Meditation Can Be Refuge From The Holiday Hysteria

Gift shopping, children's Christmas shows, office parties, Christmas cards, holiday baking, holiday decorating, visits with unpleasant relatives, cleaning the house before the arrival of such relatives, making sure the kids spend an equal amount of time with both sets of grandparents, finding the extra leaf for the table, the spouse's office Christmas party and on and on and on.

It's a brutal to-do list, but you might consider adding three more items:

1. Sit quietly.

2. Breathe.

3. Repeat.

You can call it taking a break, or you can call it the start of an ancient practice westerners call "meditation."

Linda Caldean, nurse and co-owner of Earthsong Gifts & Books, 2214 N. Kennedy Road, Janesville, is both a meditation practitioner and teacher.

"This is a really frazzling time of year," Caldean said. "There are all the 'have tos' at Christmas."

Meditation, she said, is just "inner focus or concentration." (MORE)

Source: Janesville Gazette