Set your intention to focus on what matters most to you during the holidays – and let go of the rest.
The holidays can be a lot, especially when we’ve been in survival mode – as many of us have been since the pandemic started. This has been a challenging year for us: Gill has been managing her cancer diagnosis and treatment, while Melia has been building her coaching business and moving to New York with her family.
There’s a lot of cultural pressure to make the holidays “the most wonderful time of the year,” but we get to decide what our holidays look like. To lower stress and overwhelm and boost joy and connection, we can zero in on what matters most to us. When our priority and intention is clear, we can let the rest go.
We’re taking inspiration from an excellent holiday episode of We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, called HAPPYISH HOLIDAYS: Our Top Three Hacks. Their top three tips are:
- It’s Your F’ing Holiday (so you get to decide what it looks like)
- Eat, Drink, and Breathe (tend to your body’s needs)
- Be Unsurprised (expect the behaviors and dynamics, especially at family gatherings, that happen every year so they don’t dysregulate us)
We share our intentions and priorities for this holiday season, and what we are choosing not to do.
Listener Takeaways
Here are some helpful questions to ask yourself when considering baking cookies, buying gifts, going to holiday events, etc.:
- What’s my intention?
- What’s my priority?
- Do I want to do this?
- If I want to do this, what do I want from the experience? What matters most to me?
- How does it affect my body budget (deposits/withdrawals), and how do I plan to stay fueled?
Get In Touch
Tell us: What are your intentions for this holiday season? What are you choosing to do and not to do?
Email us at podcast@semitogether.com or send us a voice memo.
Subscribe to the Semi-Together newsletter and check out past issues. You can also support the podcast through Patreon at patreon.com/semitogether.
Resources
We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle episode: HAPPYISH HOLIDAYS: Our Top Three Hacks.
Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids, by Mona Delahooke
Anxiety RX: A New Prescription for Anxiety Relief from the Doctor Who Created It., by Russell Kennedy, M.D.
The Tapping Solution (EFT Tapping Meditation app)