And for some of us, all of the above is true; our holidays meet the expectations our culture sets for us.

But, I am struck by a very strange phenomenon. Every year, I witness firsthand the great chasm between the story we tell ourselves about the holiday season, the cultural mythology if you will, and the truth of the experience that so many people are having this time of year. The disparity between what we’re supposed to be living (and imagine everyone else is living) and what we’re actually living seems to grow wider with each generation of reindeers.

The truth is, many people do not have warm and loving families to go home to, relatives with whom they feel they genuinely belong. Many are not busy with exciting and interesting things to do throughout the season. And the fact that they aren’t having the holiday season they’re expected to have makes them feel even worse about themselves — less joyful and less happy.

There’s not just pressure to be having a great time and feeling loved at this time of year, but also to find (or even better, make) the perfect gift for everyone on our necessarily long list of friends and loved ones. We’re supposed to engineer presents that, while perhaps small in expense, are able to capture and celebrate the essence of each recipient. And finally, we’re supposed to enjoy the process of discovering that unique token to honor the profundity of our important relationships.

But once again, the reality of so many people’s experience, to which I am privy as a psychotherapist, simply doesn’t match these cultural expectations or the narrative we’ve constructed about this season. For so many, the feeling that we need to buy and create gifts for everyone in our life, all at once on an externally-determined date, is overwhelmingly stressful. And if we don’t want to give in the way we’re supposed to give, demonstrate our love and lovingness in the way we’re instructed to do so, we feel inadequate and ungrateful, ill-equipped to be a good person.

So, what is the best way through the season for those who have a holiday experience that differs from the one that our culture has scripted for us?

To begin with, we must throw out the “supposed-to-be” narrative that we’ve attached to this time of year and liberate ourselves from the cultural Kool-Aid in which we’ve been swimming. This narrative can then be replaced by a genuine curiosity for the truth: What is our actual experience of the holidays, not the experience we’re supposed to be having, but the one we are having? Secondly, we commit to being on our own side, to rejecting our inner bully, to stop blaming ourselves for our reality. Instead of blame, we offer ourselves compassion for where we are, and where we’ve gone off-script from the part we’re supposed to be playing in life.

In addition, when we get caught in imaginary stories about what life is supposed to look like, and in comparisons with the make-believe and real others who are having the holiday experience we’re not, we need to remind ourselves of what’s true. So many people are not living the holiday experience that our cultural mythology perpetuates, and many are afraid or ashamed to admit it. For most people, the holidays are a cocktail of emotions, some positive and some painful. It’s almost always both.

We need to stop believing the story of a sustained seasonal happiness, a wholeness and fulfillment that the holidays will offer, and realize that we’re not alone in our human experience. We need to stop telling ourselves that we’re a failure if we don’t meet the expectations that our consumption-oriented culture has set for us. Our human truth is far more complex and layered than the fairy tale we’re holding ourselves accountable to.

Furthermore, we need to take ourselves back to the basics. That is, to remember what this season is supposed to be about (and in this case “supposed to be” is a good thing). We need to reconnect with the values that are at the heart of this season, values that our maniacal consumerism and mandatory happiness have led us away from. We must reorient ourselves towards kindness, compassion, service, love, and simplicity — the qualities that this season’s teachings are all about.

We ask ourselves first, can I offer myself kindness and compassion during this time of year, without expectation and judgment? Can I form a relationship with my own experience (no matter what it is) that is friendly and loving? Can I promise myself my own kind company for this season and all seasons? And can I offer others kindness and compassion, and help them to know they’re not alone? Can I give others my full attention and listen without judgment? Can I be with others in a way that is loving? With these questions in mind and heart, we uncover a safe refuge from the stories we’re sold (and sell ourselves) about this time of year. With kindness for self and others as our center line, our guiding compass, we can be fundamentally okay, even if we’re not okay, no matter what season it may be.

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Meditation for Peace:

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People traveling these days appear to be too preoccupied and distracted by their technology to be able to experience their travels, which is not the same thing as experiencing their phones while traveling, but rather actually living the unknown that travel offers. People now appear to be too absent from the actual experience of travel to be able to be deeply affected by or change as a result of it. Regardless of where we are in the world, we can now use our personal technology so as to never really have to leave home, change in any way, experience the unknown, or stretch outside our familiar sense of self. Whether or not our body is physically on the other side of the globe is increasingly irrelevant to our inner state. As long as we are situated and tethered inside our Smartphones, we are able to stay happily and safely inside our comfortable sameness.

Technology has changed the experience of traveling. With personal devices now our constant companions, the best parts of traveling have disappeared. Rest assured what’s been lost is not that we no longer wear ties and skirts on airplanes and wear sweat pants instead. Rather, what is no longer is the given that traveling will include meeting new people or even, living new experiences.

Before our personal technology became a part of every moment, traveling included a lot of down time, long stretches when we didn’t have much to do other than stare out a window, read a book, or maybe, strike up a conversation with a stranger. With travel came a lot of just being, with ourselves and others.

