Christmas rhymes with happiness.
This is indicated by the annual program of Christmas festivities.
Christmas Eve of
love and peace
.
New Year of
joy and hope.
Kings loaded with illusion.
When the city lights up, the children of San Ildefonso sing to luck or the Christmas carols sound with bells and a tambourine, the brain signal that announces: happy holidays!
Those who enjoy the Christmas spirit are in luck, they have
increased activation in the parietal lobes
(located on the left and right on the top of your head), an area of the brain that neuroscientists identify with the
somatic senses,
the recognition of facial emotions (which favors empathy) and spirituality.
The guests at the table who will not arrive
Like all light has its shadow, this forced joy that accompanies the holidays can be oppressive, bringing with it pain and sadness.
Christmas means birth, which for some people (too many after the deadly ravages of the pandemic) means continuing to live with their losses.
With the empty chair of the one who is not there and the one you continue to love deeply.
Your father, your mother, your partner, your friends, etc.
There is a moment during the mourning process where there is no consolation and the joy of others only revives the memory
.
For others, nostalgia is the emotion that haunts their parties, that
mixture of sadness and joy for the happiness that you experienced and is no longer there.
"I will have a sad Christmas without you, I will be sad thinking of you, the red decorations on the Christmas tree will not be the same, honey, if you are not there."
It is Elvis Presley who puts the soundtrack to this feeling in his beautiful tune 'Blue Christmas'.
There are those who cannot return home for Christmas.
In
that empty chair at Christmas gatherings
, more illuminated than ever by festive lights,
people may be missing
, but also
fragile dreams
that could not be.
A failed love that came to an end, the baby that does not come despite the attempts of science, the children that grow up and leave your nest empty, the united family that has been broken by conflicts, the job that you do not have, the money that again fails to its appointment.
In the empty chair,
your health or that of a relative who must be taken care of may be missing.
Melancholy takes over those moments with its cocktail of sadness and apathy.
Light can come from the past
Faced with this, are we only left with emptiness?
Losing oneself for the loss of the other?
pass the drink?
The human being's ability to fall and rebuild is higher than it seems (yes, it's true! Also to stumble twice on the same stone).
The work of mourning is an example of how we can continue to carry in our hearts those we have lost without being devoured by pain.
Felix will toast his mother this Christmas Eve "because she will always be at my table."
We cannot change reality, but we can look at it differently.
Nostalgia
is an emotion that brings us light from the
past, when we look back and discover the good times lived or the courage you had to overcome other crises.
That look can be a
source of inspiration and resources,
as long as you don't stay in the memory forever.
Eva admits that "it was a luxury to walk hand in hand with Juan through the streets of Florence" before he went to live on the other side of the world without a return ticket.
Looking back doesn't have to be a sign of helplessness.
Melancholy has a cure
, remember who you were, to get up and be reborn a thousand times.
Joane thought one bitter day that she was dancing her life until the persistent Covid took her strength from her.
The videos she sends now with the scant three minutes of her movement are the "two steps forward and one step back" rhythm of her new life dance.
It's nice to see her dance.
Embrace the melancholy
Felix, Eva, Joane use the
powerful technique of reframing.
You can increase or decrease suffering if your focus is on the past to
remember the good it brought despite the suffering of the present
.
Even so, there is no reason to be happy at all costs, the remedy would be worse than the disease.
That is what makes Christmas bitter for many, the obligation of joy.
"What you resist persists" reads a well-known slogan of the psychology of well-being.
Sadness is an emotion that must be dealt
with, contrary to fear or anger that can be channeled.
True well-being does not consist only of feeling happiness and no negative emotions
(it would be better to call them unpleasant, since all emotions have their positive role).
Several studies and the same clinical practice show that people who experience mixed emotions of joy and sadness find an increase in happiness and the perception of being satisfied with their life in the medium term.
For years, we have known that psychological treatment does not focus only on eliminating negative emotions, as they can be essential in the process of clinical improvement.
Many people demand "please, I don't want to feel this anymore, I was happy before" and their approach is legitimate.
However,
there are no shortcuts, sadness and the grieving process are an engine of change that has its requirements
.
Only by admitting with the heart (the mind accepts it before) that someone is not there or something was not possible, we can redirect energy towards new situations or people.
Can light come from the past?
Can there be light in the shadow?
Can hitting rock bottom be as liberating as hitting the sky?
"Our lives are like the course of the sun.
In the darkest moment there is always the promise of daylight
," was the response of The Times newspaper on December 24. Merry Christmas!
Isabel Serrano-Rosa
is a psychologist and director of EnPositivoSí.
The traps of Christmas thought
drop down
ISR
"You will be fine with your white Christmas, but I will have a sad, sad, sad, sad Christmas."
It is, again, Elvis who puts the music.
There are some mental patterns that cloud Christmas for those who have no loss:
social comparison.
It is the Compare and Despair Syndrome.
"They are happy and I'm not" you say to yourself when listening to other Christmas stories "everyone is euphoric and happy, what's wrong with me?", and you go further into the bottomless pit of discomfort.
In short, it is
comparing yourself for the worse
.
The FOMO (fear of missing out).
They are the acronym in English for the
technological syndrome of fear of disappearing,
that is, the feeling that incredible events are happening and you are not part of them.
"Everyone is having a better time than me," you say.
This phenomenon is a consequence of the massive use of social networks, the world showcase of happy smiles and transcendent thoughts.
The premonitory joy (Forebounding Joy).
Term coined by researcher René Brown, from the University of Houston.
We are afraid of feeling too much joy,
because it is a very fragile emotion.
Dr. Brown suggests that some people wear sad armor to protect themselves.
"If you can't tolerate joy, what you do is start dressing up rehearsing tragedy."
The love of pessimism.
There are social clichés that associate joy with banality and superficiality (although science proves otherwise).
There are negative people, who usually call themselves realists, who give themselves certain
airs of greater intelligence in the face of the foolish Christmas optimists
who live on another planet (according to them)
Impossible expectations.
Others languish at the holidays because they
expect to have great moments of joy,
nice surprise gifts, the whole family united in harmony, Christmas events without traffic jams, etc.
Generally, these people do a lot on their part to finally discover that others do not contribute as much and that reality is insidious, from their point of view.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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