page 4 - Winter Issue of Empowerment Magazine

Will you find contentment and joy throughout the holiday season? Some people may think it would be impossible to experience happiness or contentment through the holidays. Here‟s encouraging news… when you focus on some new perspectives and strategies, you... More

Will you find contentment and joy throughout the holiday season? Some people may think it would be impossible to experience happiness or contentment through the holidays. Here‟s encouraging news… when you focus on some new perspectives and strategies, you will become more uplifted and more at peace. It is important to recognize that much of our unhappiness can come from thinking about unpleasant past memories over and over. And, due to that influence, we end up with a “programmed” dread of the holidays, sometimes starting the upset as early as September or October. We get locked into disempowering self talk such as, “I ALWAYS get depressed through the holidays”, “My family always makes me upset, but I have no choice—I have to be with them”. In cognitive-behavioral therapy, we learn about the cognitive distortion of „all-or-nothing thinking‟. This thinking means that we believe that the holidays are either going to be: all bad; all sad; all unloving; all challenging. When people Less