How to Achieve Stress-Free and Joyful Holidays: A Guide to Shifting Perspectives

Are you looking forward to the holiday gatherings but also dreading them? If so, you aren’t alone.

Spending time with large groups of people during holidays can be fun but also overwhelming. It’s hard to get out of them unscathed.

There is always some family drama, someone that might offend you and someone you may offend unintentionally. What if the key to avoiding such awkward situations is already within us?

In this post, I will share how adopting a particular attitude can help us look at people from a different lens, making your holidays much smoother.

Equanimity: Transformative Insights from Meditation Training

My meditation training has taught me a concept that has helped me look at people in a new light.

This practice, called equanimity, helps us train our minds so we see that there is both good and bad in each person. It helps us realize that just like us, people sometimes act wisely and other times not. Good and bad, love or hate, are all a part of us.

Mingyur Rinpoche, my meditation teacher, further explains this concept using the sky as a reference.

No matter the type of cloud that appears in the sky, beautiful or ugly, it is all the same for the sky. Whether it is sunshine or thunderstorms, they are all the same.

He says any feelings you may experience are all a part of you. This view of understanding at the fundamental level that all feelings are the same is equanimity.

Understanding Perception with Mingyur Rinpoche

In his lesson on equanimity, Mingyur Rinpoche talks about perception as a relative concept. For instance, He tells us that he likes to eat chilies. In countries like Bhutan, chilies are part of the main dishes. But in places like Europe, they might hate chilies.

When people who love them see them, it gives them joy. When people who hate chilies see them, they don’t have a positive reaction to them.

From the chilies’ point of view, it’s all the same, he says. It depends on how you look at it.

Similarly, when we meet new people, they may look appealing or unappealing to us based on our perceptions and biases. However, our perceptions are largely rooted in our own experiences and beliefs.

Rinpoche shares that, according to neuroscientists, what we perceive is 95% in our heads, and what we newly perceive from the reality outside is only 5%.

So, a large portion of our perception of people is due to pre-concepts we already have in place, and it affects how we react and interact with people.

Whenever we encounter someone different, Mingur Rinpoche asks us to become more aware of how we perceive them. Can we change our perception of them?

They may look or act differently, but fundamentally, they share the same qualities as us. This practice can help us realize they, like us, have love, compassion, and wisdom within them. To help us understand this concept, he introduces us to the love and hate meditation.

Love and Hate Meditation

Begin the meditation by sitting in a comfortable posture. For a few moments, rest as is without doing anything. In meditation, we call this resting in open awareness.
Next, bring to mind someone who is a neutral person. Someone you see often but don’t have any strong feelings toward. Reflect on how this person, like everyone, wants to be happy and free from suffering. Notice that they have the qualities of awareness, wisdom, and the capacity to grow and learn.
Reflect on how this person, just like you, makes mistakes and sometimes acts unfavorable. These behaviors are unavoidable, but they possess qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom in their basic nature.
Think of how this person demonstrates that they have these basic qualities of love and compassion.
Now, view yourself with the same perspective. Notice how you have many qualities like love, insight, and wisdom and have grown so much.
Reflect on moments where you have behaved skillfully and unskillfully. Notice that no matter the situation, your fundamental qualities of awareness, wisdom, love, and compassion are within each moment.
Now, bring to mind people you find challenging. View them through this lens of basic goodness. Notice how they, too, like us, possess these same qualities.
Let go of all reflection and rest as is without any thinking or doing. Open your eyes.

Applying Equanimity in Real-Life Situations

This practice of equanimity has helped me in my journey and how I want to show up with extended family and friends. Now, when I go out to events and gatherings, I am very intentional about how I approach and perceive people.

Most recently, I was at a family wedding in India. I had decided to attend the wedding with the intention of being kind and friendly.

Being an introvert, I find large groups of unfamiliar people overwhelming. With the practice of equanimity in my mind, I could meet extended family without inhibitions and judgment.

If someone was on the edge, I understood where they were coming from. Without the awareness of equanimity, it would have been easy to create biases or take offense.

Having this awareness helped me not bucket people into good or bad but be more mindful and approachable towards everyone.

Embracing Equanimity for a Joyous Holiday Season

The practice of changing our outlook towards people is a journey we can all begin.

Despite our differences, we can reflect that we all carry qualities of love, compassion, and kindness within us. That we are all fundamentally equal.

As we navigate the upcoming holidays and face situations with those we may not be entirely comfortable with, let’s strive to see them through the eyes of their loved ones. Let’s focus on the positive qualities within them.

With this practice, we can free ourselves from our biases, extend the same kindness to others as we do to our loved ones, and have a joyous holiday season.