Just say f**k it.

Big Peace December Day 23

Normally, every year, just after the bonfire night fireworks have fizzled out, I start to plan Christmas. I invite the relatives, rip out ideas from magazines for unusual, thoughtful gifts, order in some logs to roast the chestnuts on and get really excited about the perfect, fantasy Christmas I’m going to have.

Fast forward to Boxing Day, and there I am, back in reality, tense, snarling, martyred, always bitterly disappointed. It’s the same every Christmas, but by the time the fireworks go up ten months later, I’ve forgotten the pain, only to repeat the same old pattern all over again.

Last year, my brother announced on Christmas morning that he’d ‘forgotten to do his Christmas shopping’ and my husband got man-flu and refused to get off the sofa for days. He somehow managed to stagger to the pub on Christmas Day with my brother and didn’t get back ‘til the turkey was as dry and pinched as my face. That was when something finally snapped. ‘F**k this and F**k Christmas,’ I was heard to slur over the turkey brandishing a rather big carving knife.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that I was having a spiritual epiphany. The wonderful John C Parkin (who has agreed to come and talk at the Big Peace Day....happening late April...watch this space) says that ”F*** it” is the perfect Western expression of the Eastern spiritual philosophy of letting go, giving up and finding real freedom by realising that things don't matter so much (if at all).

John has developed a philosophy that’s about getting what you really want by rejecting what you ‘should’ do and doing what you want to. ‘And Christmas, with those months of self-imposed angst and self sacrifice, is a perfect time to start,’ he says.

I will talk more about John and his book F**t It, the Ultimate Spiritual Way in the coming months.

But for now, here are John's brilliant rules for the perfect F**t It Xmas (try all, one or none for today's exercise)

How to have the Christmas you never knew you wanted

1. Stop being a martyr. ‘Be selfish. Being selfless is a lose-win situation,’ says Parkin. ‘You end up getting pissed off and that’s no good in the end for the person who seems to be winning either.’
2. Stop clinging to how you want things to be. Make a list of your ideas, beliefs and expectations of Christmas. Ask yourself – would Christmas be so terrible if none of this happened?
3. Accept Christmas for how it is. Stop moaning and accept Christmas in all its wonderful, stressful, lonely, awful, delightful ways. The truth is there’s not a lot you can do about most of it.
4. Know that you can’t keep everyone happy. No matter how much you bend over backwards for people, you’ll always disappoint people and upset people sometimes.
5. Do something you didn’t think you could.Tell your brother what you really think of him, eat all the Christmas cake, go on strike, just do what you really want versus what you think you should.

Comments

[Joanne Lovett]

This brings to mind christmases past. As a child my mum would have a wonderful pearly white table cloth and all the trimmings. Then me and my two sisters would fight over the christmas crackers and spill a drink on that pearly white table cloth and mum would say why on earth can't u three behave its christmas and my nana would say kids r as kids r. And i to do what I can with what i have. I remember its a time of receiving also.