Travel used to take us out of the comfort and routine of our habits, put our sense of self in flux, and liberate us from our idea of who we are. Travel held the capacity to make us feel and experience ourselves differently. Separated from our normal life, untethered from all the things, roles and relationships by which we define our identity, we were free to be whoever we wanted to be. The present moment and who we were in it held great possibility for freshness and the unknown. Anything could happen when we traveled because we were less defined and confined, and thus more open to something new.

Furthermore, what made travel so special is that we had an unequaled opportunity to meet the people around us, who were often quite different from us. Meeting people wasn’t just an opportunity but more like a given, an inherent part of the travel experience and why we engaged in it. It was also, frequently, through the new people we met along the way that our travels were inspired and enriched. We may have gotten to know someone on a train who then told us of an aunt who had a bungalow in which we could stay, or of a local restaurant not to be missed, or a spectacular mountain trail. People along the way offered priceless travel and life experience, just as we shared our own. We connected not just to other flights, but to other human beings. It was often these other humans, who started out as strangers, but with whom we ended up sharing a meal, a journey, or even our life. Undoubtedly, some of the most interesting and important experiences in my own life have occurred because of the people I met through my journeys, and sometimes just because I spoke to the person sitting right next to me.

While it is very easy to use our devices to create a constant state of comfort and familiarity, there lies a great opportunity in travel and all experiences that pull us out of our usual circumstances. When we are willing to meet the unknown and possibly become someone different, allow ourselves to be affected by places and people we don’t know, we evolve and live—fully. The next time you are traveling, try an experiment: put your personal devices away and bring your attention to where you actually are. Notice your physical environment and the people in it. Feel what the air feels like in your new environment, listen to the sounds, see the colors, taste the flavors, smell the aromas; sync up your attention with where your body is in that moment. Notice too how your body feels in its new environment and if your sense of self is different in any way. Use your travels as a doorway to being where you are, In the process, you might also meet a new friend, have a fresh experience, or even find your self to have changed.

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Today, as I approached the park where my 9-year-old daughter’s fourth grade class was holding a running race, I spotted a huge group of parents huddled together, anxiously awaiting the appearance of our children.  Enter my friend, the cell phone—and my gratitude.  Suddenly, my silent device found its way to my ear and that was that… problem solved.  For this purpose, I bow in gratitude to technology, to save me from the ritualistic and repetitive exchange of information we call small talk.

I speak to people for a living so I feel somewhat qualified to make the following claim…  Some people love small talk but in fact, many hate it.  Regardless of where we fall on the spectrum however, there is an enormous pressure to engage in it.  If you follow people after a small talk conversation and ask them if they had wanted to be in the exchange that just occurred, often (amazingly), both people will report wishing they could have avoided it.  This is the fascinating part.  Neither person wants to be doing it, and yet, like well-behaved citizens…off we go, chatting away, our mouths moving, making noise, as we wish we could just be quiet. This brings me to the next question.  Why do we feel we have to?  Why do I (ironically) hold up a cell phone to keep me in a chat-free zone?  What are we afraid of in the silence?  Meeting ourselves?  Losing our minds?  Death?

Technology creates noise in the mind.  Our devices keep us jacked up, distracted, protected from ourselves.  Talking, checking, searching, playing—technology makes sure there is always something for the mind to do. We never have to face our difficultly with being still or being with ourselves.  Furthermore, technology strengthens our belief that the answer to our discomfort, distraction and inability to be where we are, is somewhere to be found in the distraction itself, somewhere in the infinite morass of the information technology offers.  While we claim to be learning all sorts of new and important things, mostly we are learning how to keep the internal chatter going, and stave off our ever-increasing fear of silence. To steal from the movie “Spinal Tap,” technology has turned the mind’s volume up to 11 when the dial is only set to reach 10.

We are terrified of silence. And yet, tragically, what we fear is precisely what we crave.  In our deepest hearts, quiet—relief from the inner and outer noise—is what we long for.  In truth, we do not want more ways to make our mind screech, we want to be able to stop the screeching and be where we are—within ourselves.

In this culture, to be quiet while in company is viewed as a rejection of the other.  In order to acknowledge being together, we believe there must be words, to document the experience.  And yet, when we crave silence, it rarely has anything to do with the other.  Rather, we simply want to be in company with ourselves—nourished by the silence that sits under all the noise.  Our desire to refrain from small talk is about longing to turn down the volume of life, and stop trying to fill up every moment with contents and chatter.  The longing for silence is a longing to land where we are—to come home to the stillness that is our essence.  Deep down, we know what we need and it is not more noise.

So in honor of Thanksgiving, I bow to my cell phone. Not for the reasons we usually think of—not for the “more” that technology offers, but for the “less” that it paradoxically can provide.  I bow to the power that technology holds to keep us in the silence that we so crave—and so desperately need to stay well.  I express my deep thanks to the opportunity that a dead cell phone against an ear can offer… the chance to connect with my own being—to reside, blessedly, in the silence that is the essence of our deepest nourishment and true well-being.

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