Emotional Support for the Holiday Season

The holidays can be tough for people for a variety of reasons. It’s an emotional time of year, normally, whether you look forward to the season or dread its arrival. Holiday overwhelm, especially for women, is a common problem that causes stress, and stress impacts the body in a variety of ways.

At Healing Potential, our goal is always to help you feel your absolute best, so here are some of our best tips for tackling holiday overwhelm and battling any negative emotions you may experience:

Tackling Overwhelm

Between shopping, decorating, holiday parties, and hosting guests – there is so much to do and so little time to do it in. It’s not as if we put our normal lives on hold to pull together a memorable holiday. Here are some tips to help you deal with the stress, anxiety, and frustration that coincides with holiday overwhelm:

• Planning – While not everyone is a planner, planning out all the pieces ahead of time will ensure that procrastination and avoidance doesn’t push all these tasks to the last minute. High stress levels are unhealthy and you don’t need that during the holidays.
• Delegate – You aren’t the only one that should be holding the holiday season together. Delegate some of the traditional tasks to other family members and share the responsibilities.
• Simplify – If you can’t delegate the holiday tasks to others, really evaluate what you need to do and let go of some of the activities, functions, or other aspects of the holidays. What do you dislike doing and procrastinate on every year? Is it really necessary or can it be changed or surrendered entirely?
• Letting Go – Nothing is ever perfect, including the holidays. No matter how much planning you do, something is bound to go wrong. It always does. The point is to make memories with loved ones not achieve perfection.
• Prioritize – Ask each family member what they look forward to the most when it comes to the holiday season. You may find that some of the tasks you think are necessary aren’t even mentioned in the list. That will make it easier to let those go.

Positivity Tools

When it comes to keeping positive, no person is perfect. Finding the way to a positive outlook for the holidays may be difficult. Here are some tools we recommend if you’d like to embrace a more positive mindset this holiday season:

• Mindfulness – Tough to tackle but oh-so-effective, mindfulness is the key to staying in the current moment and releasing all expectations of the outcome. We forget to slow down and enjoy the moment when the pressure is on to create an idyllic holiday for everyone else. Savor the moment, slow down, be present.
• Gratitude – Focusing on our blessings naturally increases positive emotions and overall well-being.
• Learn to Pause – Anytime you start to feel stressed or anxious, take a 60 second pause to just breathe, loosen the shoulders, unclench the jaw, and reset.

Staying Grounded

Having a personal practice of returning to your center when your environment becomes challenging or your emotions spike will not only help you get through the holidays but is a good technique to utilize all year long. Learning to ground yourself is a wellness tool that improves both your physical and mental health. Whether it’s disconnecting from devices, meditation, deep breathing techniques, connecting to nature or something else – learning to ground yourself amidst the chaos is a valuable tool for emotional support.

Feeding Your Soul

What is it that you enjoy the most about the holidays? If it’s spending time with your family and loved ones, you can do that at any point during the holiday season. If it’s watching Hallmark Christmas movies or listening to White Christmas or baking, whatever it is that feeds your soul and makes you forget how stressed and overwhelmed you are, make space for more of that in your life. Doing the things you love will recharge and re-energize you to complete the other tasks on your holiday list.

If you traditionally struggle over the holidays, or are suffering right now, we recommend Emotional Clearing Therapy. Emotional clearing is a method that uses consciousness and energy healing to quickly release energies and emotions that are latent in the human body.  Whether the emotions are tied to negative past events or current stressors, emotional clearing helps reset the negative energies that affect you. If you want to make a big shift and free yourself from the negative emotions impacting your life, this may be exactly what you need. If emotional clearing is something you’re interested in, or if you’re not sure where to begin, contact us for a free consultation.