Set and manage your intentions for a good holiday season
Today, I’m sharing something to help you have a good holiday season. Not an “acceptable” one, or an “okay” one, but a GOOD one.
Set and manage your intentions.
If you are feeling frazzled this year, you aren’t alone. The holidays can do that in a good year. What I am advising you to do now is to take some time to get quiet and to set intentions for this year’s holiday. The reason to do it is so that you can set intentions and expectations for yourself and your immediate household, deciding what is important for you and establishing intentions for how you will observe the coming holiday(s).
Here’s how to do it:
Take some time this weekend to sit down with a cup of tea, a hot chocolate, or even a glass of wine.
Put on some music, if it helps you to get in the holiday mood.
Think about what you want to do, and how you want to feel, this holiday season. Maybe doing things the way they have always been done feels extra important to you, to create a feeling of security in a wildly insecure time. Maybe downsizing your holiday to make it more intimate or hyggelig feels like the way to go.
Write down your thoughts on how you want things to feel, what’s important to keep or do, and what you feel okay letting go of. Start to write lists for yourself: decorations, baking/cooking, gift giving, volunteering/donations . . . Create your lists.
Once your lists are done, look them over to see if it is in fact possible for you to do it all, and if you have the enthusiasm for all of it. Check in with your body as you read over your lists. If anything isn’t a HELL YES!, consider making it optional or a no.
When it comes to setting intentions, you first get quiet so you can be in touch with yourself and your own energy level. Then tap into how you want the holidays to feel, even before you start making actual plans. After you write down how you want to feel, you can start to set goals for what you want to do. That includes creating lists for the different holiday traditions you want to observe, from decorating to gift-giving and more.
Managing your expectations begins after you’ve written down what you think you want your holiday to include and look like in order to generate the feeling you’re after. It involves taking a few more minutes to look over the lists you’ve made. What you are looking for is something you can manage without overdoing or stressing yourself out. Because we can all agree that it’s more likely for you and your family to have a good holiday if you aren’t a stressed-out wreck along the way.
This isn’t a time to be ”super chill” like Leslie Knope, the character played by Amy Poehler in Parks & Recreation. The holidays are a time to be present for yourself and those you love, to observe any of the holiday traditions that resonate with you, and to seek out comfort and joy.
I’d love to hear how this works for you, and whether you are doing anything differently this year. Drop me a note in the comments!
P.S. Here are a few links to past blog posts that may help you out this year:
Three tips to incorporating more HYGGE into your life
Deadlines and commitments: what to leave in, what to leave out
