it's always fair when you get to choose

My children, I fear, often tire of me telling them this. I have tried to raise them with the ability to see how actions are connected with consequences. For instance, if you choose to dawdle while cleaning your room, you may not have time to play with friends later. Or, if you choose to not eat your dinner, you opt out of dessert.

Funny how it's always harder to apply wise counsel to yourself.

This week I got to go visit with Wayne, my counselor, for an hour by myself. I love having a totally objective, non-judgmental, unrelated person to whom I can lay everything out on the table, so to speak. I wanted to talk about the anticipation of stress I feel as the holidays approach. It's rather a contradiction, because I look forward to this time of year and everything that goes with it, yet I almost get a pit in my stomach wondering how on earth I'll ever manage to pull everything together before Christmas Day. I always manage to do it somehow, but not without more than a fair bit of anxiety and stress along the way--something that seems out of place in a season that celebrates joy and peace.

In the course of our hour's conversation, I was reminded that my favorite parental slogan applies to me as well as to my kids. When I acknowledge that the things I do in preparation for the holidays--be it shopping, decorating, wrapping, baking, blogging, or whatever--are in fact deliberate choices on my part, I feel more in control. I like feeling in control, rather than like I'm on some crazy raft coursing madly down the white rapids, crashing against rocks and threatening to overturn at any moment (which is how I most often feel during this time of year).

Wayne also helped me to recognize that my talents are both "a blessing--and a curse" (in Monk's words--for all you fans of the TV show) and I realized that, while I can look to others in my family for support and help, I shouldn't expect them to feel as urgent about some things as I do.

Focusing on gratitude is another way I can change my perspective. For instance, instead of feeling stressed out because I have to get my mom's and my decorations up in the next two weeks (my sister Susan usually comes for Thanksgiving and does our mom's), I will be grateful that my aging parents are still here to celebrate another Christmas season and I will enjoy and appreciate the time I am given to spend with them.

I will not be a victim of my choices, but the director of them. Sounds rather dramatic, I know, and perhaps even silly in the context of Christmas preparations, but it was nevertheless a moment of clarity for me--one for which I am grateful.