Mental Moment-Are You Prepared
Are you prepared for the holidays? It may be important to take a couple of moments to think about what comes up mentally & emotionally for you around the holidays and figure out better ways to deal with those things!
What comes up
This can be a very difficult time of the year for many people. Here are some of the comment mental & emotional events that come up:
- Isolation-not having family or friends to spend the holiday with
- Expectations-expecting the holidays to be something they aren’t
- Family-dealing with family can be stressful particularly if you deal with them in the same way you did as a child; it can bring up a lot of old baggage
- Shopping-it’s stressful figuring out who you want give gifts to and what you want to give them
- $-money can leave the checking account or credit card quite quickly this time of the year and since there is still a lot of unemployed people it can provide anxiety
- Time-there seems to be more happening with less time to get things done this time of the year
How have you dealt with these things in the past
You have a way to deal with all of these and other things but how effective is it? Every year during this time do you feel the same stress, anxiety, frustration, irritation, etc.? Do you find yourself going into autopilot and just allowing things to happen the way they’ve always happened? Does it work for you? How does it leave you feeling?
It’s not uncommon to deal with things the way you always have. I’ll bet there are other aspects of your life where you do that. It’s safe, familiar and what you know but is it what you want particularly during this time of the year? You do not have to act and respond the way you always have. You can decide to be more mindful and present and make a few small conscious shifts in how you’ve always done it.
What can you do differently
Create your vision
Can you see where you want to be? People get stuck only seeing where they are and that makes change difficult. You need to be able to write down and see a vision for your holidays. If you are able to define what it looks like you then have the ability to work towards that. You also allow the universe to know what you need which brings with it a life energy geared toward helping you get what you want. You’d be amazed at how getting clear on what you want and setting the intentions open you up for those things to happen.
See yourself having ‘it’. The more energy you put on being aware of what you want and being able to imagine them, the more they’ll come to fruition but you need to be really specific and realistic otherwise it can’t happen.
Write down your vision. See your vision. It’s not until you get clear on what you want and what you expect that you are able to work toward it and get it.
Replace the ‘I cant’s’…
For someone stuck in stress and anxiety around the holidays there is high degree of negativity and negative thoughts. Some of those thoughts include this is such a pain, why are there so many people out, I don’t want to spend time with X, and everything is so expensive. Developing neutral-positive self-talk is essential.
Here is how you can start to move from a negative state to a more positive state:
- Become aware of you negative thought process by making a list of any negative thoughts you might have.
- Come up with a list of neutral-positive thoughts you might use.
- Notice negative thoughts, stop those negative thoughts, and translate those negative thoughts into something more neutral-positive.
- Another alternative is to generate a list of positive, motivating key words that you can use in place of negative thoughts and to keep you motivated.
To ‘I can’
Get in the habit of noticing negative thoughts when they arise. When a negative thought arises:
- Notice it
- Gently stop it
- Take 1-2 deep breaths
- Move into: energizing words, affirmations or positive statements
- Refocus
Happy Holidays!
Dr. Michelle
Photo credit: faeriologist.wordpress.com
