It’s A Wonderful Life!
How’s life treating you these days? As we cruise into winter holidays that often seem to promise more beautiful shining moments than they can deliver, it’s a good time to take a deep breath (in the nose, out through the mouth!) and ground ourselves in reality. The truth is that the holidays can be quite challenging for many people. Very few of us really enjoy the shining perfection that everyone posts on social media. We’ve had a couple of years in particular recently full of heavy, dark energy, and although things are somewhat ‘back to normal’ I’d like to suggest that we’re all suffering a little post-traumatic stress these days.
Then there are the personal challenges that each of us may be facing. Maybe our health is not so good this year, or perhaps we’ve recently lost a loved one. Inflation has thrown the average household into a tailspin. Some of us deal with these situations better than others, and even those who generally deal with life on life’s terms fairly well can have an off year now and then. By his own admission, before he wrote The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle confesses to living his life in “a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression”[1].
Life here on planet earth is just not always very easy. They say we come here to learn life lessons, but sometimes it truly feels like we’ve had enough lessons for a while and if we could, we’d love to complain to whomever is in charge of such things that we really could use a vacation! Alas, that’s not how it works. Instead, we need to get some perspective about how to accept things exactly as they are and learn to re-focus our brains on finding the good in our lives.
I recently read an article about how the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” became so popular. At the time of its release it received mixed reviews at best. Then a clerical accident caused the movie to become so ubiquitous during the holidays; then-copyright owner Republic Pictures missed filing the renewal application so in 1974 the right to broadcast the movie fell into the public domain. It played on television constantly. As a result, the message that every life has value became ingrained in the public psyche.
<spoiler alert!> Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, a frustrated businessman who considers ending his life, His guardian angel is sent to earth to help guide him away from a tragic end. He magically creates a world in which George Bailey never existed, which causes George to see how his life really has touched so many people.
If the holidays have gotten you down – or even if not, and instead you are counting your blessings – consider taking a moment to consider how and why the world is a better place because you’re in it. John Lennon once said, “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance”. Make it a goal this month to open up to life, even when it fails to live up to the holiday hype. Because, yeah – it’s a wonderful life!
[1] The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
