I have been thinking a lot about the holidays as they are coming up quickly. And one of the things that I’ve been talking about with some of my clients is just thinking about what is happening, in terms of how to deal with all of the different pieces and parts. The holidays tend to be really challenging for a lot of people, and I have learned a lot of tools over the years that I use for myself and that I use to help my clients. And I wanted to share those on this podcast. I wanted to give some actionable things that you can do and take with you and that you can actually incorporate into your life.
I’m going to talk about four things. And one of them, I’m gonna have a free class on Thursday, so I’m going to go into much more detail in that free class. It’s called Prevent and Clear Energy Drains, and that’s gonna happen on Thursday, November 15th. So if you can’t make the time, you can get the recording from it. And that’s one area is energy. Something we don’t really talk about in this society, and it is, they’re actually lots of different tools and techniques that we can use. It’s really easy to learn. They’re really easy to incorporate. You don’t even have to buy anything. In fact, everything that I’m gonna tell you is free. There are some things that you can purchase, um, but they’re not necessary. So that’s one particular area of helping set up your holidays that will be much better.
Energy is something that we can pick up often without us even knowing it, right? We walk into a grocery store or an airport or a shopping mall. Here we come Black Friday and people have their own energy. And if we don’t know how to just be energy aware, we may accidentally pick up someone’s energy or someone may give us their energy or someone may take some of our energy. And what I’m gonna be teaching in the class on Thursday is how to deal with that. And I’ll talk about some tools like, many people are aware of Sage and Palo Santo. Those are things that you can burn to help clear energy. Those are examples of things that you might need to buy or objects, but those are some, you know, really simple ones as you just smudge or burn sage (the plant). And it’s thought in a lot of cultures that that will help clear energy.
Now here’s the drawback to that, is that that particular practice, a lot of people say, Please don’t buy sage anymore. Please don’t buy Palo Santo because they are hurting the indigenous populations by using those because there’s only a limited resource. And, they’re not being, the indigenous populations are not being treated well for getting those particular items or objects. So I have stopped using those. But you can also call in your guides for help. You can use something called transfiguration, which is something I’m gonna talk about in the free class. And you can use something called grounding and centering, which I’ve talked about before on the podcast. And I’m gonna go into detail in the free class. So energy is this first area that most people don’t even talk about. And again, I’ll just kind of like point you in that direction of coming to that free class or looking through the podcast. There are lots of resources on the podcast.
The second piece that I’m gonna talk about is deciding ahead of time your own particular self care. This is so huge, I can’t even tell you. It’s very practical. It, again, it doesn’t have to cost you any money. You can, depending on how you set it up and what you need, what you need in your life that really supports you to feel well, to be balanced, to feel emotionally steady. For me, I need movement in my body, right? Whether that’s dancing, walking, running, um, those are, you know, I need to do something with my body. It helps me feel better mentally, emotionally, and physically. I also need quiet time. I need meditative quiet space. If I don’t do that, I can tell after usually a day or two, I also need to eat a certain kind of food because that helps my emotions because I have blood sugar, um, I have hypoglycemia, I have low blood sugar.
If I eat a lot of really sweet stuff, my blood sugar crashes. So I have to be really aware. I’m also vegan and gluten free– I have lots of different food issues. And by deciding ahead of time that I’m gonna take care of my food, that really supports me. Um, I also need to take care of myself emotionally. So if there is something that is a little more challenging emotionally, then I can come up with a plan ahead of time of how am I gonna deal with that? Am I gonna journal with it? Am I gonna coach myself? Do I have a friend I can reach out to by text or by phone? Setting up those supports ahead of time are huge, right? They’re a really big thing and it’s often we are like, Oh, it’s vacation, it’s fun, This is gonna be great. Please set them up. Now, even if it’s in your head of like, Well, if I exercise on Thanksgiving Day, then I’ll feel great the rest of the day. Or I’ll have time to exercise on Tuesday and Thursday or Thursday and Saturday because I’m not working those days. Find out what you need to support yourself and then sign yourself up for those. Put them in your calendar. Write yourself a note. Think about it ahead of time. Even tell your family ahead of time. I’d love to go on walks. Why don’t you come with me? So that’s the second thing. Setting up time for self care, deciding ahead of time what you’re gonna need, scheduling that in with as much compassion as you can.
