This article is an excerpt from Unity Magazine®. Learn more about this thought-provoking, fresh and provocative publication from Unity.

By Donna King

For as long as I could remember, I hated the holidays. Until, one day, I had a revelation.

… It was early December, and once again, I was overwhelmed. I hated Christmas. All I could see was the extra work that lay before me: strings of lights that needed to be strung, gifts that needed to be purchased and wrapped, and settling the question of where my family would spend Christmas Day. It sent me into a panic.

I decided that making a list would calm me down. Instead, my frustrations spilled onto the page. “Why can't we just get away?” I wrote. Why must we do all of this?

A thought took shape. Because we're locked into a set of habits, that's why. There's no way out.

But is it true that there's no way out? I wondered. What would I be doing if I weren't doing all of this?

The answers started flowing. I'd be writing. I'd be taking day trips and weekends away. I'd be reflecting on the past year, and thinking about what I want the next year to look like. Or, maybe I'd be just … well … being.

To me, it didn't matter when Jesus was born. What mattered was the simple fact that he was born. Jesus had lived in my heart every day of the year. I did not need to celebrate his birth with traditions that didn't serve me because in the long run, such pretense didn't serve him either.

In that moment, I understood that the time-honored traditions of Christmas didn't ring true for me. In fact, they weren't what I valued at all.

I realized then that the journey home, the hero's journey that each of us undertakes, is about finding and living our truth. But first we must come to terms with the illusions that have guided us in the past. If we want to see what the truth is, we must first see what it isn't.

Even during my youth, pressures of the holidays had filled me with dread. The deadlines. The frantic preparations. The sentimentality I could never quite feel.

I remembered the best New Year's Eve of my life, when I was a young woman of 19. I had just come home from a service at church, and my family had gone to a party down the road. It was just before midnight, and as I gazed out the kitchen window, a sense of peace enveloped me. As the clock ticked past 12, time seemed to stand still. Lost in contemplation and prayer, I savored the quiet splendor of the moment.

When my family returned home a short time later, we had tea and shared our experiences of the evening. I was so happy.

[So] here I was with my list, and I realized that the problem was not the holidays, but my own mindless compliance with rituals I had outgrown.

I decided to withdraw from the superficial. Instead of having a gift exchange, I would suggest an exchange of favorite charities for donations. I would give more time to causes I valued. I would go to movies, concerts or anything else that brought me joy. I would decorate more simply. I would take a break from throwing parties.

More important, I would create space for the spiritual. I would join with others or spend time alone in contemplation and prayer. I would make that the ritual. Maybe some of the other traditions would eventually find their way back into my life, but for now, there would be an openness to the voice within. I would decide which rituals I would keep and which ones I would let go.

A sense of calm settled over me. Later in the day, when my husband came home from work, we would talk. I had answered the chaos with a way to restore peace: a peace that would start with the tiny flicker of a light somewhere in my soul. With a shift of attitude, a change of mind. With a moment of truth in the middle of the night.

We will never have peace on earth until we have made peace with ourselves. So in this season, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.