According to the West Settle-based counseling and consulting organization, Personal Safety Nets, we are pressured by our culture to feel cheerful each holiday season, fueled in part by perky TV commercials, colorful Christmas-lit streets, and songs of gaiety piped into shops, cues for us all to be happy, happy, happy.
Co-founders Judy Pigott, a well-known West Seattle advocate, and Dr. John W. Gibson, with Managing Director, Ben Kaufman, understand that many feel especially isolated this time of year and they offer constructive ways to cope both internally and externally with pressure of smiling our way from Thanksgiving through New Years Day and perhaps gifting ourselves a smile while doing so.
Personal Safety Nets offers four programs, adjusted to fit each group that signs up. They are, guest speaking, classes, consultation/keynotes, and education and workplace training, offered at no charge through June.
"Personal Safety Nets is about replacing fear and isolation with security and connection," said Pigott, a North Admiral resident. "We are helping people recognize community resources, and certainly West Seattle is rich with community, what they need in their life, to see where they are well-supported and where they are not, and how to enlist help. Each of us has times where help would be warranted.
"We all have the dark times, and this is the dark time of year," she added. "Hope is that light in the darkness. Hope comes from having a plan, and using resources so that you can get through the dark times."
"This time of year is when there is a dichotomy," said Kaufman. "Some people have a family, some people don't. You've got unemployment and other pressures. If you feel like 'none of the other people' and you are not using time (alone) for introspection, that's isolation. You see people at a crowded bar and they can feel very isolated."
"The world is supposed to be happy during the holidays but not everybody is," Pigott said. "Do you isolate? If you isolate for a short time it can be a wonderful time for introspection. But if an individual gets into a prolonged isolation, it's very much a destructive course. Can you recognize it? Are you not having meaningful conversations with anybody, feeling separate and different than others? Having more people around you doesn't mean not being isolated, while you don't have to have very many people (in your life) not to be isolated. Most of us gone through dark times, a person die, someone we love says, 'Get lost', we lose a job, and then feel we have no value. How do you reach out to people who feel safe.
"We all need to be relied upon, to have our voices heard by others and need to matter to others in their lives. It is very basic to our humanity to want others to see us for who we are and not what we do, through poetry, theater, artwork, book writing. Christmas to one man I know is something he doesn't like. So he volunteers. He has found a strategy. Research shows that helping others gives us an endorphin rush which help us to feel better, which gives us better sleep.
"Write a gratitude list," she suggested. "Who are the people you have had in your life. Turn your attention to what is positive. A written gratitude journal is better than the gratitude list in your head at night when you dwell on the two 'bad ones' and give them more power than the 98 'good ones'."
Added Ben, "The negative in our head is the main road we travel on, and that doesn't come out of our head unless we force it out."
Both believe that online social networks like Facebook can be an antidote to non-isolation.
Said Pigott, "We have an acquaintance, a brilliant, accomplished woman, who posted on her Facebook Page one night that she was feeling depressed and wrote 'I'm not good for anything'. People who really did know her- not all her Facebook Friends- said, 'I really value your friendship'. For her that was a critical time. She was on the brink, that place right before you go to depression and it moved her back.
"We just worked with kids at Cleveland High School and one thing they recognized is that having a balanced life is a good way to get good grades," Pigott said. "That would be a spiritual support system. We asked, 'Who are you hanging out with? Are they people who you are wanting to be more like or not? Who are the adults in your life? Are they reliable? Do you have some people you can go to? Do you have some extracurricular activities? Are you at home and vulnerable all the time? Are you lonely, or engaged in other things? Who is the school counselor? Do you have a teacher you can talk to?' That's what we are all about, building teams. Whether we are talking about a spiritual support system, or financial support system, your whole life should be diversified."
FESTIVALS OF LIGHT
On their website they list various festivals celebrated in different tradition, and state, "Understanding how and why different cultures celebrate and unite during the period of winter darkness helps us to understand and value their efforts to bring hope and promise to the world."
St. Lucia's Day in Sweden, following the longest night of the year, honors St. Lucia this day by wearing a wreath of candles.
Kwanza in the United States honors African harvest traditions with candles representing the seven principles of Kwanza which are lit each night for a week.
People in France light Advent Candles on four consecutive Sundays and burns a yule log, a tradition that celebrates the Winter Solstice.
Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, celebrates a triumphant 165 B.C. battle and the miracle that one days' oil lasted 8 days until a messenger could return with more.
On Saint Martin's Day in Holland, children carry lanterns and go from house to house singing songs. People give them candy and other treats.
Diwali, meaning array of lights, is a Hindu light festival that symbolizes the triumph of light over darkness.
Coptic Orthodox Church members in Egypt decorate special lamps and candles and give candles to the poor.
The Philippines festival of light is marked by the sight of "parols" or star lanterns.
The Loi Krathong (loy-kruh-thong) Festival is celebrated in Thailand by people carrying their Krathongs (a lotus-shaped vessel made of banana leaves) to nearby rivers, placing a candle inside and making a wish, as they let them drift away.
In China people light their houses with paper lanterns and decorate trees with paper chains, flowers, and lanterns.
Mexican families march from house to house with candles looking for a room at the inn. They are replicating Joseph and Mary's search in Jerusalem.
We encourage those interested in Personal Safety Nets to send questions and inquiries to: info@ personalsafetynets.org
