Holidays

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

Hope your Christmas was good. Ours was actually pretty nice. It didn’t used to be this way. Christmas growing up was about getting presents, obviously, but it was also very stressful, never knowing where the family fights were going to start, what sort of snide comments were going to be made about you, etc. I guess it still is that way, but I don’t care anymore. My family is what my family is and I can’t change it. I have, however, started to create my own Christmas traditions that are shared with my wife, and mean much more to me than any time with my family does. I can handle all of the stress of visiting with my family much easier when I know that they are only a small part of my life anymore. That the bulk of my life and inspiration, my identity, and security come from within myself, and from a person who truly loves me for everything I am now. No one can touch that, and no one can take that away from me.

My fondest hope for you this holiday season is just that same piece of mind. The ability to see your true self, and the ability to see those who would tear you down for what they truly are as well. 🙂

Share with your friends!
BlueskyMastodonThreadsLinkedInRedditTumblrBuffer

Similar Posts

  • World Suicide Prevention Day 2021

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

    So, the thing I want us to talk about this year is not just encouragement to call a hotline or to reach out to a friend for help, or even to tell our stories and erase the stigma around mental health issues. I want us to consider doing more than that. I want us, as a society, to figure out how to provide hope. As much value as there is in all of those other things if I can’t provide some hope that things will get better, that we are working and advocating for things to get better across all areas of our culture, then I can’t honestly say that there is a reason for someone to hope, and at the end of the day, the thing that truly prevented me from taking my own life when I was at my worst, was the hope that life wouldn’t always be that painful.

    As it turned out, my life wasn’t always that painful, and even in times of pain, I can look back and remember that.

    How do we provide that hope for others who have been beaten down and worn out with life right now? Where does their hope come from?

  • Apologies

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    My apologies. I inadvertantly forgot to turn on the “require regsitration” feature of the forums when I moved everything and a couple of folks left comments without registering. Oops! The comments were perfectly legit so I left them there and will keep them as part of the board, but in the future everyone will have…

  • | |

    Eating Disorders Awareness Week and Abuse Survivors

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’m going to be honest. I didn’t pay much attention to this being Eating Disorder Awareness Week until today. I know, at least in theory, that many survivors also deal with eating disorders, even though I haven’t been one of them. I even knew what the statistics say about the number of people who are,…

  • Fargo

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    Made a stop in Fargo, ND Sunday as part of my great vacation getaway. This stop was especially to see my friend Jen, her husband, Nathan, and their new baby, Amelia. I loved seeing the baby, and getting to spend a little time with Jen. On the other hand this is one little five-week old…

  • Why Finding your Current Baseline Matters

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Many people give up on healing because they can’t see how far they’ve come. They can only see how far away their ideal self is from where they are now. Sadly, this ideal is often unrealistic. We are also blind to our progress because we didn’t set the baseline. We look at our status today and can only compare it to what we think we should be instead of looking back and seeing how much improvement there was. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)