I guess I’m surprised to hear Jesus is suddenly so easily threatened. Somehow till recently we had managed to live with the bizarre hybrid that Christmas has been for an awfully long time. The mishmash of pagan rituals, economic stimulus, and office parties together with the virgin birth (which, by the way, isn’t even remotely mythologically unique to Christianity) flew relatively successfully under the radar.

My neighbor’s yard has a manger scene combined with illuminated depictions of a Christmas tree (I don’t think they have those in Bethlehem. Shouldn’t it at least be a palm tree?), Santa (no connection to Jesus), and lots of penguins (aren’t they from the South Pole?). I’m not sure which is more remarkable – that we ever arrived at such a schizophrenic compromise, or that it never really gets questioned.

Why isn’t Santa Christmas’ public enemy number one? Here’s why I think it works.

Mythology doesn’t have to be accurate to be true. What’s more important is that the stories and rituals connect us to our tradition of understanding the world. They must express something essential and relevant yet timeless. If they resonate on a gut level, they need not make intellectual sense. Let’s face it, almost all mythology is absurd and impossible on its face, but some of it still stands the test of time. When that happens, it suggests to me that somehow it is pointing to a deeper truth.

So why does Santa coexist so easily with Christ? I believe it is because Santa is still the epitome of our collective understanding of and relationship to God.

He is a wise and magical, ageless older man with a white beard who lives at the top of the world (lookin’ down on creation). He sees you when you are sleeping and awake, keeps tabs on your behavior and rewards or punishes you accordingly. He’s capable of miracles that defy the laws of time and space and is assisted by many angelic helpers. We never actually seen him, but we like to think we see evidence of him and will manufacture it if necessary (dress up like him, leave presents in his name, eat the cookies that are left for him).

Perhaps most importantly he requires the leap of faith of believing in him, something which gets harder the further away from childhood we get. The more practical and less imaginative we become the more unreal Santa/God becomes. We really liked the idea of it though, so we try to keep it alive for children who are still capable of belief.

Unlike with Santa, most of us stay in our child relationship with God even as adults. We feel we ought to believe even when we don’t, while maintaining a sort of superstitious desire to appease and curry favor in order to receive gifts. Too often our personal mythology doesn’t mature. Without a way to connect that is relevant to adulthood, we become spiritually infantilized. No matter how evolved I might tell myself I am, when the going gets rough, how quickly do I resort to bargaining with God to take away my pain? What do I promise to do or not do in order to be rewarded?

Happy Kwanzaa!

What did it take for you to “grow up” spiritually? Where do you see room for growth? Tell us in a comment below.

P.S. David Frum covers similar territory in his post, The real Christmas ‘war’: Jesus versus Santa

Here’s a complaint I’ve heard frequently: the latest generation has grown up being told they are special and talented. Consequently, they feel entitled; they are not willing to earn anything or work their way up.

I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise – isn’t every generation criticized by their predecessors for having it too easy and taking things for granted? I imagine if we looked into it we’d find that Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” was dumped on by their predecessors, the “even greater generation.”

When I think back to my own childhood I see the seeds of the “you’re unique and wonderful (just like everybody else)” message. However, it feels to me like it was still something that had to be uncovered. There was work involved in discovering that you had ability that distinguished you as an individual; that you had worth, because there’s no one else like you.

Our job was to figure out how to feel good about ourselves. The idea that it was important to feel good about yourself seemed relatively new as well. The complaint accompanying this was that it created the ME generation – self-centered and cynical.

What stands out from all this for me is the direction of the growth of our collective consciousness. We are progressing from our value being determined by:

• Our families and communities, based on the demonstration of our ability and willingness to contribute to the whole.

To …

• Ourselves, based on our ability to know and appreciate ourselves for who we are, and our ability to contribute what we value.

To …

• Transcending the self: we are all born worthy and valuable by virtue of our existence. Nothing need be proved to anyone.

Since we each contain all three of these perspectives simultaneously, what I see my clients contending with is, “Which of these levels has most authority in your life?”

If it’s the first, then your fundamental sense of self-worth comes from others. How your family, your employer, your peers and your neighbors see you is who you are. If you fail, get lost or struggle you don’t get to feel good about yourself until they say you can.

If it’s the second, then you are your own worst critic. Your job is to create love and respect for yourself. Others can think you’re wonderful, but what do they know? It still comes down to what you see when you look in the mirror.

