Growing Forward Personal Growth Services

Christmas has come and gone and now onwards to the New Year.  Lots of traditions for both and of course lets not forget New Years Resolutions.  ?

To be honest, I think traditions are great and great only if you really enjoy them.  For example, my husband, daughter and I have made ginger bread houses for the past 3-5 years and have had a ball.  (Well at least putting them together was fun.  My husband did the dough and his opinion is totally different than ours).     This year however we didn’t do the ginger bread house.  Why?  Because it simply didn’t call to us.  So as much as we could have called it ‘tradition,’ we opted not to do it this year even though we’ve done one for a few years in a row.

After having chats with friends and clients over the past few days, I wonder how much of ‘Family Traditions’ are no more than habituated response?  Truly they don’t have to do with tradition and yet have lots to do with Habit, a sense of obligation and probably not a whole hell of a lot more.  “Ohhhh…(says one of my clients) The bickering is half of the fun and it’s to be expected.”  Well maybe for him but definitely not on my holodeck.  If I can choose to have the life that I want, guess what?  There would be no Turkey dinner at  Christmas and no bickering simply ‘just because.’  There’s truly a very fine line between Tradition and Bullshit.

I remember meeting someone before Christmas when I was shopping and said that we’d be going away after Christmas and that our goal was to eventually be gone to a cottage for Christmas and through the holidays.  I was told that I was an old poop for thinking that way.  However when you think of waking up Christmas morning and swimming in a salt water pool then slipping into a jacuzzi and then maybe playing a bit of shuffle board and pool and maybe ping-pong, clearly my holodeck is different than theirs and mine sounds like fun to me as well so does it for my husband and daughter.  I’m not an old poop by any means. 

Yesterday I spoke with a really great friend of mine and we chatted about Christmas.  I pondered over a thought when I got off the phone with her.

“If I no longer am the person that I used to be, clearly Christmas and Christmas Traditions may no longer hold the same meaning for me.   “Now here comes the REALLY BIG QUESTION.”

Why am I still engaging in things which no longer hold meaning for me?

I pondered over this for a while and a few things came up for me.  Yes, and one of them is…I don’t want to ‘hurt’ other people’s feelings.  So then Naomi cleverly asks me, “but what about you and your feelings?”  Very interesting and thanks for that.    I clearly had wondered about myself but certainly wouldn’t have come out and asked myself that question.    Oh yes, I have great friends on my holodeck for a reason. 

O.K.  Now I’m in a playful mood.    (Some of you will know what that means and others may have very strong opinions about it.  And…it’s all good because, “Your opinion is none of my business…” So enjoy your opinion and I’ll enjoy simply knowing that it has nothing to do with me.)

So lets review Hallmark Christmas cards or any other greeting card for that matter.  Ever read a card and think…”What a crock of shit?”  Better yet…you then receive it from someone that you just don’t really get a long with.    Now that’s really genuine…Not!  What just came up for me again is, “Why are these people still in my life?”

I used send out Christmas cards every year until Christmas 2006.  Something shifted.  I had just had taken part in a program with Louise LeBrun ( http://louiselebrun.com/) and noticed that by the end of the week my perspective on many things had changed and little did I know that as Christmas was fast approaching I didn’t feel any sense of obligation to send out Christmas cards.  My husband was somewhat baffled so he decided to send a few out.

This year (two years since my first program) I stand it such a different place than I did from even last year.  I suspect that with my own evolution continuing that my life and my views on things will continue to change.  When you know what you know and it’s something that you did not know before, how can you continue to only do what you’ve done in the past? 

There’s so much more that I’d like to write but for now I think I’ll just leave off here knowing that ‘there’s always more.  

Letting Go of The Past AND…Growing Forward

Amy