The holiday season can bring great joy and excitement. It can also bring stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. For many, it triggers emotions of grief and sadness. Most of us are a snow globe of emotions this time of year. One shake can bring on great sadness, and a second shake can warm our hearts with joy. It’s so easy to see that grouchy lady in the checkout lane and roll your eyes or say something under your breath. What we don’t always see is the battle someone is fighting.

Something has really struck me hard in the last month. I have been given an inside look at peoples pain. Part of my job in energy healing is to identify emotional and physical pain, and help that person release it. I’ve found physical pain is almost always connected to the emotional pain. The people who have opened up to me aren’t people I’d ever had assumed were struggling. This is the detail that gave me a new perspective.

How often are we actually aware of someone’s struggles? I’d venture to say most would admit not very often. Here is the thing though, everyone is fighting something. Every single person you meet or pass is fighting a battle of their own. It got me thinking of how different the world would be if we all had that as a forethought when interacting with people. Sometimes the people who appear to have it all together are hurting the most. We have no idea the burdens someone is carrying. Scars can be invisible. In fact I think the invisible scars are the hardest to overcome. No one looks at you and says ” Are you alright?” “What can I do to help you?” It makes it much harder to help yourself when you outwardly appear to have it all together. It starts to feel as if maybe you don’t have a right to take a moment and say “I’m not ok today” or “I need help overcoming this thing”. If this is you, know its ok to not be okay. It doesn’t make you any less of who you are. There is no scale to rate your pain or grief. One loss is not greater or less than another’s. Your feelings matter, your grieving is important. Your pain is valid, whatever the root cause is/was. We are all fighting something! So know that the person you think is perfect is fighting a battle too! The person who is rude to you at the grocery store probably is facing a struggle of their own. People are rarely hurtful if they themselves aren’t struggling in someway.

My hope is that we all start cutting each other a little slack. By showing grace to the ones we feel probably don’t deserve it. My favorite take away from the book “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz is to not take anything personal. When you put this into practice daily, you start to see people’s behavior in a different light. When people act out in anger, it has nothing to do with you. If you begin to not think everything’s about you, things clear up pretty quickly.

Join me in stepping back and seeing that everyone you meet is just as you are. A human being just trying to survive another day. Some of us are enjoying it more than others. We are all in a different place in life, each place just as it should be. Some of us are just coming out of the trenches of deep seeded grief, while others unfortunately are at the start of it. All we can ever be is in the present day. Remember everyone’s “today” looks and feels different, and that’s ok. Give the gift of grace this holiday season.