Ok wellness fans, the season is upon us. Let’s get this party started!
In other words, the holidays are here, and the goose has two options: to get cooked or to get fat and happy. All corny holiday jokes aside, when life turns up the heat, how the goose chooses to create or respond, is just exactly that – a choice.
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Intellectually, it’s simple enough, but these special days are about more than that; our reactions and responses come from our emotions. And more, our emotions are both a reliable temperature gauge, and a powerful creative force. How we feel in any given moment is the foundation on which we build the next moment. It is the ultimate empowerment, and over the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to be literally bombarded, from all directions, with opportunities to discover how we really feel and to create the next calendar year from joy and happiness.
Pause for a moment here to note that it is likely your mind wanted to add and “or” to my last sentence. It’s natural for our minds to want to witness both directions, or explore all the options, but this establishes forks in our potential. It is, however, more true that human nature, when separated from its thinking mind, will ball all of its fantastic self up, complete and total, and throw itself in only one direction. That direction, by the by, is always forward, whether we are choiceful of the energy-road we are on — or not.
Now, like anyone else, I am not always in control of my emotions, but I am also an eternal optimist, who creates consistently enjoyable experiences for herself. I don’t mind bragging about it either! Just like you, I worked hard on that too… hmmm… “optimistically” of course, and sometimes with a hammer! The holidays do indeed test me too, but I definitely have a plan. In our time together as you are reading this article, I’m going to share my personal holiday strategy. To keep it light and fun, we’ll think of it as a recipe, using only fancy organic ingredients. The truth though, is that it is a conscious and manual setting in our minds that we can observe, maintain, and re-set. There are only a few ingredients, and the directions are simple.
First: set down and ignore all your self-help and personal development manuals, even if just for a few weeks. This is the season to be grateful and enjoy everything you’ve got – that includes who you are. There is no thing about you that needs to change, and the very fact that you have the potential to choose the you that goes forward into the next moment, is all the proof you need. Make a decision right now to propel all your beautiful energy down one road only.
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Did you do it? Did you choose?
Excellent. Put that decision into the “bowl” by making it visible in your home environment. Make it real. Make it true. You can use a post-it, a picture of something, a pin on your favourite jacket… just something that keeps your mind clear on which energy you’re creating a foundation. Discard the self-improvement goals like you would the egg shells. I mean, t’is the season to be your natural self – as opposed to the self you wish you weren’t. Throw the shell away.
Second: rinse, pick out, sift, and distill your algorithms. Your recipe depends on healthy ingredients, and you don’t want the cheap fillers and pesticides. This is a social media buzzword, but it works really well to explain what is needed here. For this step you want to read and control the energy you hang out with, because it is an exchange by which you receive the greatest feedback. What is coming up on your social feeds is a direct result of the places you spend your attention, and for most of us, the feelings experienced are not consistently and reliably positive. These then become the energy we create more of, or increase in our lives.
Again, intellectually we know this, but it requires some conscious effort and action to control that. The great thing is that it is simple to execute just by taking a few days to snooze, unfollow, and delete the content that doesn’t create that immediate positive reaction – that’s the read the feedback part. Then, like a few new pages of joyful interest, and consistently engage with the people in your life who really inspire you – that’s the controlling the healthy ingredients part. You can always check in on special people who don’t meet the positive criteria (at this time) when you are emotionally prepared to protect your engagement. What you will most certainly discover is that they are unchanged, and yet you love them anyway. It will not be a permanent loss at all, just a choiceful change in how you interact.
Related Post: Cultivate Gratitude: 5 Ways To Appreciate This Holiday Season And Beyond
Now for the third and final direction in the recipe: set it aside and let it settle before you transfer it to the baking pan. Like sourdough, you want those base ingredients in the mixture to culture the dough. True, this might be stretching the analogy a little far, but how are you not thinking about going to the bakery right this minute? It’s perfect! Let your dreams come true and get in the car! Step three in this recipe is to go to the grocery store and practice consciously setting your personal energy and disengaging when you are pulled out of your chosen energy (that first decision in the bowl, distilled) by something external.
To be clear, you are going to practice choosing to feel good, disengaging from negative feelings, and re-setting that breaker on the fly.
This is a very experiential process that starts as you walk through the door of the grocery store, and has many check points along the way. For example, you pick up the cart, and start your rounds. Carrots. Peas. Turnip the beets?! Oh yeah, you did! Check in with yourself at any of those landing zones. How’s your energy? How do you feel? By the time you get to the apples, check in again. How are you feeling? Do you need to re-set? Yes? Who cares why, just keep moving, and make a choice about how you want to feel. Choose the greenest apples with no bruises. If that is not possible, choose a different fruit that makes you happy with the results you purchased with your choices.
Notice, notice, notice. Choose, choose, choose. Choose the energy that you want to feel and be, and then let that be the energy in which you execute the next actions in your life. In the grocery store, there is no intellectual opposition. It doesn’t make sense to choose apples with bruises. Practice, practice, practice. Feel really free to create your own reality.
That’s the recipe for success – in any place, any relationship, any time of the year.
Let’s do a test before we go. When you get back to your car, check in again. How do you feel? What energy is starting your car? As you drive home, you are icing the cake with this thought:
What do I want more of in my life? If Santa and his elves were to drop a gift down my chimney this holiday season, what would it be? The answer is, it doesn’t matter, as long as it makes you feel happy.
Pave the road that stretches out before you with all of your good thoughts and good feelings. I’ll bet by now you have already created something new and resonant in your life. Watch for it. Don’t forget to collect your results. Notice, notice, notice. The party starts now.
Happy Holidays Wellness Fans. T’is the season! Wishing you all the joy and happiness that you naturally are.
ADRIENNE YEARDYE
Welcome! I’m Adrienne. I am a skier, a Homeopath, and a glass artist. Life itself is my first love.
Wherever I am, I am governed by a thirst for experience, fearlessness, exploration and the incredible feeling of freedom. That place travels with me. In fact, I am pretty sure it is me. Or, maybe it is just my pleasure to give this cocktail of energies big legs and a giant smile.
