Do the Holidays Differently this Year!

When I announced to my husband that I was fully committed to creating a conscious shift in my attitude around the holidays from one of stress and overwhelm to one of ease and taking responsibility for my own experience and self-care, he told me he was so glad to hear this!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not terrible at the holidays, I do love getting together with family and friends, yet I find the season can be very stressful with so many activities, people, places and expectations.

In this blog, I'm sharing with you what I'm doing differently this year and guiding you through an exercise I created for myself called the Holiday Values + Vision Worksheet.  (You can download this and listen to an audio talk about this here.)

Here is a list of the pitfalls I have fallen into during past holidays:

• Over-scheduling myself and my family
• Losing myself in the process of meeting others’ expectations
• Experiencing anxiety, depression or the holiday blues
• Feeling like the Grinch
• Over-spending and undersatisfying myself (and others)
• Eating poorly and regretting it later
• Getting sick
  

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Over the years, I started to feel a disconnect from my work as a yoga teacher and healthy habits coach and my inability to truly design and experience the holidays in a way that really nourished me.  As someone deeply committed to personal and planetary evolution, I have decided it's time to have a more conscious engagement with the holidays and cultivate a better way of doing the holidays for myself and my family. 

A more conscious engagement with the holidays is one of the ways that I am stepping more deeply into the identity of being my own best caregiver, which is really an underlying theme in the work I am doing at this point in my life.  At a certain point, you have to take responsibility for your wellbeing.  No one else can do that for you.

If you are like me, it may be that self-care during the holidays is not something that was strongly modeled for you.  In my case, care-giving was strongly modeled my my mother, aunts, and grandmothers, but self-care was not strongly modeled by them, especially not during the holiday season.  I can see now as an adult and mother of teens that the holidays were stressful for my mom and grandmothers and I can see very clearly how easily I fall into doing the holidays in ways that they did the holidays.  While my generation is different and some of the stressors are different, the pattern is still very similar and I am conscious of the fact that I fall out of balance during the holiday time in very similar ways to what how they become imbalanced which boils down a lot to saying yes to too many things and not holding good boundaries for self care.

Let's explore how we can do the winter holiday differently this year.

Follow the exercise below to clarify your values and desires.  Do this to get clear on how YOU want to do the holidays this year.

THE GOOD, BAD AND UGLY:
I'm going to dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly around the holidays, so you can examine what is TRUE for you about the holidays.  This is the first step in getting clear about YOUR VALUES around the holidays.

So, let’s take a moment now and presence why we might get anxious, depressed, overwhelmed and grumpy at the holidays.

• This season is touted as “the most wonderful time of the year”, and yet it’s not for everyone. Negative feelings, overwhelm, anxiety and depression affect many people at the holiday season.
• Bright lights and happy faces are what we see on the outside, but on the inside, December can be extremely difficult.
• The holiday blues are a very real phenomenon.  Depression may occur at any time of the year, but the stress and anxiety during the months of November and December may cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment.
• Stressors include: end of the year deadlines, family conflicts, economic stresses, travel stresses, and cold, dark days, loss, break ups, divorce, loneliness and mental health issues.

 
How do get things challenging or begin to unravel during the holiday season?

• We may have unreasonable expectations for ourselves or others.  We tend to compare ourselves or our family’s experience to a picture perfect holiday postcard.
• We compare our insides to someone else’s outsides. We look at social media and it looks like everyone else is having a great time and we aren’t feeling it.
• We try to do too much and spend too much.  We pack our schedules and overspend on gifts, travel, food and related expenses.
• We may have ambitious travel plans or travel plans that have challenging logistics or challenging interpersonal dynamics.
• We may slack on self-care.  Not enough exercise.  Not enough sleep.  Poor eating and drinking habits.
• Some of us truly suffer from seasonal affect disorder. The cold, dark days are tough and we may not get enough exercise and fresh air.
• Some of us may feel socially isolated.  Even though we can be entertained and connect through devices and the internet, this does not take the place of in person connectivity.
• Some of us have very real losses that are hard to manage at the holidays.

WHAT IS TRUE FOR YOU ABOUT PAST HOLIDAYS?
Grab a pen and paper.

Think back to last year’s holiday or to other past holidays.

THE GOOD for you:

• What went well?
• What did you truly enjoy? Think about the people, the activities, the places, ambience, the food, the gift giving, etc.
• What did you or someone else do to make the holidays feel more organized, more centered, more fun or calmer?
• What mindset did you have that made the holiday more successful?
• What made last year or a past holiday feel special to you? 
• Are there traditions from your past that help you to connect to the spirit of the season in a way that is meaningful to you?

 
THE GOOD for me:

• We traveled out of state to two states and this was good and bad.  The good was that I saw family from out of town that I truly enjoy seeing and connecting with.
• We went to special and beautiful places that we enjoy with special people.
• I took time for self-care.  I read and walked and did yoga and meditated daily. I made some of my own arrangements for food when others were eating things I didn’t want to eat.
• Some of the holiday food and family traditions are really special to me and I look forward to them!

 
THE BAD FOR YOU:

• What didn’t go well last year?  Think about the people, the activities, the places, the ambience, the food, the gift giving, etc,
• What was stressful, overwhelming, frustrating or disappointing?
• What traditions, if any, do you not enjoy or not feel connected to?
• What did you do or what did you not do that made the situation worse for yourself or for others.
• What mindset did you have that made the situation challenging for you or others?

