A Simple Gratitude Practice for the Upcoming Holiday Season
TAKE NOTE OF YOUR OWN HOLIDAY EMOTIONAL BLUEPRINT
Growing up, I always looked forward to the holiday season. My mother remains a “more is more” human when it comes to anything remotely festive in nature. Thanksgiving was an all day affair. For Christmas, my mom would decorate nearly every surface with fresh pine boughs and wreaths. Our Christmas tree always gleamed with ornaments that each child was gifted every year. We had traditions upon traditions upon traditions. The Santa letter. The bells of Santa. And that Dickens village always glowed with life resting on top of that fluffy white fabric (because you gotta have snow in the village at Christmas). The village homes looked so real and cozy. And that neighborhood skating pond remains a real show stopper to this day! The food of the season was an integral part of the experience. We enjoyed more than our share of homemade goodies and inviting dinners. Most evenings, my dad would sit down at the piano to play his favorite carols. We would soon join in, singing and dancing with flair. Our home was just bursting with good cheer. It really was.
When our children were younger, I felt so much joy creating my own traditions to celebrate the season fully. We made our own traditions upon traditions upon traditions. We would read holiday books around the nightly fire or make delicious treats and snacks or snuggle in with our favorite blankets as we listened to Jim Weiss holiday CDs together. We popped popcorn and watched Christmas tv shows and movies and went on mindful walks and smelled the fresh air of the season while enjoying all the lights on nearby homes. The possibilities for creating magic seemed endless.
In recent years, our experience of the holidays have included a religious transition, several deaths (some unexpected) of loved ones, a dose or two of family trauma, and if public attacks are going to come (in our professional lives)—they have traditionally hit around the holiday time too. As a result, I have had to take a more mindful approach to this particular time of year. It can be tremendously beneficial to consider our own holiday emotional blueprint. What do the holidays bring up for you? What were they like for you as a child? What have they been like in your grown-up years? Do you feel a sense of loss? Do you feel stress around getting together for family events? What do you love about the holidays? What are your positive associations? Connecting with yourself in a more intimate way (getting curious) can allow you to create a sense of awareness as the season approaches. This awareness will enable you to create a more intentional experience as you implement healthy strategies and focus on what you value and enjoy most.
CONSIDER A GRATITUDE PRACTICE
If you find that your holiday blueprint feels emotionally heavy or complicated, consider beginning a gratitude or cherishing practice now. Not to fix your feelings or your experience of the upcoming holiday—but to allow you to connect with what you love every day. Think of it as data. What feeds you? Restores you? Comforts you? Inspires you? What if we started or ended our days with noticing what we appreciated about our experience? And what if we used this information to create a holiday season that better reflects us? At the very least, we could look to integrate what we appreciate and value into the standard lineup of holiday experiences (and say “no” more often to events that are not essential or do not line up with values).
SOME TIPS TO GET STARTED
Choose a regular time of day to practice. Beginning your day with gratitude is a lovely way to start your morning. Set your alarm five minutes earlier than usual. Cozy up in bed and start reflecting. If you have a partner, you can add a step and share your lists with each other. Or if mornings are hard, bedtime practices allow us to review our days in a mindful way. They also help us sleep better!
Consider a 2-5 minute practice. Keep this practice simple so that you will actually do it. The goal is to move beyond the listing. See the note below.
Post a note to remind you if you need it. Set it on your bedside table or someplace you will see it.
Add a writing element if you wish. A gratitude journal is a joy to read as it is a reflection of what we value and treasure most in our lives.
Notice how you feel when you successfully practice. Go deep with it. Slow it down. Savor it.
IMPORTANT—one of the keys to practicing gratitude is to get out of our strictly rational brain. We can all create a list of things we are grateful for and rattle them off in about thirty seconds. Emotionally connecting to what we choose for gratitude is important. Take a moment. If you are grateful for your morning coffee, feel what you love about it. Go to that moment this morning when you enjoyed the cup of warmth and goodness. This is where your body changes and feels pleasure—not to mention, a surge in positive emotions. Did you love your morning hike? Go back in time to see and remember what you saw or smelled or felt as you walked. You get the idea, right? If you do decide to share with a partner—I invite you to consider doing so after you have practiced on your own. That way you will have already had the full experience!
I have noticed a positive difference when I choose to engage in some practice of daily appreciation. It tends to change what my brain focuses on (the positive more than the negative) and how I experience each moment. That is enough right there. Full stop. But if I desire to look further, I also learn more about myself and what feels essential to me in my life. During this time of year in particular, it can feel empowering to honor ourselves more amidst the season. And that—is healing. And don’t we deserve that?
So that is what I am proposing for myself. One month. Maybe two. A simple gratitude practice. I am beginning today. I even have my reminder all set. What do you think? Are you game?