Recently it occurred to me that I was experiencing similar good and not-so-good emotions at same times of the year and during similar events. A simple example is that having a fridge full of good, easy-to-prepare foods resulted in a happy family over the holidays. With that in mind, I carefully shopped for a number of good foods to have on hand to make this holiday happy. That's not rocket science, but it's a pattern I want to continue at the holiday season to spell happy holidays. Long ago, I also recognized a pattern I needed to change, and that was last minute shopping which made me anxious and frustrated, so now I have a few fall dates set when I do my holiday shopping with ease--that's started a new, much better pattern.
This morning I recognized another pattern of holiday displeasure--a simple, unfriendly, bothersome pattern that my family experiences every holiday season. It's not a big deal, but since it's unpleasant, I realized that I have to dive in to figure out how to revise that pattern. The deep dive essentially demonstrated that the pattern represents a mismatch in expectations simply because we've never really discussed it and just let way lead on to way. To remedy this simple, but annoying pattern, I plan to discuss expectations prior to the holidays in ways that hopefully prevent the uncomfortable mismatch.
Most patterns that reoccur can be revised or enriched well once we recognize the patterns with detail--the less positive patterns will persist without direct attention. And when we decide to attend to the issues, it's important to have our overarching values/goals up front as that will lead us in a positive direction. Onward.