 
THE BAD for me:

• What was overwhelming AND STRESSFUL was traveling to two states and bringing our gifts along.  It was too stressful for me, but not necessarily too stressful for my husband! Travel, while fun, is not always easy for me. I threw out my back and got a bad cold.
• Gift exchange and values around gifts are different from one family to the next and “getting it right” is a pressure I put on myself and feels uncomfortable for me during the holidays.
• Even though I took time for myself, I felt guilty about it.
• Over the years, I've begun to feel less connected to Christmas as a holiday.  I would prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstice, and Christmas is the holiday that my kids, and most other relatives prefer to celebrate.
• Last year, I was grumpy and I had a hard time shaking it!

When I take the time to reflect on this, I get more clarity on what I want to experience so that I can take responsibility for what I need to do to feel my best during the holiday season.

Here is the next part of this exercise: Clarify your DESIRE.

THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL THIS HOLIDAY SEASON? CLOSE YOUR EYES, TAKE A MOMENT AND THINK ABOUT THIS.  WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DESIRE?  TAP INTO YOUR BODY.  TAP INTO YOUR CELLULAR DESIRE.

• Choose a quality that you want to be operative: easeful, grounded, calm, centered, vibrant, bright, light, radiant, enjoying yourself, having fun, inspired, serene…
• There may be one or more words.  Choose the word that has the most traction.  Close your eyes and tap into the experience of that quality. Tune in with your full attention. Get a taste of this not just from your head, but from your body.  Drop it down into your physiology where it can become operative for you.
• Now you are clear on how you want to feel.  You have a source place from which you can make changes.
• Take the word or words you wrote down and put them on a sticky note in a place you will see so that you are clear on your motivation. 
• You are putting what is most important to you first.  This is a VAUE AND MINDSET YOU ARE CREATING FOR YOURSELF.  A SANKALPA, INTENTION.  This is important because doing the holidays differently can be hard. It may cause you to act differently from the culture of your family and how you were raised or make different choices from the choices being made by those around you.
• Your patterns from holidays past and from your family or culture have strong momentum and they will pull on you.  The more clear you are on how you want to feel, the more you can architect choices to optimize your experience.
• EXAMPLE: If the quality you want to experience is GROUNDEDNESS, you need to make choices that make you feel grounded.  These could be

• Traveling less, moving your body every day, choosing foods that are grounding, meditating, setting good boundaries.  I’ll talk more about these kinds of self care habits in a moment.

 
ARTICULATE YOUR HOLIDAY VISION + VALUES:
The word you just came up with is a VALUE that you have for yourself personally for this season. It is also a MINDSET.

Now you are going to further articulate your values and vision for the holidays.
When you know your values, you can articulate who you are and what you stand for and create a vision for yourself.  Values are like a compass that points you toward your “true north.” They are unspoken rules and regulations, terms and conditions by which you have agreed and ultimately live by.  If you have never done a values exercise, this is a great time to start.  You can find a value exercise here.

These are some of my core values:

• ENGAGE IN ACTIVITIES, RELATIONSHIPS AND WORK THAT MAKES ME COME ALIVE, MAKES ME FEEL VIBRANT.
• BE CONSISTENT WITH DAILY HABITS PRACTICES THAT FOSTER CLARITY, GROUNDEDNESS, FREEDOM AND EXPANSION.
• CREATE OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT TO THE SACRED EVERYDAY.
• LOOK TO THE HIGHEST IN MYSELF AND IN OTHERS.
• COMMIT TO PERSONAL AND PLANETARY EVOLUTION.
• COMMUNICATE WITH RESPECT, CARE AND CANDOR.
• CULTIVATE DEEP CONNECTIVITY WITH THOSE AROUND ME.
• SHOW UP FOR MY FAMILY.  COMMIT TO HEALTHY FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS.
• RESPECT LIFE AND ALIGN TO NATURE’S RHYTHMS.
• LIVE SUSTAINABLY.

 
If I take my general values and make it relevant to the holidays, it turns into an action plan that looks like this:

• Plan and engage in holiday activities that genuinely make me feel vibrant
• Prioritize self-care practices that allow me to feel grounded and calm and don’t feel guilty about doing them!
• Find my own way to connect to the sacred during the holiday season while respecting others’ ways of connecting to the sacred.
• Look to the good in myself and in those around me.  Express gratitude.
• Commit to my own evolution in my relationships.  See my growing edges.
• Communicate my needs at the holiday time with respect, care and candor.
• Take the time to really connect with family members that I only see at the holiday time.
• Show up for my family and take responsibility for my healthy interactions with them.
• Set good boundaries in terms of activities, people, and stimuli/sensory input.
• Respect nature.  Get outside daily!
• Prioritize experiences, learning and connection with people over things! When I purchase or create gifts, I do so in a way that is aligned to my own economic situation and values for the planet.

TRY THIS ON YOUR OWN!
Take some time to reflect on some of your core values.
How can these be put into practice during the holidays?

I'd love to hear your ideas!  Leave a comment and I'll respond.

Stay tuned for my upcoming blogs on Self Care for the Holidays and Healthy Eating for the Holidays!  Get tip sheets and listen to the audio of this exercise here.

Namaste,

Annie

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