A Self-Care Toolkit for the Holidays

If the holidays are hard for us, how can we make them feel good?

What are some things that influence how we feel about the holidays? Strained relationships with relatives? Used to drink or smoke some weed to put up with them? Feel obligated to go home, and afraid of losing whatever love might be left if we don’t?

How can we still be loved without doing everything that's expected of us? What is it that makes us this scared or needy that we can't say no?

Sit with this question, meditate on it, and the answer will come. Write down your answer. That’s what you can change. You can find it within you not to be driven by fear. Looking at our fears can help us create a different perspective, something that works for us.

If we go back to the family having to use drugs or alcohol to feel relaxed and “part of”, is it right to go home? Are we going home in an attempt to see if we're still wanted…to see if there is some love left “for me”?

When my husband was alive, our small family had obligations to his big family. Weddings. Reunions. Holidays. To avoid being ostracized, we showed up.

After my husband died, my family was my two daughters and I. Of course, I have a sister who lives in Sweden. Two daughters and a sister, that's my family now.

For Christmas 2024, I will see my two girls.

The best Christmas gift ever! I say “girls”, but they are young women now. I should say “daughters”, but “girls” just makes me feel more important, as if they still need me, my girls. Yet, after realizing my daughters are adults, living on their own, I find I might need to create a new family, a tribe, a group of people who may care for me enough to include me in their holidays.

I can get stuck in feelings of isolation, loneliness, and despair.

However, those feelings are so painful that I’d rather find a way to get out of the house. I can use these emotions as a springboard, a motivation to start a new life, a new chapter, in which I choose my family, I choose friends to be my family.

This choice comes with some risk...

...because some of us have experienced rejection, shunning, and exclusion. We risk feeling that pain again. Sometimes that fear can be so overwhelming, that to avoid it altogether, we will stay home, alone, get some comfort food, watch a movie, and hope to make it through the holidays without drinking or acting out. “Please, make the holidays go by as fast as possible!”

One way to avoid this painful isolation is to think about others. We can consider that there might be some fellow human beings who feel rejected by their families and others who may no longer have a family. Either way, they could use some company, some love and care that we can offer.

What would you be willing to do to help somebody else? Drive them to church, a meeting, a doctor’s appointment? Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Invite the lonely home for dinner?

Now, let me address those who are going home for the holidays: Are you going to “survive the holidays”, or are you going to enjoy them? Your choice!

If you're looking for a “survival kit” to enjoy your holidays with relatives, let's talk about some tools.

The most important tool in your kit is accepting your Self the way you are. You can benefit from a practice that grounds your Self in your own heart with love,,,for your Self!

Such a practice can be a guided meditation about Self-love, a favorite book to remind you of how great you are, and some phone numbers to have for emergency rescue calls.

Can you find some acceptance and compassion for you, for your life, for your understanding of how you became you and why you are the way you are? When we can get to a place inside that feels “safe to be me”, we have enough Self-love that we can offer some to others. Until then, we can always “act as if”.

We can start our day by moving our bodies, then take some time to sit and think about our day ahead, and how we can best live it. We can write out our thoughts to leave space for today’s adventure. We can meditate on the “how” for a few minutes.

For those who believe in a higher power, a God, divine guidance, or the like, ask for help to open your heart and practice genuine kindness. Opportunities will show up to prove your authenticity. We can purposely get out of Self by helping others.

You can fill your own cup to the brim, and you will find that you can share with the lonely ones. Because, as the author of A Course in Miracles tells us, “...the lonely ones are those who see no function in the world for them to fill; no place where they are needed, and no aim which only they can perfectly fulfill.” (A Course in Miracles, T-25. VI. 3:6)

Loving others and treating them with kindness may cause someone else to love you back, just the way you are! This is a good start to recreating your Self and building your group, your tribe, your family. Happy Holidays!

Interested in discovering how your story influences your holidays? I can help. – please contact me.