How to Stay Relaxed and Avoid Stress This Holiday Season

A friend and I made a list of ways to make the holidays more enjoyable. I think it’s a pretty good list of how to experience the next couple of “big days” as relaxing and joyful. For most of us, I think we’re looking at...

1) lowering expectations. Instead of trying to “be happy:” let’s try to “be well.”

2) saying NO more often. “I so appreciate the invitation but I just can’t swing it.” Spreading myself too thin is not a gift to anyone. 

3) pausing a few hours before saying YES. “Can I get back to you before I commit?” 4) attending events for a shorter period of time “We can’t be there for — but how about we swing by for dessert?”

5) It’s okay to NOT bring anything. If anything, there’s too much food/stuff/waste. 6) Cut the gift list in half. Spend less.

7) Aim high, shoot low. At some point, accept that the extra errand or the perfect finishing touch will just not happen. Let it go. 8) Maturity allows us to tolerate others displeasure. Don’t allow guilt to rule your life. Remember, internal stress releases cortisol, which holds onto fat. 9) Sometimes we cancel. “I’m so sorry to have to do this but for the sake of my sanity, I need to cancel. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew and I’m learning how to make better decisions for myself and the needs of my family.”

10) Renegotiate. “I cannot bring a turkey but I am happy to bring rolls. Will that work?” 11) Saying yes, or agreeing to do more than we can handle, often leads to resentment. We have no one but ourselves to blame. Change the pattern. 12) Reiterate your personal commitment to enjoy the holiday season. Christmas really is just another day. It’s the beliefs, our day-to-day behaviors... that is the real spirit.

Larry Nassar, The Cut, by Kerry Howley

In my on-going interest with the Larry Nassar serial sexual molestation case, I am posting a recent and thorough story here. (see below for link to prior blog post on this subject) 

Like others, I have been horrified to hear of the systemic failure, multiple agencies that facilitated Nassar a conveyor belt of young females. There are lessons to be learned here. 

Six takeaways: 1) Victims usually know their perpetrator 2) Victims usually love their perpetrator 3) Family members of the victim often defend the perpetrator 4) Persons in authority roles are often blindly trusted, even in the face of reason to distrust 5) Abuse usually takes place in plain sight 6)Victims usually feel guilty for reporting, often forever 

• ...In sports medicine the caliber of athlete one treats is taken to be correlated with curative power. Hospitals pay millions of dollars for the privilege of treating sports teams; UC–San Diego Health, for example, pays $1 million to treat the Padres.
• Nassar’s accumulation of more than 37,000 images suggests an unusual level of deviance even among pedophiles. According to a sentencing memorandum issued by federal prosecutors for the Western District of Michigan, these images form a particularly “graphic” and “hard-core” collection, including children as young as infants and images of children being raped by adults.
• It did not sound normal, for instance, that every week after practice, Jane had driven her daughter to a white three-bedroom house with green shutters, next to many identical houses in a development on a quiet street in Holt, Michigan, and taken her to see a man in the basement of that house. It didn’t seem normal that he never billed for these visits or that he always had hot chocolate waiting.
• It has by the fall of 2018 become commonplace to describe the 499 known victims of Larry Nassar as “breaking their silence,” though in fact they were never, as a group, particularly silent. Over the course of at least 20 years of consistent abuse, women and girls reported to every proximate authority. They told their parents. They told gymnastics coaches, running coaches, softball coaches. They told Michigan State University police and Meridian Township police. They told physicians and psychologists. They told university administrators. They told, repeatedly, USA Gymnastics. They told one another. Athletes were interviewed, reports were written up, charges recommended. The story of Larry Nassar is not a story of silence. The story of Larry Nassar is that of an edifice of trust so resilient, so impermeable to common sense, that it endured for decades against the allegations of so many women.
• If this is a story of institutional failure, it is also a story of astonishing individual ingenuity. Larry Nassar was good at this. His continued success depended on deceiving parents, fellow doctors, elite coaches, Olympic gatekeepers, athletes, and, with some regularity, law enforcement. 

And this on NPR, Gaslighting, November 12, 2018: 

"Instead of denying anything, he admits it; he says he did touch her breasts and vagina, but says it wasn't sexual. It was medical." This is Larry's playbook. He hammers his credentials and bombards the investigator with complicated medical terms about his techniques.

My Prior Blog Post on Larry Nassar, Jan 14, 2018 

Christina Neumeyer's LinkedIn Page // Cultural Iceberg

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New Movie Recommendations:

Wyeth
AudrieandDaisy

God Knows Where I am

How to Overcome the Entrepeneurial Gap: 

Ask yourself: “Where were you two years ago?" Rather than being future goal-orientated, remember who you were two years ago. Celebrate how much you come over the last two years.