The holidays are in full swing, and along with that swing comes a lot of stress. It is not a coincidence that holiday season is also cold and flu season. This time of year takes down our immune system for many different reasons. And most of those reasons are can be met head on and overcome. Lets start with the most obvious issues.
Rest: this time of year is famous from running us ragged. We still have all the responsibilities we have all the rest of the year, plus now we are adding on a ton of holiday activities – everything from shopping to parties with a million things in between. We lose sight of the essential purpose of the holidays, which is to connect with those we care about. But if we are exhausted, how well are we able to connect? A piece of wisdom I picked up as a professional caretaker is “Take care of yourself first, otherwise you have nothing to give to others.” This is the season of giving, but we cannot give from a state of depletion. We have to be full of life first in order to share that with our loved ones.
What does that look like? It means take care of you. Eat healthy. There are a lot of temptations this time of year that taste good going down, but once inside they destroy your immune system immediately. The sugar in one piece of pie á la mode wipes out your immune function for almost 6 hours, and it takes your liver 24 hours to recover from each sugar onslaught. Understanding this you now know to never eat sugar more than once in a 24-hour period. Also remember that starchy foods are sugar to the body. A baked potato is no different to the body than that pie á la mode. So squeeze all your starchy and sugary foods into just one meal a day – nothing but good veggies and protein foods the rest of the day. A proactive stance would be to only challenge your body with starchy or sugary foods every other day or longer.
Rest more. I don’t mean to rest as much as you usually do, but to actually rest more than you usually do. Add a half hour power nap to your day. Meditate twice a day instead of just once. Take a half hour of just you time to listen to music or read something that relaxes you and even uplifts you. Get a weekly massage during the holidays.
Some of you are saying “How can I take me time when I have twice as much to do as I usually do?” Serious reality – life can and will chew you up and spit you out if you let it. Put yourself at the top of the priority list and make executive decisions about what you can and want to do and what you simply don’t have time to do. This truth kills us because we have been taught that it is our job to please others and meet their expectations. This perception is slightly bent. It is our job to love and connect with others. It is not possible to make others be happy. Happiness is an inside job and we have no control over others happiness. We can only show up being the best us we can be. Whether they are pleased or not is about them.
Do we need to make sure that traditions are kept? If you enjoy the tradition then go for it, but the purpose of the tradition is to create the opportunity for connection. Beyond that it has no intrinsic value.
Shopping and gift giving are a major stressor for a lot of people. I was raised with the odd concept that it is not the gift but the love behind it that counts. That is why we make all our holiday gifts each year – they are expressions of our love for these people. The idea of gifts as a way to make someone happy is a scam. As I already mentioned, happiness is an inside job. Nothing outside yourself can ever make you happy. We confuse excited with happy. Excited is a very different thing, a very temporary thing – generally lasting only a couple minutes at best. Happiness comes from the flow of our creative light and love into the world, not from stuff we get from a store.
The holidays are often stressful because they remind us of connections we no longer have. Loved ones that have passed and relationships that have been lost often come to haunt us during the holidays. Honor these feelings and grieve these losses. These old connections were important to us and it is ok to miss them. If grieving is the whole purpose of the holidays for you, then do it well. It is a valid purpose. Let go of regrets, blame, judgments of self and others, and use true deep grieving to forgive and let go. Grief is cleansing our soul of the past while affirming our connections to life.
If you are feeling the desire for the happiness of the season, then consider where happiness comes from. Since it comes from the creative outflow of your light and love to the world, then consider what you can do to enhance that outflow. Some sort of service works very well for many folks. Maybe that looks like volunteer work at your favorite social support group or maybe it is simply offering to do the dishes at your relative’s dinner party. Do something you feel good about. Shine out your light.