We are about to start the Holiday Season and all that entails. I bet I just got your head swimming with all kinds of thoughts about the upcoming Season. Gift buying, present wrapping, party invitations, preparing for a celebration, teacher gifts, gift exchanges, decorating your home and work space, preparing meals, cookie baking and having family over for the holidays. Now stop and lets take a deep breath together. It can be quite overwhelming when you start to process all that you have to accomplish. The Panic is temporary so don’t let it derail you.
Ideally, we want everything to go smoothly and perfect during the holidays. First, you must be realistic, there will always be one or two snags that you might run into. I feel it is important to take a Self-Inventory of yourself and life before you embark on this time of year. A Self-Inventory is where you sit with yourself and create observations of your personal life, work life and social life. Inherently, this is a process where you need to be very raw and honest with yourself. Do you think that you can do this? If you said yes, great. If your answer was no, then you must decide how much do you want to hinder your personal growth.
Self-Inventory will require you to take a good look at the areas of your life that are chaotic, unstructured, overwhelming, disorganized or hinder your productivity. Some questions that you can ask yourself are:
1. How well do I work under pressure?
2. How well do you handle multi-tasking?
3. Financially, how much money can you realistically spend on the Holiday Season?
4. How would you rate your anxiety level during the Holidays
1- Little to no Anxiety- 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10-Extreme Anxiety
5. Do I accept too many invitations to celebrations?
6. Do I over invite to holiday dinners at my house?
7. How much time does it take to decorate my home?
8. Does the holiday season make you feel depressed or have the Holiday Blues?
These are just some questions that you can ask yourself when completing your Personal Self-Inventory. By now, you might be asking what is the purpose of this task? I believe this is a very valid question. You see most people don’t plan ahead. They allow the Holiday Season to creep up on them and then they don’t feel prepared for the added stressors. We are here today to help ourselves prevent ourselves from breaking down during this time of year. It truly can be as easy as sitting down with your calendar on your smartphone and creating a realistic timeline for yourself and others in your family. Looking at a calendar is a concrete message to our brain of what is realistic to do or how you are going to overextend yourself. We all want things to be perfect this time of year but it is very important to set realistic expectations of yourself. Make a budget and stick to it. It is ok to turn down invitations if your calendar is full. Make sure that you set aside plenty of time for self-care practices. Look at your job schedule and map out the free time that you have to deal with for preparations.
It is very easy to get caught up in all of the colors, the twinkling lights, gift giving and holiday treats this time of year. Set some goals for yourself and identify your limitations regarding these specific areas. If you are on a health plan it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t indulge a little but set limits on your intake of holiday treats. Maybe, this year you don’t feel up to putting up holiday lights on the outside of your home. Don’t beat yourself up for this. It is ok to say not this year. I just went through this for Halloween. It is my first year as an Empty Nester and I felt free enough that I didn’t want to take my time or my energy decorating this year. However, a few weeks later and I am totally ready to decorate for Fall and Thanksgiving. I set doable expectations for myself and I went with what my anxiety level allocated me to participate in.
Honestly, these words of wisdom and concretely looking at ourselves can be used in any big life events or life changes. Stop, sit alone and take a Self-Inventory of where you are at in your current life situations and time. Putting these skills into action can absolutely set you up for success in life and will promote a wonderful and festive holiday season as well. Remember the saying. “one step and one day at a time.” This mantra will always serve you well in life and with unexpected happenings. It’s all about you identifying your limits, capabilities, wants, desires and putting them into action. It may be that you might have to ask a friend or family member to host Christmas dinner at their house this year. Maybe you make Thanksgiving into a pot luck dinner instead of you cooking and preparing everything. We have to learn to express our limits to others or maybe just say I am not up to it this year. Encourage people in your life to embrace the notion that all of the burden for the festivities does not have to fall on only one individuals shoulders. Spread the wealth, I like to say to friends and family.
Holiday Season is about all the feels, love and festivities that are presented to us. If we overextend our lives then ultimately we are not enjoying ourselves. If everyone is happy with full bellies and you are so stressed out that you did not partake then you are not taking care of you. Take some quality time for you and create a structured and doable Self-Inventory. This will ensure that you don’t run out of steam or even worse start to feel mentally or emotionally unstable. The holidays are about taking care of one another and ourselves. Remember Self-Preservation is key to maintaining optimal mental health.
Pilgrims, FaLaLaLa, stuffing, turkey, Festival of Lights, Christmas trees and all of the trimmings can be fun, carefree and enjoyable if you take a little time to sit with YOU during this Holiday Time.
POSITIVE THOUGHTS CREATE POSITIVE ENERGY
GO OUT AND EXPLORE ALL OF THE WIDE OPEN SPACES IN YOUR WORLD
CIAO
ILISE
