Banish The Holiday BLUES

 

The year is wrapping itself up into a tight wad.  You call to confess to me, that you are you “TOTALLY FREAKING OUT???”  Are you running around, trying to cater a party for 30 when you have enough chairs for 3?  Is your budget stretched to the limit?  Are you contemplating bankruptcy or, at least, a reduction in the size of your Barney’s Binge Shopping Budget in 2015?

NOW, before I begin to dish, my special brand of savory information, a delicate stew of warm MUSE NEWS, to which you have become increasingly accustomed, being that it provides a nourishing substance… you require. I readily advise you on how to shake those often ugly, hardened, stormy feelings that threaten spring upon you, to choke you, violently clouding out every ray of positivity, which might blossom, IF carefully tended and coaxed into fruition, during the HOLIDAYS, but instead FESTERS, like an open sore… oozing.  I find myself instantly getting depressed when there is so much pressure to be HAPPY!  Enforced Christmas Cheer pushes my buttons.

Perhaps… like many people… you HATE CHRISTMAS MUSIC and come around October, they start to BLAIR THAT CRAP… in every space that has the mojo to command a cash register.  Don’t they understand that by giving US so very much of Christmas, many of us GET SICK of IT?  Holiday music is like rap, country, or heavy metal music… not everybody’s cup o’ Joe… and maybe if it was just for ONE month, say December, then it would be almost bearable, but the shopping centers are relentless in their stream of sonic sales stimulating musical brain invasion!

The Annoyed Consumer, is forced to SUCK UP the “steamy,” sound of “Santa Baby…” for months, imagining tarty girls flirting with their fat Santa, Banker or Hedge-Fund SUGAR DADDIES… Worse, the sensitive soul is ground down by the schmaltzy mix of materialism muddled with a diluted, polluted, Christian message which is pumped into our veins in the toxic form of mainstream HOLIDAY Culture.  YUCK!

The pure elixir of belief is being mixed into the cheap sweet carbonation of hyped up SALES and shopping frenzies; what might be an authentic spiritual opportunity is turned into a SALES Event! The materialism revolts you…You wanna scream like the Edward Munch painting.  YOU CAN’T TAKE IT! Yet… the holiday MUSIC follows you into Starbucks, another place I want to avoid. “Jiggle BELLS!”  “Jiggle Bells!” Cry monstrous children, that chase you in your thin and flimsy dreams.  YOU WAKE UP!

Stressed… the bills are mounting, the kids (you don’t even have any but IF YOU did it might be dangerous, this year!) are griping, screaming, and shouting! Their horrific excitement about ALL THE TRASH they are about to spew out into the universe.  Wrappers.  Packing. TAPE!  The HORROR of Holiday Cocktails with people whom you do not trust and you must keep your guard and be very polite, ever so NICE!

(Chill OUT!  It is clear that YOU have a BAD CASE of The HOLIDAY HORRORS!  YOU have come down with a highly infectious disease.  Yes.  IT IS TRUE! You must contain yourself.  You must find a means of protecting others from the  bad vibe you are emanating.  Yes, you.)

Thank goodness, you have come to the right place for instant on-line healing.  

Please, allow me, Frau Kolb ARTIST comic relief and aspiring adolescent, laughing here, HEAD and IN CHARGE of ALL THIS FABULOUS CONTENT, on www.talkinggrid.com, to diagnose poor depressed and spiritually depleted,YOU, with the following flowing one-size-fit-all blanket of “ISSUE,” which you may or may not cling to in a desperate attempt to DISCOVER some greater truth, than the basics we ALL KNOW.  The Holidays, are best invested in self reflection, go easy on the booze and pass on the sticky buns.  You don’t need those easy escapes and quick fixes now.  Concentrate on loving yourself, better than that.

Sure, like everyone else on the planet, YOU have problems.  Now, forget about it… The truth is: It isn’t easy being human.  We all struggle.  Just getting in and out of pajamas… buying pajamas and washing pajamas is an epic undertaking.  Add traffic.  Sex.  Finances.  Children.  War.  Race conflict.  Loud Americans (or whoever you feel is invading your space simply by being audible…) and… well… We are ALL ready to SCREAM!  SCREAM!  SCREAM!

Yet, here’s the rub: we all have to find the strength to move gracefully from one day to the next.  It is our responsibility to seek out happiness, good spirit, Cheer.  Not just during the holidays but year round for our health and for the health of others.  We might benefit for some of the prescribed Merriment.  Yet, How?  Come on, my friend… step over here.  Sit down.  Here, on this silken pillow.  I know you are tired.  Exhausted.  You feel used and abused.  No one loves you (except Talkinggrid, of course).  Well… I will tell you a secret…

Sit down.  Take a seat.  Breath. So… Here it is:

“YOU want to shake this terrible Holiday Helplessness that hits you with the force of a Caribbean storm. Yet, what to do?”

Here are SEVEN SECRET, Foolproof, steps to maintaining a modicum of MENTAL HEALTH & Happiness during the sometimes nauseating attacks of Holiday Panic, Holiday Horror! Okay, I LOOK at you and I tell you what ALWAYS works for me.  I have SEVEN SECRET ways out of any little steaming HOLIDAY HELL which you may have wandered into this muddy pit, by accident but… NOW YOU are stuck in the muddy molten lava nightmare, yet HAVE NO FEAR!  Frau KOLB is HERE to SAVE YOU!

