Healing Through the Holidays

Holidays can afford us opportunities to heal by stimulating memory cells that have been stored from past experiences. My recent Thanksgiving holiday showed me just how easily I can be stimulated or not. The choice was mine alone...

Illness and holidays seem to go hand in hand. Colds and flu run rampant. Depression, anger, resentment and guilt keep us from experiencing the joy of the season. Oftentimes, we are not sure if we should laugh or cry. Why can’t we experience the holidays the way we want them to be – full of laughter, love, family and friends?

I could not deny that Thanksgiving can be a tumultuous time for me. It is attached to a memory cell that connects to loneliness, separation, and insecurity. And because my children would be away that day, that old memory cell had the potential to be re-stimulated. Luckily I was fully aware of that possibility. I also know that recognition of these memory cells can be an opportunity to heal at a deeper level.

Memory cells play an important role in the healing process, storing the energy of unexpressed pain until we are ready to heal. When we are ready to heal, we will create and/or attract a situation which will stimulate this energy, which is recognizable as an emotional response or a physical symptom that is demanding our immediate attention. And there is nothing that gets our attention faster than emotional or physical pain.

So here I was, Thanksgiving week 2010, feeling that old abandonment pain as an uncomfortable energy in my third chakra that I have come to recognize as fear of rejection. I had not felt this pain in many years, yet here it was, reminding me that I had more work to do around this issue.

Energy is a force asking for direction. Energy does not care where it is directed; it simply needs to be directed somewhere. And the sooner I made the choice as to where to direct this energy, the better. It was obviously not going away until I responded to it. And I wanted to respond in the healthiest way for me at this point in my life.

In order to direct this energy in a healthy way, I have to be conscious of my choices. After some personal thought, these were my two choices: I could send this energy in the direction of my past behaviors, which would connect to pain and sadness; or I could redirect it in a new and different direction.

Through years of healing, I had a greater understanding of who I have now become, and pain and sadness no longer had a strong hold on me. I felt free, willing and able to make a different choice. I have learned that a good choice is one that makes me happy. So in order to take my next step, it was important that I:

• Recognize the energy for what it was (mission accomplished!)
• Honor it (done!)
• Redirect it as quickly and thoughtfully as possible (next step)

Through years of practice I have learned, “ask and I will receive”. It is a simple and powerful truth, one that is easy to forget or deny. I practice remembering this truth by learning to trust my process. So, I proceeded to ask myself, “What do I need in order to create a healthy, happy Thanksgiving Day for me?” As always, the answers were there waiting for me to ask. This is what I heard:

• I need to have Thanksgiving at my home
• I need a houseful of people to share the day with me
• I need to make sure I prepare the foods that make my mouth dance with joy

With this information, I wasted no time redirecting the old painful energy to meet my now expressed needs.

• I told Bill we would be having Thanksgiving at home
• I asked him to invite his family to join us
• I put myself in charge of my favorite Thanksgiving foods: a free range turkey, an organic chicken sausage and whole grain crouton stuffing, roasted garlic and leek mashed potatoes, home-made gravy, organic apple crisp, organic pumpkin pie and appetizers to hold us over until the end of the Patriots game

The next step to healing was to surround my thoughts, words, and actions with love. I allowed myself to enjoy the planning process, and I loved creating every moment of my Thanksgiving feast. All of my needs were met because I met them my ‘self’. I did not wait for someone else to meet them for me. I learned something new about me through this experience: “I have the power to create a Thanksgiving holiday that is perfect for me.”

So next time you want to create your perfect holiday, remember that you have the power to create it yourself and love that you have healed enough to know you are capable of doing just that!