Of Course You Are Happy
Tracy Lamperti
Of course you are happy today, isn’t everyone?! It’s Thanksgiving!
Whether you are reading this on Thanksgiving or Christmas or your birthday or on any other “special” day, if you are not feeling happy, don’t think you are the only one.
There can be many reasons for emotional unrest within yourself on days that most people think of as the happiest days of the year. You may;
- be missing someone
- struggling with an anniversary of the death of a loved one
- have just received a difficult diagnosis or maybe a loved one has
- have a difficult relationship with family or friends who will gather round the same table as you
- dealing with a conflict that has flared up with your spouse
- have children who are less than cooperative
- be feeling pressured to “do it all” or be everywhere that everyone wants you to be
- struggling with your own depression or anxiety
Whatever the circumstance, this could be a difficult day for you. What can you do?
- Is there one friend or family member that you can confide in, where you won’t feel judged or made to feel like you are strange for the feelings you are having?
- Can you ask this person to stay close to you. Not glued to you, but to notice you and help you feel engaged?
- You could take a few minutes of alone time to breathe, pray or just take a break.
- If the weather is on your side, you could choose a time to step away for a 15 minute walk or maybe even an hour. Maybe you could engage one or more of those you are with to join you. Get a little fresh air and increase your heart rate. Move the body and the mind usually moves too!
- Can you identify something you would like to do for yourself, like a small craft project, write or read?
- Keep busy. You might feel like sitting in a corner and hoping no one notices, but challenge yourself to lead the dish washing, or serving others.
- Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Don’t ignore your body’s need for water. Self-care really suffers when we feel emotionally miserable.
- Drugs and alcohol are not your friend. Avoid the temptation, if you have it, to get through it by artificially altering your mood. For those who do not struggle with alcohol, there is nothing wrong with relaxing your emotions with a glass of wine if that is something you already partake in and feel comfortable with, but it is not your friend if you are using it to try and transform or numb your emotions.
- If today is before the day, think it through. How do you want to spend the day? Who are “your people?” Where is your support?
Is your friend or relative suffering?
If you are not someone who is feeling miserable, it might feel most comfortable to connect right to the “happy” folks, but lift your eyes to the bigger picture and if you notice someone not connecting, don’t make assumptions that they don’t want to connect and are happy not connecting. They may need a bridge for connection and you may be that bridge.
If you are feeling deep despair, please read this!
Please allow us to pray for you! Tracy Lamperti checks her email daily and while she may not have time to reply to each prayer request, please know that you are being prayed for on this day. Your request will always remain confidential. While Tracy cannot provide mental health services via email or to anyone who is not a currently established client, she and her husband David can and will pray for you. Please use this contact form.
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Do you get it that every time we seem to turn on the tv, news or in the movies these days the boys and men are getting terrible representation? Whether they are kowtowing to a bossy woman, making obscene gestures or noises, getting drunk or on drugs, committing some stupid crime, espousing the effeminate or acting like a pompus a__, or the countless other ways that they are being portrayed. What was wrong with Davy Crockett, or Huck Finn, Andy Griffith, Superman? Why have Sponge Bob and Homer Simpson and the many other “men” of today been selling by being so stupid? I am not up on any of today’s shows, but I get the point from the stories I hear, that it is not good. Even when an olympic star comes into the spotlight, all too often the story is tainted by some remark or behavior he made, not realizing everyone was watching. Where are the boys supposed to get their education? And what about the girls? Where are they supposed to learn who would make a good husband and father? What brought this on was my prepping for morning meeting tomorrow at the Lamperti Homeschool. I was looking for something good in The Children’s Book of Virtues , Edited by William J. Bennett, Illustrated by Michael Hague. I just happened to open to page 38, Boy Wanted , by Frank Crane. I won’t put the whole story here, but here is a sample.
Photo by Michelle Kaye
What are those? Are those beans? What are they for? Can I touch them? One can learn a lot about a child by watching them play. Play gives us a glimpse into the thought process, emotions, relationships and the way they organise and put things together. With beans, even a teenager or adult can “sort things out” with beans, sand and other materials. Beans make a good medium for tea parties, hide and seek, play ground play, imaginative water, etc. In fact, beans can bring comfort to all ages. Children who don’t feel like they have a voice or have trouble sharing their thoughts and feelings often find themselves running their hands through the field of beans. The same goes for teenagers. Little ones, of course want to play with the beans, which provides a great opportunity to evaluate self-control, adherance to limits and their depth of imagination or level of organization. Beans are awesome! The video shown here represents a variety of bean benefits! An older adolescent, actually, a young adult, worked out many complicated issues in her sessions week after week while sorting beans. This person successfully sorted out ALL of the kidney beans, sorting on many levels! It is so curious to children to come to their therapy session and notice that something has happened involving the beans. It gives children and teens a real sense of commonality with others as well as insight. They come to learn that some people think like they do and some think differently, and it’s all ok. They learn that, while I may share something about the “beans,” I won’t “spill the beans.” They can trust that I will keep their confidence, just like I keep the confidence of the last “bean worker.” As you see in the video, a young person is re-mixing the kidney beans. This young person, being someone who really struggles with self-control and had been held back for weeks from mixing the beans that had been sorted out. We shared such a delightful moment when she was finally permitted to “mix!” Timing is so important, but relationship is more! So the cycle will continue when many young people come in this week and discover the new state of the beans! Tracy Lamperti, Psychotherapist, Educator, Consultant
