by Tim Gallwey

The Holidays are right around the corner.  It's well known that the Holidays are stressful times for families, so we will be offering some Inner Game Insights in the way of Holiday Hints over the next few weeks.  Hint #1 is an example of how I used the Re-define Tool.

Christmas Time – the power of re-defining your story.

When my children were young and Christmas was approaching, I found myself getting stressed. I really didn’t know why. The facts of the matter were simple: I was in Europe and about to come home to my family and it was Christmas time.

Nothing in the facts were inherently stressful.  So I looked at the “story” I was telling myself.  What did I think I was coming home to?

The answer that popped up was, “I’m coming home to problems to be solved.”  My story was all about all the complexities involved with getting the right gifts without spending too much and not disappointing my kids.  It was enough to make me wish Christmas wasn’t coming.  Having seen my “story” I looked to see if there was an alternative.  I used the re-define tool.  My stress-based definition of my kids as “problems to be solved” just as I had often been considered by my parents, and it was not feeling good.  Is there another definition that would work better for me, I asked myself.  Again an alternative popped to mind – I think it came from heart.  “My kids are my only chance to experience the love between parents and children.”  That was something I could get behind and almost magically the stress disappeared and I was eager to go home.  Once home, when the kids knocked at the door to the bedroom, what walked in were not problems, but opportunities to express and receive love.  It remade Christmas for me.  Stress free.