It seems like for most people the holidays is a stressful time. Either with the stress of buying the "right" gift for everyone, or being with family that cause stress. Usually, it is a combination of the two. Perhaps you feel prepared with boundaries, and have de-stressing techniques that you have been using and you feel very balanced and joyful this holiday season. If that is true, I truly am so glad for you.
If, however, you do feel stressed, overwhelmed, grieving, or just emotionally heavy, I want to share a few things with you. It isn't a tip list, a to-do list, or any promises of immediate healing, but I hope that it brings you a tiny bit of hope this holiday season.
You are enough.
Just as you are, without changing a thing about you, you are enough. The gift you bought or didn't buy is enough. That you showed up to be with family or didn't is enough. Whatever you have to bring to this holiday season, the you that you are, is enough. It is a common core belief that is often internalized that we are not enough and/or too much. That some how we need to do more, earn more rest, earn more love, do SOMETHING to earn the love, friendship and joy in our life. But the truth is, you are more amazing, capable, strong, and beautiful than you know right now, and I hope you can look yourself in the mirror and can see that for a moment today.
You are not alone.
If you are feeling emotionally heavy, or not feeling joyful for whatever reason, you are not alone. I am writing this because I know it can be a really hard time for people. This is a commonly accepted truth that people joke about, but yet, it is still expected that people show up, smile, and "be joyful."
So we try it, we show up and smile, we are surrounded by people, after all we SHOULD be thankful. And yet, we feel empty inside, longing for more. Feeling alone in a crowd. Why? Because of this expectation that we are ONLY supposed to be joyful during the holidays. When actually, we are human and we will feel a range of emotion every day, and this is an especially difficult time for a lot of people because of the sentimentality, memories, and triggering that can cause deep pain and longing.
All of that to say, you are not alone in it, I get it.
Be Gentle with yourself and others.
Try softer, not harder. Give yourself the time you need to feel the hard and heavy things. Create boundaries where you can. Be gentle with your body when you can (i.e. go on walks, take naps, take breaks from people, breathe in and out). You deserve tender loving care for being born, and if no one in your life is able to show that to you or do that for you, you can do it for yourself.
If you are not feeling emotionally heavy, and are able to feel joy, I encourage you to also tread softly. More than likely someone that you interact with this holiday season is feeling this emotional weight, and might need some of these reminders.
No matter who you are, or where you will be this holiday season, I hope that you are able to experience warmth and gentleness.
I will end with this Mary Oliver poem, Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Mary Oliver
Commenti