Hardly anyone escapes the holidays completely unscathed. And now that we’ve had some time to breathe, I think it is crucial to look at how our dharma may have affected us.
Dharma has a lot of different interpretations in Asian religions. But in this article on Buddhism it applies to what we are given when we were created. In essence, it is our individual reality.
We suffer when we believe our circumstances should be different than what they are. For those of us who come from toxic, dysfunctional families, seeing everyone else gather with company may have caused us to sink into a state of loneliness and we might assume the blame for where we are.
Instead, can you truly honor the pieces of your path that brought you to where you are?
How you were born into certain personalities, brokenness, and the unconsciousness of your relatives. Your culture. Your country. The characteristics of the time period. The people who did appear or those who have not. All your choices and challenges that you’ve faced.
None of this was within our control…Yet all of it influences our circumstances. Where we are is how we’re supposed to be living.
So when you feel that isolation and depression dragging you down, can you focus on fully accepting that where you are is not your fault. The dharma lesson is we have to find some way to prevail.
When we can truly surrender to the assignment we’ve been given rather than be at odds with it, it allows us to replace resentment with grace instead of knuckling down into resistance.
Maybe for the next holiday season you can meditate on your dharma and find a new lightness and optimism for the homework you’re living.
If you’d like to review previous posts that I’ve done on mindfully surviving the holidays, they are here: