Topic: Christmas
As we work to become more shame resilient, we find our lives filled with more peace and joy--the very essence of Christmas!
It never comes without a ton of work, however, and the filling of our lives with peace and joy has to happen again and again, else we become depleted and forget who we are.
Like some of my piano students, I can slip into thinking that I'm old enough to quit practicing in the hopes of getting the "music" of my life where it's "supposed" to be. Where I can meet the relatively high standards that I like to hold in the way I do the things that are important to me.
Parker Palmer, in an interview on NPR's "Speaking of Faith" Sunday, says that it is in the cracks that appear, because we are not perfect or always getting things perfect, that we find light.
The light of self-acceptance, I'd say, that allows us to know that we are love-able and can possess the peace and joy of being "simply human" or "simply normal."
