    Is there a way to actually experience the presence of those who no longer share a physical proximity with us?  Not only at Christmas, but all the time?

    If we limit our definition of “relationship” to include only that which we experience in physicality, our answer to that question may cause us to miss a most extraordinary spiritual opportunity.

    Have you ever experienced the essence of someone you love without them being physically in the room with you?  Have you actually felt the wonder and intimacy of a Beloved Other even in the absence of their physical being beside you?  Has a particular aroma or unique sound or distinct taste triggered an opportunity to actually relive, in a palpable way, a moment with somebody who is no longer physically here?

    We are provided infinite opportunities to experience our loved ones through the path of our consciousness.  For me personally, the smell of roses delivers to me an experience of being a very young child, cuddling on my mother’s lap after she bathed and luxuriated herself in Rose Milk Body Lotion, instantaneously drawing into my consciousness my mother and an opportunity to be with her in a way that transcends physicality.  The gentle sound of an acoustic guitar gifts me with an opportunity to linger within the essence of my 18-year-old son and his music, who now resides on the other side of the country.   A large percentage of the people in my life with whom I share an intimate or especially meaningful relationship live nowhere near me, yet their presence is significant and certain.

    And this is because what we choose to focus on and what we choose to see will determine What we experience and Who we experience and How we experience.  Life calls upon us to do and be many different things.  And as a result, we may find ourselves physically separated from what we have come to know as our most important and cherished relationships.  Yet day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime people manage to move through these transitions and changes, most often to experience an even deeper level of love and a more profound level of awareness.  And this is because we truly are never separate from each other.

    Our relationships never end, as we imagine or perceive they do.  The existence or magnitude of a relationship cannot be measured in terms of physical distance or closeness.  Relationships simply change the form in which you experience them, and a physical “separation” may be just the thing that allows us to know and experience not only who we are in relation to each other but who we are in relation to our Self.

    Perhaps this holiday season will provide you an opportunity to create a new experience, one which celebrates the presence of a loved one in an extraordinary yet familiar way.  Maybe the warm embrace of a loved one will be experienced through the surrogacy of a child’s tender hug or seen in a stranger’s smiling eyes or warmly felt through the gentle touch of an unknown passerby.

    Maybe, just maybe, you truly are as close as your next thought.

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)