![\"christmas-ornament-701312_640\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/664\/2016\/12\/christmas-ornament-701312_640-300x169.jpg\")
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I had a friend\u2013 a wonderful, compassionate, funny and creative friend, a great gal in every way. I\u2019ll call her Patty. I loved Patty. We lived in different parts of the country, so we usually talked online. And goofing off with Patty and my other online friends was the best part of my day. Patty always managed to make me smile.<\/p>\n
But patty herself wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n
Patty suffered from anxiety and depression, the worst cases of anxiety and depression you can imagine. \u00a0She was completely disabled by them most of the time. She\u2019d tried every pill. She\u2019d been to therapist after therapist. No one could help her very much. There was nothing I could do to help Patty, except to be a friend to her and to tell her how much I loved her, and try to\u00a0listen and empathize as best I could.<\/p>\n
I know that Patty\u2019s suffering was a real, serious mental condition and not just ordinary sadness or seasonal blahs. But I saw her struggling again and again with one pattern of thought that really made her suffering worse. It was a pattern that, as far as I could tell, her therapists encouraged instead of helping her change. And I think it makes ordinary suffering worse too, and I think it\u2019s an especially poisonous way of thinking for this time of year.<\/p>\n
Patty thought that she was supposed to be happy.<\/p>\n
She thought that she was wrong, if she wasn\u2019t happy. She thought she would disappoint people if she wasn\u2019t happy. And she thought that it was her responsibility to make herself feel superficially pleasant, in this or that moment. I saw her struggle with this day after day. She\u2019d\u00a0mention that she\u2019d been in pain and nervous in the early morning, but didn\u2019t want to wake anyone to talk to for fear of disappointing them. She felt like a failure when she didn\u2019t feel happy on holidays, or when her birthday brought fear and renewed depression instead of fun.<\/p>\n
Patty spent the longest time strategizing ways to make herself feel happy. Her therapists encouraged her and gave her tips on how to do it. I saw her writing down to-do lists:\u00a0\u201cI felt happy playing my trumpet\u00a0this afternoon. I will\u00a0play my trumpet\u00a0for at least fifteen minutes a day. I will turn on the radio and dance to it if I feel sad.\u201d She had a drawer full of candy in reserve to snack on in case she felt sad. She had organized her life into a series of stepping stones, from one pleasant feeling to another, to try to make herself happy. And since Patty was a caring and empathetic person instead of a selfish one, none of this worked. It made her more miserable. And then she felt like a failure for being miserable, and on it went.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that that way of thinking will make everyone miserable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re clinically depressed, a felt obligation not to be will make it worse, and if you\u2019re just sad it will make the sadness more difficult to bear. It\u2019s a terrible\u00a0way of looking at emotions\u2013 but it is a way that our culture encourages. I think that, especially this time of year, most of us are pressured to feel \u00a0merry and frolicsome. We\u2019re supposed to be like the happy\u00a0Whos or the jolly Cratchits, not the Grinch or Mr. Scrooge. Even in church, depending on your music director\u2019s tastes, you\u2019re probably being sung at to \u201cRejoice! Rejoice!\u201d and in a few weeks you\u2019ll be told \u201cLet us be merry, throw troubles away!\u201d And it\u2019s easy to think that the lyrics of those songs are imperatives which you\u2019re a bad Christian if you don\u2019t obey, rather than reminders of the joy that is to come.<\/p>\n
You probably feel pressured to try to induce an emotion of happiness\u00a0right now. I know I do. I feel like I ought to be watching that horrible televised Christmas special my father tape recorded off of television almost thirty\u00a0years ago\u2013 the one with the bespectacled agnostic mouse\u00a0and with Joel Grey playing the clockmaker\u2013 while stuffing warm Toll House cookies in my mouth, to try to bring on\u00a0the same childlike wonder and anticipation I had when I was six. But the fact is, I hate that movie, Toll House cookies make me sick, and there\u2019s nothing in the world more miserable than trying to induce an emotion because you feel like you\u2019re supposed to.<\/p>\n
I have some good news: you\u2019re not supposed to.<\/p>\n
You are not required to feel happy. You are not required to do things to induce a feeling of happiness. God does not require that of you. No reasonable person will have their holiday ruined if you\u2019re not\u00a0feeling festive every moment. If someone else really requires you to be filled with glee at all times, THEY are the ones with the problem, not you.<\/p>\n
And you\u2019re not a failure if you can\u2019t induce a feeling of cheer. Genuine happiness is not something that can be induced, anyway. Happiness comes from other sources, usually when you\u2019re occupying yourself with things more important than making sure you feel the right way.<\/p>\n
If you feel festive this holiday season: great! You\u2019ve been given a gift, a small anticipation of the Heavenly joy which awaits us because of the miracle of Christ\u2019s birth. Don\u2019t try to hold onto or artificially prolong that emotion, but have a good time.<\/p>\n
If you feel miserable this holiday season: great! You\u2019re feeling something that\u2019s real. We really do live in a fallen world, and even our most joyous seasons here on earth are streaked with sorrow. Suffer with Christ. Console one another. If you can think of something that\u2019ll cheer you up, and if you can do it without neglecting the weightier responsibilities of the Christian life, go and do it. If it doesn\u2019t work, don\u2019t feel like that\u2019s your fault. If you feel that you may be suffering from depression or anxiety, get some help from a counselor about it, and I\u2019ll pray for your healing and consolation. But if it\u2019s just seasonal blahs, don\u2019t worry. It\u2019s to be expected, and you\u2019re not required to feel differently.<\/p>\n
If you feel just okay this holiday season, neither sad nor happy, great! You\u2019re probably a very level-headed person. Be patient with those who are festive. Be compassionate to those who mourn.<\/p>\n
Life is difficult enough. Emotion policing is one burden you shouldn\u2019t have to bear. You owe it to yourself to let it go. Feel however you feel. Have a merry Christmas, if you can. But you do not have to be merry.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a friend\u2013 a wonderful, compassionate, funny and creative friend, a great gal in every way. I\u2019ll call her Patty. I loved Patty. We lived in different parts of the country, so we usually talked online. And goofing off with Patty and my other online friends was the best part of my day. Patty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":1877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[626,1833,501,1869,665,813,2146,329,756,481,1284,54,71,1],"tags":[2346,2347,2337,566,2345,2353,2351,2352,2349,250,2350,2348,39,2354],"class_list":["post-1876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-idenitity","category-chronic-illness","category-compassion","category-empathy","category-fear","category-fun","category-human-dignity","category-joy","category-mystery","category-personal-beliefs","category-philosophy","category-story","category-suffering","category-uncategorized","tag-anxiety","tag-blahs","tag-cheer","tag-christmas","tag-depression","tag-emotion-police","tag-glee","tag-happy","tag-holiday-season","tag-mental-illness","tag-merry","tag-seasonal-blahs","tag-suffering","tag-therapist"],"yoast_head":"\n