The holiday season can be filled with excitement and wonder, gratitude and peace. But it can also be a time of overscheduled attempts at joy, more decadence than necessary, and an abundance of unwanted advice from people who may or may not be related to you.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Isn’t it?
The holiday season can be filled with excitement and wonder, gratitude and peace. But it can also be a time of overscheduled attempts at joy, more decadence than necessary, and an abundance of unwanted advice from people who may or may not be related to you.
How do we maintain the beauty of the season for ourselves and those around us?
We go inward.
When we feel ourselves taken away by the pace and pressure of it all, one of the simplest things we can do is to BE PRESENT. I realize this sounds incredibly trite and yoga-ish. Please, stay with me.
When we focus on the next thing, tomorrow, the meal we have to make later instead of right now, we’ve lost our shot to live, and appreciate our life right now. And when we worry about what an asshole our sister was last Christmas, we completely ruin our chances to experience something beautiful for the current one. You feel me? We allow our fears and attachments to get the best of us.
So how exactly do we BE present, oh spewer of platitudes?
This is when we reignite our own practices of self-care. What do you need to do to get yourself out of your head? This is really the key question. Our heads toss us back and forth between past and future, keeping the present ever elusive. How can we ground ourselves RIGHT NOW?
If we learn to manage our own minds during the holidays by knowing what it is to bring us out of our rampant thoughts, we allow ourselves the best chance of having a holiday of meaning, even when external things go wrong.
Check out these 3 tips to bring you out of your head this holiday:
1. Move your body.
If we can’t seem to shake our anxiety around spending time with a certain family member, we need to get moving. Blood, oxygen and lymph need to move freely in the body. One of the best ways to shake that gnarly thought is to get the heart pumping. Literally move those stale thoughts right out of you.
2. Journal.
Usually, if I am struggling with something, or in a mood I’m not thrilled to be in, it’s because I have lost touch with all the many things I have going for me. Sit down and write a list of ten things you can be thankful for right now. Big things, little things, any kind of thing. The point is, we need to change our focus. If you can’t write them, think them.
We are so incredibly blessed. If you’re reading this article, you have so much to be thankful for. We as healthy leaders have a responsibility to remember how incredibly lucky we are so we may model the same introspection for those around us.
3. Watch your mouth.
If you talk about the holidays as always being stressful, than can you be entirely shocked if this holiday follows suit? Or telling people you always overeat both marks and gives you permission to be one who does so.
Paying attention to the language we use around the holidays can play a significant role in our experience of them. Watch how you frame your experiences of others, events and of yourself during this time. Sure, some experiences may be challenging, but further defining them as such does us more harm than good.
There you have it, folks. Wishing you a season of presence this year.
Love, Brie
Guest Post by: Brie Doyle, Writer and Founder She Glows Retreats, LLC doylebrie@gmail.com
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