Tag: letting go

Creating my own Christmas ritual


“Every time I say yes because I want validation, I am secretly rejecting myself.” That sentence I heard on the Lewis Howes podcast (episode 1828) is so true.

It made me think about how often I did that in the past. Agreeing to do something – not because I wanted it – but because I wanted to please others or just to have my peace or to avoid conflict, out of guilt or a misunderstood sense of duty or obligation. 

A typical example: going to my parents at Christmas almost every year of my life, even though I knew it would be a stressful time with lots of conflict. I could never fully relax due to the challenges my mom’s mental situation brought about. And journeying into Germany with its chronically unreliable public transport posed an additional challenge, especially before and after Christmas when lots of people were traveling. 

Looking back I realized that except for 3 or 4 times (when I was either ill or it was due to covid restrictions) I always went to my parents’ place at Christmas time. And so did my brother with his family.

It simply felt like a duty. I wanted to be a “good daughter” hence saw no other realistic option, and I wanted to avoid endless discussions and conflict. 

Year after year though I was longing for a more peaceful Christmas time, hoping that “this time it will be different”. In the weeks before Christmas I mentally prepared myself with my favourite Christmas music, carefully planning how to spend the days together. I never gave up on hope. In the end, sometimes there were less conflicts, but overall it was exhausting. 

I really like Christmas time and want to enjoy it, but reality was so much different from what I imagined and longed for. My mom overburdening everyone with her unrealistic expectations and her denial of reality had me on edge the whole time. 

Maybe celebrating Christmas is much more enjoyable when spending it with good friends who understand and respect each others’ boundaries. As weird as it sounds: even though Christmas is supposed to be a family celebration, this concept does not seem to work at all in many families.

Often I became ill after Christmas – the stress took its toll on me. When I traveled back to my place after the festive days, I always felt a wave of relief the moment I stepped onto the train, and once I got home I needed a few days to relax and get back into balance.

I never really considered using these days for staying by myself or going on vacation. Of course there are alternatives which would either allow for more restful, peaceful days, recharging your energy and enjoying the silence, or going on a trip and exploring interesting locations.

This year, after moving my parents to a care home because they could not take care of themselves anymore, I finally got to understand that taking off time for myself and prioritizing my needs is not selfish at all. It makes much more sense to visit my parents at different times, but not during the busy festive season. 

When speaking about it with a longterm friend of mine, she actually told me that she handled it that way with her dad, who in fact was the one who made it clear to her that he did not expect her to visit him at Christmas. Hearing that story something clicked into place in my head. 

So I gave it some thought and decided it’s about time that I create my own personal Christmas ritual and do what feels right for me. 

And that means: this year, I am spending Christmas eve at my home. Listening to Christmas carols and Celtic music, my Christmas tree – my memory tree – gleaming into the night. It’s cold and quiet outside and from time to time I am looking at my neighbours’ glimmering Christmas lights on their balconies and in their front gardens.

It feels good. I am much more at ease. It makes me wonder now why I did not start to question my automatic response pattern to please others years ago. Some habits are hard to break, but it’s never too late to do so. 

It’s certainly a process and I only managed it because I realized that I had to let go. Letting go of feeling responsible for my parents’ happiness, of feeling obliged and a sense of guilt. It’s not easy. A big part is acknowledging that I have no control over how other people feel.

On the 2nd Christmas Day I will take the ferry to my favourite Dutch island Terschelling and return after New Year. Enjoying peace and quiet and clean air, taking walks in the heather, the woods and at the sea, reading a lot, resting. 

Being on this island is always so deeply relaxing for me. Each time I feel refreshed and calm when I return home. It’s the perfect place for me to recharge and start the New Year well.

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful festive season, wherever you are.

An enlightening poem

The birds aren’t singing to win a grammy.

They’re not trying to go platinum, 

Do their marketing or planning,

They’re just jamming.

I’m not even understanding…


“Birdsong”  (IN-Q)


Words, recited with so much warmth, humour and kindness, depth and wisdom. This poet and his poem “Birdsong” got me fascinated instantly when I listened to him the first time on the Lewis Howes podcast.

It’s a very unusual piece and contains so many lines worth pondering over, that’s why I’d like to share what stuck out for me and what it made me think of.

