Secret to staying centered this Christmas

Christmas is not the time to self abandon and neglect your self care.

I repeat.

Christmas is not the time to self abandon and neglect your self care.

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It’s easy to get caught up with the busyness of the season and to put other’s needs in front of our own. “There’s just so much to get done”, sound familiar?

Let me ask you, are “all” these tasks and responsibilities actually essential? Who are they benefiting? Are they adding to your holiday pleasure or taking away from it?

Sure, we may prioritize some projects and spending time with our loved ones. However, for exactly these two reasons it is actually more important than usual that you protect your energy and double down on your self care.

Here’s why:

• The busyness of the holiday season can cause extra stress, so we might need extra time to rest.

• Family or friend gatherings can trigger different relational wounds and your nervous system might pop into fight or flight.

• Depending on the gatherings, we might simply feel a bit more drained than usual (especially if we’re a bit more introverted).

• When each of these factors take its toll it leaves you in a less than optimal state. This means, you might feel more sensitive, more easily triggered, more depressed or anxious, lower in self-esteem, feeling chaotic and frazzled.

Is this how you’d like to spend your holidays?

If your answer is no, let’s look at some of the ways you can implement simple, yet effective tools to better your inner well-being.

1. Put reminders on your phone to take 6 deep breaths.

The #1 reason we don’t do the things that are helpful to us is because we forget and we aren’t accustomed. We have all these smart devices now, for god’s sake, we have smart homes and little speakers that can talk to us, so let’s use them. Set reminders and make life a little easier for yourself. Deep breathing helps settle your nervous system and it’s easy to do. Take a deep inhale (try to breath into both your belly and chest) and then exhale slowly and gradually. Try to get your exhale a little longer than your inhale if you can. An inhale and an exhale = 1. Repeat 6 times daily (or more than once per day).

2. Change up how you spend time with your loved ones.

Gather the few family and friends that might be interested and instead of the usual gossip and drinking sesh (because you’ll have many other opportunities for those) why not hire a private yoga or meditation instructor or do a DIY project or sip and paint together. You could even play a bonding, introspective game that my friend told me about called ‘We’re not really strangers’.

3. Schedule one hour for yourself every week of December and January.

Most times we accept invitations because the weekend is “free”. Because we don’t schedule in time for ourselves it’s easy to think you’re available and end up over accepting invitations and ending up with no time for you. If you have your ‘me-time’ on the calendar, then you can accept or decline invitations accordingly.

Don’t know what to do for ‘me-time’? Start with some journal prompts and meditations with my journal Unfolding.

If you want to feel a bit more centered, peaceful and joyful this holiday season I urge you to follow these tips.

Let me know how it goes!

If you’re reading a blog like this, I’ll assume you’re already on a personal development journey of some sort. If starting out 2022 with a different mindset is important to you, you might like to check out my small group, 6 week program called The Alchemical Passage. Enrollments for January are open now. Click here to learn more.