The last category is where it really gets interesting. This is where you get bogged down with the distractions and preoccupations of the previous levels: not being liked or approved of by yourself or others. You spin your wheels by beating yourself up, insisting your spouse understand you before you can move forward and punishing yourself with self pity and doubt. The old solutions do not work at this level.

That’s because you are being asked to reach past your ego to a higher level of consciousness. This is where you are capable of recognizing what would be in your highest interest and acting on it.

Regardless of whether you feel good.

Or like yourself.

Or others “get” you.

At this level self-esteem means you don’t have to feel good or think you deserve it or need agreement to do the best thing. It means coming from love, whether you or anyone else likes you or not. It means making a place for the part of you that “just knows” and honoring it above everything else.

When have you experienced “knowing” and acted on it even when it didn’t make sense? What did it take to get there? What was the outcome?

Noticing tree photo by ZeMoufette

One of the themes showing up with several clients this week is the specter of “old stuff” popping up during transition. Right in the middle of the enthusiasm and optimism of entering a new relationship or shifting to a more satisfying career path, old beliefs, behaviors, or obstacles rear their ugly heads.

“Not this again! I thought I was past that already! This seems like a bad sign – and everything was going so well. It’s never going to be different….”

Here they were embracing change, letting go of the old, and they end up feeling like they are right back where they started. Their hope was that this new self in this new situation wouldn’t experience fear of intimacy, or encounter conflict, or suffer communication breakdowns, or re-create childhood traumas. And sometimes it does work that way.

But here’s the thing -

In a lot of cases, just because you aren’t being faced with the bad thing anymore, it doesn’t mean you don’t still carry your fear of it. To truly be done with it means it doesn’t matter if the bad thing shows up or not because you know you can handle it. Learning to avoid being bullied doesn’t address the fear that you might be. Learning to stand up to a bully means you no longer have to live your life avoiding one. When you can do something even when it’s hard, it means you own it- it no longer has power over you.

Therefore -

What I suggest is that when you are transitioning and that old habit or block shows up, you can choose to see it as a dormant, fearful energy being activated in order to be released. It’s saying to you, “You don’t need to carry me around anymore, but in order for us to go our separate ways, you first need to experience not being controlled by me.” Your fear of it actually keeps you connected to it. So when it shows up at what seems to be the wrong time, it is actually an offer of freedom. Instead of being a sign that you aren’t nearly as far along as you thought and nothing is ever really going change, it’s a signal that you are standing on the threshold.

Now imagine how extraordinary it will feel to encounter a problem that always shows up in all your relationships and it turns out to be no big deal. Think of all the possibilities in your career when that limiting belief that always held you back is once and for all debunked.

Did you ever consider that all your lifelong obstacles are just as sick of you as you are of them and keep trying to get you to let them go?

Noticing tree photo by ZeMoufette

One of the hallmarks of this growth process is that you are able – and willing – to take more responsibility for your experience. In this case “responsibility” means beginning to work with two ideas in particular:

1. Much of your inner life is largely unknown to you and, in an effort to reveal the mystery to yourself, you will project it outward onto the people, things and events around you so that you can see it. If you disapprove of or don’t like yourself but can’t acknowledge that, you instead will begin to perceive that others don’t think very highly of you.

2. Likewise, you will draw experiences to mirror your internal state. If an unusual number of things in your life are breaking down and failing, you might be trying to tell yourself that you feel in some way like you’re falling apart.  Maybe you’ve outgrown an old belief system and it is breaking down on you.  If you notice that a lot of people seem to be mad at you – many times people you don’t even know – it’s possible you’re carrying unexplored anger.

In both cases taking responsibility allows you to stop blaming circumstances and people, feeling helpless or perceiving the world as a hostile place.  Now you have a lot more information to work with, and you can begin making changes that can transform not just how you view what happens but what actually happens.

What’s so powerful about this is that it reduces your dependency on the outside world shifting to accommodate you.  (“I can be happy as soon as it stops raining.”)  When you shift your internal reality, you will either feel differently about what IS, or what IS will be transformed, because you no longer need it to be the way it was.

If you feel disrespected by your boss at work, instead of trying to get him to treat you better, (or switching jobs, where it’s quite likely you will recreate a similar experience), often the solution is to work on self-respect and then notice how many people around you begin to see you in a whole new light.

