One big happy forest
The holidays are here!
Depending on your response to that sentence, this little essay may or may not be for you.
If the holidays are a fun, stress-free experience for you, that’s wonderful. If they’re something else, keep reading.
Holidays can awakening parts of us that lie dormant the rest of the year. All the skills we learned from therapy, meditation, and personal-development books seem to vanish when confronted with just the right (and oh-so-wrong) comment from a certain family member.
We tend to blame unresolved trauma, politics, divorce, religion, birth order, personality clashes, values misalignment, dietary preferences, generational divides, you name it.
Any or all of those things may be contributing to why the holidays are triggering for you. And, I question the utility of continuing to focus on them.
I have another approach for understanding holiday dynamics and moving through this season with more compassion and peace.
In the Five Element system from Chinese medicine, everything in nature is described in terms of five elemental energies: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Since humans are part of nature, this applies to us too—the elements get expressed as distinct emotional tones and ways of relating to the world.
When we’re balanced, our dominant element is an asset:
Wood cultivates drive and vision.
Fire brings warmth and connection.
Earth offers empathy and stability.
Metal provides discernment and appreciation.
Water carries wisdom and depth.
Under stress—for example, during the holidays—those same energies can become maladapted:
Wood’s drive turns into control.
Fire’s warmth becomes suffocating.
Earth’s caring tips into over-responsibility.
Metal’s precision morphs into perfectionism.
Water’s introspection collapses into withdrawal.
The Five Element perspective helps depersonalize otherwise triggering situations.
Notice the planner of your holiday festivities getting irritated and bossy? Wood’s gonna Wood!
The connector being self-centered and performative? Do your thing, Fire!
The caring nurturer acting resentful and anxious? Oh, Earth!
The traditionalist getting all judgy? Classic Metal!
The calm observer retreating to the bedroom for a nap? You go, Water!
This is elemental intelligence, the ability to shift from trying to fix people (including yourself) to understanding—and accepting—the energetic qualities being expressed. When you learn to do this, compassion and peace naturally follow.
Think about it: Trees don’t get mad at rivers because they’re raging. They understand it’s just the way the current is moving that day.
Instead of resisting the absence of one-big-happy-family vibes this holiday season, try imagining the collection of people around your table as one big happy forest.
Everyone, including you, is part of a larger ecosystem that knows how to find its way back to balance. Let nature do its thing.
