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 Bring Less Stress and More Joy Into Your Holidays
The holiday season offers us a chance for both joy and stress, depending on how we approach this special time of year. The best recipe for a joy-filled, rather than stress-filled holiday season includes these five fundamental “ingredients”:
Take Good Care of Yourself You’re more likely to enjoy the holidays – and the rest of your life – if you have energy and vitality. You’re more likely to have energy and vitality if you take good care of yourself. Thus, doing the little things that “keep your well filled” can make a huge difference in whether the holiday season is a season of stress or joy. If you think taking good care of yourself is indulgent or self-centered, think of the difference in makes not just in your life, but in how you affect others. Remember that the more rested, happy and filled with good cheer you are, the more you have to give to others. In fact, perhaps the greatest gift you can give others is by being a happy, vital, vibrant person. Think of how good you feel when you with such a person. You feel better just being around them. So taking care of yourself is both an essential part of enjoying the holidays and your life, and a gift to others. Putting This Into Practice: 2. Ask yourself if you are building the basic, physiological foundation of vitality: enough rest, exercise, and healthy foods. Although this is Health 101, many people still insist on shortchanging themselves on the foundation, and then complain about not having enough energy. Are you actually doing what you know is important regarding the physiological foundation? 3. Start the day off with a few minutes of silence. The positive benefits of silence are almost miraculous in their ability to bring about a sense of calm, focus, and stability. Try starting your day without radio or TV, at least for part of your morning. Sit quietly in your favorite chair for 5 or 10 minutes. If you have small children, camp out in your bedroom for five minutes before emerging, or leave the radio off while you’re driving to work. Try this out and notice how it increases your sense of serenity. 4. Read a few lines, or better still, a few pages, of uplifting material upon arising and then just before going to bed. It will give our subconscious mind something healthy to work with, and it will help set the emotional tone for the upcoming day. 5. Feed your tactile needs. Just as our bodies have certain vitamin and mineral requirements to stay healthy, it also has tactile requirements. Research with babies and the elderly has shown that when human beings don’t receive adequate touch, adequate tactile stimulation, they fail to thrive. Nourishing yourself kinesthetically, doesn’t require that you do anything extravagant. You don’t have to go away to a spa for a week. Simply do the things that work for you. This can be as simple as taking a bubble bath before going to bed, giving yourself a foot massage, spending ten minutes stretching or doing yoga, or trading massages with a friend or partner. Challenge Yourself Much of the stress people experience during the holidays comes from forcing themselves to do things they’d rather not. Think of how many people you know who don’t like the holidays because they feel pressured to buy gifts they can’t afford, spend time with people they don’t like, and pack their schedules with events they don’t want to attend. Rather than doing things we don’t want to do, and then feeling resentful and stressed, we can challenge our beliefs about what we should and shouldn’t do. We can challenge our fears about what other people will think of us if we don’t meet their expectations. Doing this isn’t easy, but it is essential if we want to bring more joy and goodwill into the holiday season. 1. Challenge your beliefs about what you see as obligations. Think of the things you really don’t want to be doing, but are, and then ask yourself “What would happen if I didn’t?” and “Who is saying I should do this thing I really don’t want to do?” Recognize that even if others disapprove of your choice to not do some of these “shoulds,” whether or not you feel guilty or inadequate is up to you. As Eleanor Roosevelt noted: “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” 2. Recognize that challenging the "shoulds" doesn't mean being insensitive to others, being irresponsible, or thinking only of yourself. It does mean acknowledging that we are choosing to live by these demands we've made upon ourselves. It means honestly recognizing the price we pay for those demands and the price others pay when doing them leaves us tired and resentful. Recognize the Consequences of Your Choices Choosing to take care of yourself and choosing to go against holiday convention can bring consequences. Your family may be disappointed, your co-workers or social circle might wonder about you, and you might not accomplish everything you believe you should. When faced with these potential consequences, you and only you can decide whether this is worth the price of bringing more joy, peace, and goodwill into your life – and therefore more joy, peace, and goodwill to others. Often, when faced with difficult choices, people will say “That’s easier said than done” as if that’s a reason for not making a difficult choice. Of course most everything is easier said than done, especially important life changing decisions. No one said they’re supposed to be easy. No one said that listening to the still small voice inside and being true to yourself in the face of disapproval and criticism is easy. But doing so can change your life. Acknowledging the consequences of our choices and seeing the price we pay for not being true to ourselves can give us the courage to take the first step. Putting This Into Practice: 1. First, recognize that you have choices. No matter what the consequences of the various options, you do have options. Let’s say a major source of stress for you has been attending big holiday get-togethers with your extended family, many of whom drink too much and become obnoxious. You do have the choice of attending or not attending. Each brings with it consequences, both positive and negative. What’s important is not denying that we have choices, just because the potential consequence might be uncomfortable. So the first step is to practice saying “I’m choosing to_______”. Notice how different that feels from saying “I have to _______” or “I can’t _____.” 