“My life is a nightmare.”  “The drama never ends.”  “I can’t take this another minute.”  “It’s just one crisis after another.”  These are the things I say to myself when life doesn’t go my way.  This is the way my friends and clients talk when their lives disappoint or they reach a boiling point in the Stress Department.

We human beings have a tendency to catastrophize things way beyond their proportion.  We tend to like to make mountains out of molehills.  We like to slow down to look at the accident that we really don’t want to see.  As we approach the sirens and the crunched cars, injuring our necks to look, we are whispering to ourselves, “Please don’t let me see any blood, any bodies.  Please, please please.”

We are a strange bunch of creatures now aren’t we?

So maybe it’s time to take a big long deep breath.  Sometimes we’re so in whatever it is we're in that we truly can’t see the forest through the trees.  We’ve lost all perspective.  What may be obvious to everyone else feels like a maze, a disaster, a mess.

Think about it.  Let’s say you are in a true bona fide crisis like your house is on fire.  Do you run around pulling your hair out screaming, “Oh this is a disaster, this is a crisis!  This is hopeless!”  No, you call 911 and get the fire department involved.  Now the fire department arrives.  Do the firemen/women run around pulling their hair out, screaming, “This is a nightmare!”  No, of course they don’t.  They go into solution mode.  They do whatever it takes to extinguish the fire.  They solve the problem as best as they can.

When we tell ourselves, “This is a nightmare!” our mind will believe us.  It will go into flight or fight mode.  The adrenalin will start pumping.  It will “act as if” there really is an emergency.  This is more than depleting to the heart, mind, and soul. 

Everyone just needs to calm the bleep down.  Slow down.  Relax.  Take some deep belly breaths.  It’s funny how often we forget to breathe.

As of late I found myself saying, “This is horrific, this stuff that is going on in my life.”  And then I stood back and thought about it.  No, it wasn’t horrific.  Horrific would mean and despite the fact that I’m not a superstitious person, I’m knocking on wood right now, horrific would mean something bad happening to one of my children or someone I love.  It would mean another terrorist attack or natural disaster killing innocent people somewhere on the globe.  It would really take a lot for things to be “horrific”.

Holidays seem to be a magnet for these kinds of "disasters".  We can even make an emergency out of the damn turkey.  It can’t be too dry.  God forbid The Turkey is too dry!  The meal must be perfect.  Family members who have never gotten along are suddenly expected to become The Waltons.  We cause ourselves a lot of suffering by the stories we tell ourselves.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  For various reasons, I have no plans.  My children are either out of state or out of the country or otherwise indisposed.  Well-meaning friends have made gracious dinner offers and I could certainly take them up on their kindness.  But for once, for the first time in my life, I'm choosing to be Solo on Thanksgiving. 

I could feel sorry for myself and tell a sad story about how awful it is to not be around my kids and to not cook a holiday meal, but the real truth is that those kinds of plot lines don’t serve me and they certainly don’t make me feel happy.

So why bother with them?  Tomorrow is a day of spaciousness for me.  I have zero responsibilities.  I have two Golden Retriever puppies that have been begging for a long walk and I’m more than happy to comply.  I'll hike up the steep hills and reflect and be grateful for all the things I have in my life, not the things I don’t.  I may take a nap or indulge myself in a movie.  I will impose myself on my friends and drop by to see them in the midst of their busy day and wish them well.  I will call my children to say, “Happy T Day” and they will rest well in knowing that their Mother is more than fine.  I will not be a victim because I’m not one.  My youngest daughter will join me in the early evening and we will laugh and shrug our shoulders and say, “What the hell!  What an unusual Thanksgiving we’re having!”

I will delight in a different kind of Thanksgiving.  I read something once that asked the good question, “Do you enjoy your own company in those dark and lonely moments when everything familiar has slipped away?”

It took me a long time to trust and love myself.  I trust that I will take good care of myself tomorrow and pledge to be there for me in the days ahead, no matter what they bring, uncomfortable or not.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I know we live in uncertain times. I know many of you have lost your security, your jobs, and your health.  But we have the invitation to learn powerful and life-sustaining lessons when we go through these times.  Ultimately, if we’re willing, we learn about the preciousness of the breath, of Life itself. 

And for that, we can all be Thankful.