The first lines caught my attention and made me smile. I love listening to the birds singing early at dawn when the sky is slowly brightening. 

They are indeed a bunch of jamming musicians, creating a unique and wonderful sound which is different every day in the quietude of the morning. And while they are doing it neither for financial gain nor admiration, we are listening in awe.

Humans are the only animals pretending to be something that they’re not.

Why are we ashamed of what we’ve got?


“Birdsong”  (IN-Q)

Now that truly hits home. Why are we hiding our true self? It’s ever so often about thinking that we are not good enough, don’t measure up to a standard. Actually which standard? The one set by others we are so easily submitting to, or our own unrealistic expectations we so often set for ourselves? 

It’s easy to get drawn into this spiral about what others do, like or have, so we want that as well. Irrelevant of whether it’s good or useful – or even meant for us. People are social animals, and watching someone else supposedly happy with whatever they got, a signal seems to pop up for us to start chasing after the very same thing.

Such reflex I experienced as well on occasion, putting myself under pressure by setting an unrealistic goal. And then I felt annoyed with myself for not achieving it, for getting doubts along the way and procrastinating. Now I take these feelings as a sure sign that this is not the right goal for me.  

Everyone has to walk their very own path, and that means finding out what is good and meant for me, and only for me. Especially since time is a finite resource which becomes more and more obvious when getting older.

Our creator gave us free will thus choice. That sets us apart from animals. And what do we do with it? Why are we so often pretending instead of being our authentic selves?

Why put up a show, building a fake persona or a fake life – to what end? To impress others or make them envy what I have allegedly got?

How sad it is, pretending (online) to have the perfect body, the perfect relationship, job, holidays ….. or the perfect life. 

Before social media existed, we also flaunted status symbols like a house, a car or “the right clothes”, showing off to impress the neighbours or our classmates at school. Today in the online world people have a much further reach through their posts, facilitating approval from across the globe for their “achievements”. 

But none of it can cover up what’s going on behind the scenes, and the polished facade we put out there is in essence nothing more than a desire to belong and to find happiness.

You have to be willing not to be liked in order to be loved.

“Birdsong” (IN-Q)

Wow – what a statement! And a tall order for sure. How often we are striving for acceptance and approval, for being liked – in the real world and online. 

Who’s got the courage to go against the flow and make themselves vulnerable? Admitting not to be perfect, to mess up from time to time, making mistakes and standing by these slip-ups. Yes, it takes courage. 

I found it gets easier since I got older though, because my priorities have changed. Some things are not that important to me anymore. And how good it felt to simply let go of my wish for perfection!

How to handle negative feedback and disapproval? Well, people can only see and know parts of you. The only person knowing the full picture is you. Have a look at what Thich Nath Hanh wrote about the 6th mantra: “…The other person only sees a part of you, not the totality, so you don’t have to be unhappy at all.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Communicating (p. 86))

Stay true to yourself and close to yourself.

Show me the unseen stuff.

Don’t invite me over only after you have cleaned up.

“Birdsong” (IN-Q)

Show me what’s bothering you, what you’re struggling with and let me help you carry the load. I want to meet your true self. That helps me to be my true self.

In everybody’s life there is something not going right. It’s important to share it and be honest about it. Why hiding it? There is no need to be ashamed. We are all in it together. Nobody is without flaws, without a drama of some kind in their lives.  

These lines made me laugh though, because when I invite friends, I often use it as an opportunity to clean up my creative chaos as I call it. Mostly half finished watercolour paintings, wool in all shapes and sizes, paper, cards, origami dwelling on the table and taking up space on my sofa. 

What the unseen stuff means to me is how I really feel and what is important, and what I want to share with another human being.

To truly be yourself you have to let go of what was.

“Birdsong” (IN-Q)

The past determines a lot. And we are not good at letting go, we are holding grudges, struggling to forgive. It’s easier to blame whatever is not going well in our lives on someone or something else, remaining in the “victim of circumstances mindset”. 

But we cannot go back in time and change the past. Accepting what has happened and that it’s a part of us is crucial and helps to move on. 

How hard it may seem at the start: making peace with your past is the only way forward. 

Do it one step at a time, especially if there is a lot to process or to forgive. I found the act of repetition helpful because it established a positive pattern over time. It’s showed me that it’s possible to move on, even if it takes quite a few reiterations. It’s never “done” in one go anyway, you need to re-visit your wounds again and again. 

