OMG Digital Magazine OMG Issue 333 29nd November 2018 | Page 6

OMG Digital Magazine | 333 | Thursday 29 November 2018 • PAGE 6
SoulFood
Holiday Happiness Is it all About Forgiveness?
BY CHRISTINE CARTER
As Halloween excitement mounts in our household and
the nip of fall is finally forcing us to find our jackets (I
know, it is good to be a Californian), one thing is clear:
The holidays are right around the corner.
I'm the first to feel annoyed when I see Hallmark
Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff in store windows
the day after Halloween. But I find the holidays far less
stressful if I give them plenty of time and space, both for
planning and for enjoying. So forgive me: I'm starting to
think about my New Year's resolutions now.
The holidays are not always the happy time they
can be for many people, particularly adults who are
disappointed or hurt year after year—that their family
isn't what they want it to be, that they got stuck with
all the gift-buying and holiday tasks, that they always
do for everyone, everywhere, and no one seems
particularly grateful.
Which makes the holidays a fruitful time to think about
forgiveness. If we want to feel happy over the holidays,
we need to let go of grudges from last year and prevent
those same old transgressions from happening again—
and in many (often very difficult) cases, anticipate the
times we'll be expected to hold hands with family
members who have hurt us.
My point: This holiday season will be a lot happier if we
aren't angry and resentful. And our kids will have more
meaningful holidays if they learn to practice gratitude
and forgiveness rather than anger and entitlement. I've
blogged before  about how forgiveness is something
we do for ourselves, to lead happier lives. I wrote then:
Few people fully realize the huge impact the ability
to forgive can have on their happiness, nor do most
people think of this as a skill that they need to teach
and practice with their children. But important it is:
forgiving people tend to be happier, healthier, and
more empathetic.  Read the rest of this posting on
forgiveness.
situation more effectively.
Teaching Children Skills for Forgiveness 3.
Another important way to teach forgiveness
is simply to talk with kids about how awful we feel
when we ruminate about how we've been hurt, and
remind them of all the positive benefits for ourselves of
forgiveness. When kids feel hurt, help them recognize
that what they are feeling is distress coming from what
they are thinking and feeling  right now, not from the
original offense, whether it was months or just minutes
ago.
Fred Luskin, the director of the Stanford Forgiveness
Project, has spent decades researching and teaching
about forgiveness. Luskin emphasizes that forgiveness
is not about  forgetting, as the adage would have us
believe, but about letting go. It is about choosing positive
emotions over negative ones; it is a decision that results
in an entirely different emotional experience. 4.
Teach kids that we suffer when we demand
things that other life is not going to give them. They
can hope for things, of course, and they can work hard
to get what they want. But they cannot force things
to happen that are outside of their control. When we
expect something outside of our control to happen
and then it doesn't, we feel hurt and wronged. Help
kids practice letting go of desire for things they have no
influence over, and redirect their energy towards things
they do have control over.
So the holidays are a particularly apt time for us to teach
kids the skills they need to become forgiving people.
We teach forgiveness when we forgive others because
our children learn what we model; we can also teach
our children directly how to forgive.
Luskin has developed a program to help people learn to
forgive even the most heinous acts. I've translated his
forgiveness program here into skills and concepts we
can teach and practice with our kids.
1.
A good first step is to help kids develop the
ability to understand their emotions and articulate
them when something is bothering them. Practice this
by asking kids to identify and talk about their feelings,
particularly when they are hurting. Kids can learn to talk
about their feelings at a very young age.
2.
When kids are upset,  help them practice
mindfulness. This will help turn off their fight or flight
response so that they can respond to the upsetting
5.
Talk with your kids about the desire for revenge,
and show them that the best revenge is a life well-lived.
Explain that when we focus on how we've been hurt, we
give power to the person who hurt us because it causes
us to continue hurting.
Forgiving is tough business. It takes courage and
resolve to let go of negative feelings when we've been
wronged. Fortunately this gets easier with practice—
especially if we start with the small stuff and get in the
habit early on—and it makes us stronger and better
people.