1. NOW! Move IT! Nothing will make you feel better about yourself or your situation than doing some sit ups, jumping jacks, yoga, whatever primitive mode of self tuning you practice… get to it.  At least half an hour per day.  NOW! Go UP THE STAIRS!  Walk to work.  Avoid the elevator. Try skipping, as children do.

2. Start your New Year’s RESOLUTIONS EARLY!  Hit it.  NOW! Consider quitting drinking NOW!  Do a juice fast.  Wheatgrass.  Everyday.  You will feel better and you will thank yourself when instead of gaining weight this year you enter the NEW YEAR looking fit and fabulous.

3. Write everybody Holiday LOVE LETTERS!  Screw the materialism.  You don’t have to buy anything for anybody.  Write them letters of praise, LOVE. What we all really want for Christmas is good old fashioned praise and love.  Write your loved ones a few pages of script, extolling their virtues and enumerating their strong points.  Better, mail it to them, even IF you live in the same house.  Send actual cards, with handwritten words and perhaps a printed photograph, to, at least, ONE person.  Yes.  One is more than enough.  (You can even send your letter to yourself in order to ensure you get HOLIDAY MAIL from someone special.)

4. Sleep.  Turn off the phone.  Say, “Goodbye Computer.” Turn INWARD.  Contemplate.  Peace.

Nothing hurts you more than forgetting to nourish your body with rest.

5. Ritual Bathing.  Listen, don’t knock it, till you’ve tried it.  I put a marvelous mixture of sea salts and oils, oatmeal (skin soothing) and green tea powders in warm water and soak away much of what ails me.  Hey… costs very little and most of us can access a little hot water and epson salt. No?

6. Create.  You know, seeing ALL THOSE flashing lights and shows… it leaves you feeling a little EMPTY.  Try painting it out.  Paper.  Canvas.  Board.  You decide.  Or… use words, music… write a SAD SAD Christmas BLUES SONG and blow everybody away at the company Christmas Par-Tay with an impromptu performance!

7.  Apply the SEVEN BOOK RULE!  Here is the KEY to the verdant private garden of Frau Kolb’s imaginary and real experience of total life success: READ, READ, READ!  The deeper your interests, your knowledge, your connection to the fabric of humanity, through its thought which may be directly accessed in BOOKS, will sustain the fragile sensitive you in times of duress.  Yes, books, are my best and most stable friends.  I retreat into them and in them  find constant comfort and guidance.  You can read, whatever you like, whatever uplifts YOU! But give yourself permission to avoid topics that prove toxic or debilitating to you.  In other words, censor yourself, if it means avoid the turgid sea of Ugly Holiday Horror.

Try reading about the Early Christians, Alternate forms of Jewish Faith, The Fluctuations of Stock Market Wave patterns… whatever floats your boat. IF it elevates your mood and is not a gun manual, read it.

Personally, I enjoy books on history.  What kind of history varies.  Lately, I find myself reading more and more books set in or about China.  It seems that Chinese and Asian Studies are emerging as a major focus.  This makes for yet another hobby which while absorbing much of my time, delivers timeless knowledge and thus inspires me to take my personal issues in stride, aware that I am but a drop in the bucket.  Reading is constantly shaping my perspective on LIFE.  I am after many years of interest into Chinese Art and painting but a novice at investigating the language, the characters, the gorgeous pictographic/calligraphic writing system.  This multi layered interest, has brought new SPARK (PASSION!) into my, already full and delightful, life.  By investing my time in learning what I find remarkable, I enrich my life and protect myself from succumbing to the HOLIDAY MELTDOWN which so plagues the Armies of Shoppers, mobbing Walmart for “last minute,” gifts.

What do you want to learn?  What do you want to master?  Tell me.  Tell yourself and treat yourself to time dreaming, thinking, writing, and planning a better now by being more at ease and grateful simply for the gift of being, which in no way means, that we aren’t aware that not everyone is as lucky as we are to be breathing, NOW… and that is my point.  Don’t allow the creepy mood of militant outward displays of canned Christian sentiment crush you!  YOU are more ZEN than that!

Now finally, perhaps this year, I will write you again, a word or two… nothing major… but it is time I hear from you.  Please comment.  Mark LOVE at the top corner.  Share this or another, your favorite of my stories, and PLEASE IF YOU are a regular reader and wish to contribute to the YEAR END Frau KOLB Christmas Par-TAY FUND, CLICK donate DONATE donate at the bottom of the Talkinggrid’s front page. By DONATING to Talkinggrid you ensure that I will continue making time to writing and thereby AMUSE and UPLIFT you with Frau Kolb’s Muse News and Talkinggrid FUN!

EXPRESS YOUR LOVE and APPROVAL for independent Artist/Blogger Absurdist World Traveling Imaginary Friend and Intricate Fuzz Ball, Frau Kolb, via the DONATE button, on the bottom of the cover page.

Thank YOU!