Acknowledge each other's emotional pain over the Holidays

Holidays are difficult for those estranged from friends and family.

Much emphasis is placed on perfect & loving relationships and the reasons why we are supposed to achieve them. When events, meant to bring people together, are spent in sorrow, heart wrenching emotion is spent on the guilt, the grief and the isolation.

Emotional immaturity is marked by one’s own inability to acknowledge one’s own actions, communicate and forgive. People are so wonderfully human, we make mistakes and we usually act out by emotion - not intelligence. When communication is denied it forces one to ruminate, therefore there's never any moving forward and only with time - does one learn to move on. When one’s perception is cruelly dismissed, a person’s soul is crushed. A relationship goes nowhere and responsibility is never accepted. That person usually struggles over the holidays because they are left out.

Denial is one of many emotional defence mechanisms by those that are socially underdeveloped. It entails ignoring or refusing to believe an unpleasant reality. Defence mechanisms protect one's psychological wellbeing in traumatic situations, or in any situation that produces anxiety or conflict. But, this protection to one’s own self can do deep, irreparable damage to someone else as well.

Any seemingly well grounded person would find relationship conflict difficult, consider if you will, the psychiatric challenge a person with a diagnosed mental health issue would face. They’re handicapped against the odds and are often vulnerable to attempts of Suicide. Holidays are torture. Most don't know how to ask for help and sadly, many are denied because they may have not had compassionate support.

The next time someone in your intended, immediate tribe is anguished, instead of dismissing them, try to acknowledge their perceptions, be cautious not to come from a place of denial and at the very least....

if you can't say anything nice - say nothing at all.