More Help for the Holidays

"I realized that holidays - not just Christmas and New Years Eve but Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, etc. - along with days like anniversaries and my birthday were the times which I judged myself the most. My expectations of what a holiday "should" be, of where I "should" be at a certain age, of how my life "should" look at this particular time, were causing me to unmercifully beat myself up. I was buying into the disease voice which was telling me that I was a loser and a failure (or going to the other extreme and blaming someone else for my feelings.)"

This quote from Suite 101 Contributing Editor Robert Burney's home pages gives a pretty good description of some of the expectations that come upon us during the holiday season. These are the realities that it takes some of us years to recognize all the while trying not to drink, use, think or feel.

His page on alcoholism offers insight into how the 12 step program stops short at healing the emotional wounds uncovered in the process of working the steps. Robert offers a road map for success in dealing with our emotions to help us be *happy, joyous and free.* page 133, Chapter 9 of the AA Big Book.)

In his site about the Twelve Step Recovery Process Robert talks about how the process is successful. The Twelve Steps offer a formula for "integrating the Spiritual into the physical so that powerlessness can lead to True empowerment."

Once we recognize we are powerless to control our life, we can connect with our Higher Selves. I am sure that many of you can relate to finding yourself wallowing in self-seeking, self-pity and self-will while feeling selfish and self-centered during the holiday celebrations. Robert explains how three of the steps talk about power. "The first tells me that I don't have it; the second tells me where to find it; and the eleventh tells me how to access it - through prayer and meditation." This can be especially helpful this time of year, with the spiritual focus many holiday celebrations lack in our materialistic world.

The Positive Affirmations page is also a valuable place to check out. Affirmations are a way "to change attitudes and beliefs within us that tell us that we are not Lovable." Here Robert addresses how we can successfully change the "false beliefs" we have learned growing up in a "shame-based, emotionally dishonest society". He uses the metaphor of both sides of "the force" from Star Wars fame to demonstrate how the theory of affirmations works.

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