Holidays are Hard! Here are 4 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Have Happier Holidays

Even if you enjoy the holiday season, chances are, it’s a mixed bag of stress, frustration, and anxiety. For some, the holiday season is particularly hard to get through. So we wanted to share some of our top tips for making it through the holidays empowered, connected, and in YOUR joy. 

Let’s face it, the holiday season can be challenging. It’s a busy time of year– full of pressures and obligations, lots of little decisions, an abundance of demands on your already limited time, and even family drama. More than that, though, the holidays can bring up a lot of feelings: loneliness, loss, regret, frustration, stress, overwhelm, anxiety, even depression.

We’ve certainly been there ourselves, and in fact, it’s taken us… well, up until this year honestly, to learn how to shift it. So we wanted to share some of the most powerful, yet surprisingly simple ways we have found to be able to consciously create a more joyful and connected holiday for yourself and with those you love. 

1. Create rituals that mean something to YOU

Holidays are full of rituals– obligatory activities that you have learned since childhood are associated with the particular holiday. Rituals are great, and they can add a lot of meaning and specialness to your holiday, but the important question here is, “How much do they mean to you?” Try to think of ways that you might modify the ritual so that it means something special to YOU and your family of choice/creation. Or, consider creating new ones! 

For example, when I grew up, my mom would always give me an ornament on Christmas. Though I started to do this too when I became an adult celebrating my own Christmases, I recognized that it didn’t mean all that much just to get an ornament. So, I started to find ornaments for myself and my family that represented something significant from that year. And to make it even more special, I’d write a little letter, kind of like a time capsule, to talk about that year. Now, each holiday season we read the letters while decorating the tree! (Feel free to steal this idea if you love it as much as I do!)

2. DON’T do what you don’t want to

While you may very much enjoy some of the rituals that come along with the holidays, there may be some others that stress you the f*** out! In fact, there may be entire holidays that you simply don’t enjoy. 

Well, here’s a secret that maybe no one ever told you– (they certainly didn’t tell us!)-- You don’t HAVE to do ANY of them! Yep, you heard me. You don’t have to do anything. You are a full grown adult, and you get to decide what you do or don’t do with your time and energy. 

So, we invite you to give yourself permission to change the holiday auto-programming that may be driving you forward. Collaborate with your partner(s) and talk about what’s really important to keep, and what you might let go of. Find ways to do the holidays that are aligned and authentic to your highest joy and values, and that leave you and your loved ones feeling connected, inspired, and excited about what’s ahead.

3. Start a GRATITUDE practice

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, and now you are hearing it again. Sorry, not sorry!? Listen, gratitude is seriously one of the most helpful and energizing emotions that you can connect to. In the flurry of stress and busyness that you may be experiencing during the holiday season, your mind is going to be focused on all of the things that you’re worried about. You are likely to find yourself consumed by what needs to be done, or frustrated with how other people are acting in response to all of it. In other words, it’s really easy to get pulled into primal (read: not happy, doesn’t feel good) energetic states. And what’s worse is that once you’re in a primal state, you’re likely to respond to life in ways that aren’t very helpful or powerful, which can lead to more conflict, frustration, stress, and disconnection. That’s what you DON’T want, right!?

Getting into a regular practice of gratitude, however, is an excellent and effective way to turn that ship right around. Here, you are bringing consciousness to all of the things that are going well in your life. You’re thinking about that which you appreciate, the things that feel good, the things you don’t want to lose. You are remembering the best parts about your partner and your family, and likely reconnecting with the spirit and intentions behind the holiday you’re trying to celebrate! Now you’ve shifted into a powerful state (read: grounded, aligned, feels good, etc!). From a powerful state, you can move through busyness without necessarily being in stress. You will be more empowered to create meaningful and loving interactions with your loved ones, and you’ll simply feel better every day. Who doesn’t want that!? 

I recommend starting a gratitude journal and making it a ritual to write at least 10 things you are grateful for each morning. This will help start your day off right. For an extra boost, do it before bed too! And to level up the closeness and connection with your sweetie(s), share some of what you’re grateful for (especially the parts that have to do with them!)

4. Practice PREFERENCE without attachment

Holidays seem to come with a lot of hopes, you know? You have hopes about how your dinner will turn out, how the party will go, the kinds of gifts you might receive, or the reactions on loved one’s faces when they see what you’ve done for them. I call these hopes, wants, and wishes simply… preferences. That is, you (like all of us) have ideas in your mind about how you would ideally like (prefer) the future to look. Right? Right. 

So here’s where we all get hung up– we get attached to things needing to go the way we prefer in order to feel good about what happens. That is, when things don’t go the way that we prefer, we tend to move into some form of suffering around it (also known as primal states). You may become disappointed, frustrated, or even hurt. You might start feeling bad about yourself, or not good enough. 

Practicing what I call preference without attachment essentially means letting go of your need for things to go the way you prefer in order to feel good (or at least ok) about how things go! This simple mindset shift acknowledges that life is going to surprise you; there’s very little we can actually control or predict, and most importantly, that you have the capacity to be ok even if things turn out in non-preferred ways! 

It’s totally normal, and totally ok, to have preferences for how your holiday experiences unfold. But if you can let go of your attachment to them having to be that way in order for you to stay in a powerful state, then you have empowered yourself to be able to roll with things and still have a great time. 

In other words, if you can decide that you are going to have a great holiday no matter what happens, chances are, you will!

–

Like what you’re learning? (We hope so! And we’d love to share more!) 

Sharing perspectives, paradigm shifts, tips, and teachings like these are a passion of ours. We believe that with greater awareness comes more choices. And when we have choices, we can move off of auto-pilot and into the conscious creation of our lives and relationship(s). We call it the power formula; AWARENESS = CHOICE = POWER

YOU’RE INVITED! 

We lovingly encourage and invite you to drop into one of our weekly “Path to Extraordinary Relationships” classes (currently Mondays from 4-5:30pm) to both expand and deepen your relationship learning. Each week, we teach about a new relationship “issue,” how to understand it, and how to powerfully navigate it. No commitment necessary; the drop-in rate is just $60! Just fill out this form, and we will send you the details for joining.

Also, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (@powerfulovelgbt) to get more great information and tips for improving your relationship(s). 

And if you’d like more high-touch support with transforming your relationship, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d love to see if we can help! Contact us at [email protected] or schedule a FREE 90 minute relationship empowerment call here.