Holiday Survival Guide
Oh, the holiday season is upon us. Have you started to feel the changes? Celebration, joy, and excitement, mixed with the stress and frantic-ness of commitments and obligations. Not to mention excuses to over indulge, whether you are celebrating or using it as an excuse, or to cope. The holidays bring a mixed bag of emotions. Many people find themselves triggered and or activated during the holidays. You can maintain your sanity and enjoy the festivities. Here a couple of tips to help you through the craziness of the holidays.
1. Limit your commitments. Yes, holiday celebrations are fun and exciting. They can also been draining. Limit what you will commit yourself to.
- Why are committing because you want to or have to? If you have to, limit the amount of time you spend there. If you are have to go, say for a work engagement, change your mindset, decide that you are going to have fun. Perhaps, you need to set limitations.
- Limit yourself. ow many commitments a week, a day feel do able or too much. Set the limit, before you commit, I am going to go to 2 things this week. Then carefully pick what you want to go to. When you limit yourself right away, you can avoid over committing.
- Commit to those activities that fill you up, that make you feel good and that you enjoy. You can have fun, spread joy and cheer without exhausting yourself.
2. Set boundaries. During the holidays do you tend to go all out? Throw caution to the wind? Do you comprise to make others happy? Setting boundaries is a healthy way to deal with the holidays. Whether the boundaries are with yourself and how much you’ll drink, eat or spend. Or with friends and family. You deserve to feel wonderful doing the holidays, not overwhelmed or upset because you over indulged or comprised yourself for someone else. Struggling with setting boundaries,remind yourself, boundaries come from a place of love for yourself and the other person. Boundaries let others know where they stand with you. If they become upset, this let's the other person know how important you are to them and perhaps some personal self care and work is needed, to address the feelings invoked by you setting boundaries. You can also, talk to a trusted friend, family member or therapist.
3. Take time for you. Often times during the holidays people are busy doing for others they often forget to do for themselves. This can lead to feeling drained, unhappy and taken for granted.
Each day set aside a couple minutes for yourself, doing something you love:
- listen to music and sing along
- dance
- enjoy and savor your coffee or tea
- watch the sunset.
- do something for you that brings you a sense of contentment and peace
- laugh
A couple more tips to help you survive your holidays.
- Enjoy solitude and quiet every day, either by meditation, doing a grounding exercise or just spending a couple moments in silence.
- Take time to be thankful for all the awesome and wonderful things and people in your life who you love and appreciate.
- Cut yourself some slack, the holidays demand a lot. You need to take care of you first and foremost and then tackle the world. When you are on top of the world and feeling fabulous everything seems to flow and be easier.
What works for you to survive the holidays? Remember if you are struggling during the holidays you are not alone and there is help out there. Reach out to a trusted friend, family member or therapist.