It’s also possible that as you begin to respect yourself, you will see that this is the wrong situation for you, and you do want to change jobs.  You’ll probably pursue a different job in a different way than you would have, and prospective employers are going to meet a different person than they would have.

One word of caution: taking responsibility for your experience often feels like taking the blame, at first, and this can be demoralizing – and even prohibitive.  Merely shifting fault to yourself is missing the point and can just make you feel worse.

A big part of this is not just changing your actions but changing your thoughts.  New thoughts, in turn, will inspire new actions.  And, it requires discipline and practice to recognize that you’ve focused on something completely unproductive and switch your mindset.

The good news is: life will always provide you with plenty of chances to practice!  (That’s usually the only way to break habits.)

And those persistent negative thoughts?  They’re belief systems you’ve practiced until they became deeply ingrained habits.

—

In our next episode, our hero will tackle “But I Thought I Dealt With That Already?!” Syndrome.  Stay tuned.

[Obstacles - Part 1 of 4] For many of us, after we’re finished with school, we never want to see another test again.  Then the “real” world hands us one obstacle after another, and we’re told to look at it as a challenge, or that God is testing us.

I used to think to myself, “How about I pick my own challenges? And, by the way, why does God feel the need to evaluate me?”

But the more I work with people who are confronting this issue, the more I am seeing it differently.  We aren’t being asked to prove anything to anyone else; we’re being offered the opportunity to know who we are and what we are capable of.

It is very unusual to be confident about something, or know something about yourself, until you have experienced it. We like to think of ourselves as patient, forgiving, courageous, strong, generous, trusting … but until we get a chance to test it out – in traffic jams or dealing with family, for example — we are mostly just hoping.  
If I have an image of myself as “a profoundly spiritual person who trusts the Universe,” I might avoid taking an action that would expose my underlying fear and doubt.  I won’t take a risk — such as following a strong intuitive feeling that I should leave my job and start my own business with little or no savings. It would be too painful to find out that I’m less than I had hoped.

These “tests” also can help us discover something about ourselves that we hadn’t even imagined was true until we were confronted with the need to demonstrate it. How might you react in a real crisis? Can you know that you have the capacity to be calm, clear and efficient until you step in a bear trap or your child accidently starts a fire?

In either case there is a tendency to fear a situation, even if unconsciously, until we realize we can handle it.

There’s a Minor League Baseball coach whose philosophy was, “Once you show a skill, you possess it.” Not that you had mastered it, but that you’d shown it was possible, whereas before we had no reason to think you capable of that skill.

You can’t throw a curve ball until you do.  But after that, it’s simply a matter of repeating something you’ve already concretely demonstrated.  In my own life, I experience a dramatic difference when things move, in my own mind, into the realm of The Possible.  I am expanded, and my willingness to move forward increases significantly.  I am no longer dealing with the situation abstractly, in theory only.

Until these insights are worked through and experienced for ourselves, we don’t really know what they mean or how to use them. It is not enough to be told, “No one can take your dignity without your permission.”  Otherwise, we could just borrow each other’s wisdom and never have to experience any pain or struggle.

The question then becomes, do we resist and resent these “tests,” or welcome them as opportunities to dispel our fear and ignorance and enter into new levels of empowerment?

I have heard myself say many times to clients, “If you can do a thing when it’s hard, you own it.” To me, “owning it” means, at a minimum, you may not wish to be in that situation again, but you will no longer be controlled by the fear of it.  You are freed from worry, and you don’t have to live your life around obstacles like the dread of being able to handle grief or not having money.

In addition, “owning it” can mean the extraordinary empowerment that comes with finding out what you’re capable of in difficult circumstances.  The obstacles can actually reveal not just the ability to cope, but a strength, a gift you will want to share with the world.

Michael Jordan’s experience of hitting the big shot in the big game in college – after being cut from his high school team – not only showed him that he was capable of rising to the moment, it gave him an insatiable thirst for it.  Many pro athletes don’t want the ball in the final minute, because they’re focused on the consequences of failure.  Jordan seemed addicted to experiencing that side of himself that could only come out under great pressure.  He sought out, and even invented, high-stakes situations in order to challenge himself.  But he couldn’t really know his greatness until he allowed himself to risk failure.

So, if the idea of being tested inspires you – great!  If not, the challenge is to learn to see the opportunity disguised as an obstacle.