But once you’ve done it the first time and felt how it opened a door for you, it’s a feeling you will remember the next time round, and that helps you to push forward and repeat the action, trusting that turning into this direction already changes your life’s trajectory and helps you to stay on your chosen path.

That’s what the healing journey is all about.

Stay courageous and curious!

Check out IN-Q for more poems and inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/@INQonline

https://www.in-q.com/

Acknowledging our own Emotions

Your default reaction to a problem or any challenging situation does not define who you are. Your chosen response does. It shows your progress, your emotional maturity.

Yung Pueblo writes a lot about this topic, and reading his words made me ponder about my reaction in situations which do not go according to (my) plan. Like unforeseen events, delays on public transport, someone making a mistake that impacts me –  anything that could be considered as changing a goalpost in the middle of a game. 

My typical first reaction is getting angry and fretting about potential disadvantages and the ensuing pressure. I want to protect myself and start blaming and complaining. I am blowing the whole thing out of proportion,  knowing it while I am doing it. I know very well that reality is different and that I am exaggerating. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I am already trying to establish my options.

Then I switch to solution mode, thinking about how I want to respond – looking at the facts and setting up a plan. But it doesn’t end there.

I move back and forth a few times between my initial reaction and my chosen response. It takes me a while to step away from the repeating cycle – let’s better call it “lamenting cycle”.

Repeating my thoughts around a problem thus making it bigger than it is, is a typical human behaviour, and it gets me into a negative mindset making the situation feeling worse and worse. It is also a complete waste of my time and energy. 

The last time I did this (after receiving incorrect advice from a tax consultant) I asked myself: do I really want to go on like this? Which purpose does it serve? How does it help me?

Although I eventually managed to stop myself from further engaging in angry monologues, for several days I still felt drawn to going back to that lamenting cycle. Surprising how strong that temptation was to continue an unproductive behaviour.

When we truly begin to let go, happiness will no longer just be our friend, it will become our home.

Yung Pueblo

I realized as well my tendency to blame someone else or “the world” or fate in that moment, instead of letting go and taking responsibility myself. It felt as if I wanted to make somebody else feel guilty about my problem.

Things outside of my control I cannot change, but I need to accept the situation and manage it with what I have got at my disposal. That’s not always easy, of course. 

What finally convinced me to calm down, was the realization how much I had learned in the past months, and that I wanted to honour these insights by choosing a new approach. After all, I knew how to do it better.

My counsellor had told me that falling back into an old habit is not failure, but only human, that it will happen again, but that I would realize in that very moment what was playing in my background and that way having the chance to respond differently, without stressing myself out. 

I know it’s not a given and will continue to be challenging each time that a difficult situation or a difficult emotion arises. But I trust it will become easier over time, especially with repetition. Structure is part of recovery: to recognize what is working and sticking with it.

What she also told me: acknowledging the emotions coming up – the undercurrent – is important and the first thing to do. Emotions need to be given the space they deserve. Jumping too fast into solution mode means ignoring the emotional side. 

That was the reason why I felt so torn between the lamenting cycle and my choice to respond differently: the emotion came back again and again, demanding to be seen and heard.

My solution orientation being my comfort zone explains why I am so used to resorting to analysing, instead of connecting with my body to feel what it’s telling me.

And what came up was my difficult emotion of course: unsafety. 

Feeling safe is a very basic need. When safety is impacted, then all other functions are compromised. In this moment, no willingness exists to understand or communicate well, to be reasonable and open. All this is overwritten, defaulting to the sole instinct reaction to protect myself. 

So that’s what I need to practice more: giving the emotions that come up their space, accepting them – but without being controlled by them. The benefit: by skipping the lamenting cycle that way, it will become easier for me to choose my intentional response. 

It is as it is – feeling unsafe will always be my difficult emotion – it won’t disappear. It belongs to me. 

I am learning to embrace it as a part of me.

your immediate reaction
does not tell you who you are
it is how you decide to respond after the reaction
that gives you real insight
into how much you have grown
your first reaction is your past
your intentional response is your present

Yung Pueblo

Some food for thought:

What is your difficult emotion? Do you give it space?

How does it feel when you embrace it?