The Spirit of Christmas as a Kind Rebirth

Christmas is more than shopping lists and giving out presents. In the stillness of moments, if we are not watching with care, we will move through the entire season without even noticing. While the buildup is usually a great feeling filled with sentiment, Christmas carries the invitation of a Kind Rebirth or a gentle return to presence, kindness, and care.

It’s also a season that holds contradictions. Holidays, like Christmas, bring forth feelings of joy alongside grief, a sense of togetherness coexisting with a sense of loneliness. But when exploring a mindfulness approach, we are asked not to try and edit or alter experiences. Rather, we should try to make space for all these feelings. A Kind Rebirth during the Christmas season doesn’t require perfection. It asks for honesty for ourselves and compassion toward other people.

The Christmas spirit lives in small gestures. Patience is extended where it is hardest to give. Grace is offered when there is not any expectation of giving. Generosity is freely given when there is nothing expected in return. Mindfulness helps us recognize these moments as significant, even though they feel like the ordinary. Christmas also invites reflection. It marks the nearing of the closing of the year bringing with it a natural pause. During this pause, we are allowed to release what no longer serves us in a positive manner. Without rushing, it allows us to carry forward the feelings that are aligned with well-intentioned goals and the how to of letting go of the things of the past that has run its course go.

While the true spirit of the Christmas holiday is deeply rooted in the tradition of the Christian faith, it has also arrived as the cornerstone of American society focusing on family, love, and forgiveness. For others it’s a time for giving. However you view it, being that there are no specialized or singular ways of celebrating, mindfulness reminds us that intention matters and when we are willing to show up with kindness, we are blessing and gifts to those who surround us.

A Kind Rebirth during Christmas is not about reinventing ourselves, but of a retelling of a story that is meant to inspire and transform us into who we truly are beneath the noise and pomp and circumstance of a world filled with attention on the superficial. It is staying present with love and the season of love when life feels incomplete. As the season brings us closer to the end of the year, in the representative day of birth of Christ Jesus, we again are afforded a unique gift: a new birth marked by compassion and love of all those around us, love for ourselves, and awareness of each of them. This new beginning is a Kind Rebirth.

Merry Christmas to all.

Stay mindful…

Rebirth