2. When you do things you believe you're supposed to do, but don't want to do, consider the price you pay in terms of stress, anger, and resentment. Consider the cost to others when they get to experience you in a stressed, angry, and resentful mood. If you're willing to pay that price, then continue doing those things, but take responsibility for your feelings about your choices, rather than blaming your feelings on others. 3. Consider the potential consequences of doing your holidays differently and ask "Am I willing to pay the potential price of doing it differently?" Try to get clear about your fears. Are you afraid of being criticized by your relatives if you stay for only a couple of hours rather than days? Are you afraid your relatives won't understand if you reduce the number of holiday gathering you attend? Are you afraid your children will feel shortchanged if you don't give them a truckload of toys? Are you afraid people will think you're cheap if you bake rather than buy, a gift? When you identify your fears, you can challenge their validity. (e.g. "Do I really think that friends will be disappointed with the double chocolate brownies I baked for them?") This is where a wise friend or therapist can be very helpful. They can often do a better job at challenging our irrational fears than we can. 4. Remember “We are responsible for our responses, both emotional and behavioral.” If we don’t like how we are feeling, if we don’t like what we are doing, it is our responsibility to do something about it. Rather than wasting our time wishing society would change or wishing others would be more understanding, we can recognize that if we don’t like the results – our feelings or actions – it is up to us to do something about it. 5. When faced with tough choices and others’ disapproval, remember the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Have you ever found yourself during the holiday season thinking: “I don’t like the way I’m acting. This isn’t what the holidays are supposed to be about.”? Whether it’s dodging in front of another car for a parking space at the mall, fuming as you wait twenty people deep at the checkout counter, or responding irritably to a family member, we have all fallen short during the season of peace and joy. Because it holds so many opportunities to be less than our best, the holiday season is an especially good opportunity to practice bringing forth our highest self. When we do this, we not only feel good about ourselves, we also spend more of our time feeling kindly and cheerful, which is far more pleasant than spending our time feeling angry and frustrated. We’re not the only ones who benefit when we bring forth our highest self. As mentioned previously, others benefit when we are at our best. When we call forth our highest self in our dealings with others, we also increase the chances that they will treat others with kindness and good cheer. Putting This Into Practice: 1. When faced with a challenging situation, think of someone you admire and ask "How would they respond?" or ask "What is the most kind, compassionate response in this situation?" 2. When faced with a situation that appears to pit your desires against others', ask yourself "What response would bring the highest good to all involved?" 3. Give yourself permission to read a few minutes each day about how to bring out your highest self. Not only does this give you helpful ideas and practices for bringing out your best, it also keep this intention on your radar screen. The following books have excellent content and short, manageable chapters: “It’s A Meaningful Life – It Just Takes Practice” by Bo Lozoff, “Awakening the Buddhist Heart” by Surya Das, “No Ordinary Moments” by Dan Millman, and “Wherever You Go, There You Are” by John Kabat-Zin. Spread Goodwill Spreading Goodwill is perhaps the most direct route to having a joyful holiday season - and a happy life. Think of times you’ve paid someone a compliment or helped out another. Didn’t you feel great? Spreading goodwill is such a win/win. Both the giver and the receiver end up feeling happier and better about the world. Even more importantly, when we spread goodwill, we increase the odds that those we’ve touched will then spread goodwill to others. Just as in the movie “Pay It Forward”, one simple act of kindness can create a powerful, positive ripple effect that can touch untold numbers of lives. Often when people think about bringing goodwill to others during the holiday season, they think about volunteering at a soup kitchen or some other worthy volunteer effort. Although this is a wonderful expression of helping others and spreading goodwill, I think it’s just as important to notice all the simple everyday opportunities to spread goodwill. When asked at his deathbed for the one piece of advice he would like to leave behind, Aldous Huxley, who had spent a lifetime exploring the common themes of religious and spiritual traditions of the world, replied: “All we need to do is be a little kinder toward each other.” Putting This Into Action: 1. Do something for those less fortunate. 2. Be on the lookout for opportunities to give someone a compliment, including strangers. 3. Instead of staring at your cart of merchandise while waiting in line, make a friendly off-hand remark to the person next to you. 4. Send a friend or colleague a little Thank You note. 5. Instead of engaging a stranger in a stare down for the parking space opening up, let them have it. Instead of lunging toward the nearby checkout line that just opened up, let someone else take that coveted position. 6. When paying your toll, pay for the person behind you. 7. If you see a parking meter that has expired, put in a quarter. 8. If a clerk is being testy with you, instead of responding in kind, trying responding with kindness. Acknowledge that this is probably a hard season for them, or that it’s probably been a hard day. The holiday seasons can be a season of stress or a season of joy, depending on the choices we make in our thoughts and actions. Make this holiday season more joyful for you and all those you come in contact with by:
Author: David Lee, President of Human Nature @ Work, www.humannature@work.com, info@HumanNatureAtWork.com
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