The third thing is actually related to that self-compassion. How much self-compassion can you practice during these holiday seasons? Self-compassion is kind of that overarching piece of how can I be as kind and compassionate to myself as possible?
So if something doesn’t go as planned, I didn’t get that walk. What would be the most compassionate thing for me at this moment that I can do right now? Food isn’t going as planned. Maybe there’s a kind phrase that you say to yourself. You can place your hand on your heart. Say something like, Man, I know this is hard, right? Maybe you have a practice of um, maybe you have a hard time saying no to people when you really don’t want to. Maybe that self-compassion is how can I say no to people for parties or events that I don’t really wanna go to? Maybe I can think of that ahead of time, right? So practice as much self-compassion as possible. Maybe it’s listening to a self-compassion meditation. Maybe it’s asking someone else to hold that space for you on text. Maybe you have a friend that you can ask them, “Well, what would you say if you found out that I had eaten twice as many desserts as I really wanted to?” Right? “It’s okay. Maybe that’s not what you were wanting to do and I love you anyway.” Kind, compassionate statements for yourself.
The last one is an emotional support that I wanna talk about. This is number four. So the way that I usually explain this to my clients, as I say, don’t let your inner five year old go home or go to a friend’s house, right? She is not going to go. And let me explain a little bit what I mean by this. And I’m actually thinking I may do, uh, a class on this because I think it is so incredibly important. So when you are going, especially if you’re going home, right? If you’re going to deal with parents, if you’re going to deal with siblings, if you’re going to deal with nieces or nephews or aunts or uncles, it may bring up in you some of your inner traumas, some of your challenges.
Don’t let your inner five year old be the one who is going home to interact with your parents, with your sister, with your nieces and nephews, right? So what I mean by that is we can very consciously say to the younger parts of ourselves, ELs, this isn’t the place for you. This isn’t gonna be as much fun for you and I’m gonna keep you in a nice safe place here at home doing whatever it is you love. So for me, I first started saying “Okay, my younger five year old isn’t allowed to go to work,” for instance. That is not who should be at work. My adult person could be the one to go to work. The one who has tools for self regulation, the one who has tools for dealing with a problem they’re having. That’s not something I need to deal with.
The same thing for going home to visit family. I always say my inner life coach goes home so that when a family member says, you know, our, I don’t know, I’m giving an example. This is not something my family would say, but you know, our family is so dysfunctional, I can’t, um, I can’t be around it. Then my inner life coach can be like, Oh, this person’s having a really hard time. What would I say to that person if they were my client? Right? So I use that tool to disidentify from the younger parts of myself. So that I find is a really great tool of just consciously ahead of time setting the intention that the younger parts are not gonna be the ones who come to the family dinner, who are not gonna deal with drunk and Karen, who are not gonna deal with all these energy drains that are going on.
So those are the top four things that I find most helpful. So again, it was energy either preventing and clearing energy drains. So in a nutshell, it’s other people have energy, we can easily pick them up. And the practice of clearing any that you pick up or preventing, like, I’m not going to take on that person’s energy. I’m having a free class for that on Thursday. That’s a big one. Two, setting up time for your self care, deciding ahead of time, what do I need to stay balanced and hold during this time? What’s the most, um, supportive thing I can do for me? Three, to practice as much self-compassion as possible. One of my mentors talks about the self-compassionate mentor, right? That part of you that is always that voice of kindness and compassion. How can you be as self-compassionate as possible? Again, set it up ahead of time.
Maybe it’s a phrase that you wanna say to yourself. Maybe it’s having a phrase in your journal that you look at and remind yourself about or an audio that you listen to. Listen to ways. Think about ways that you can be as self-compassionate with yourself as possible. And then the last one is, don’t let your inner five year old go home. She gets to color or ride bikes or play in the snow or whatever she wants to do, but she’s not the one going to deal with the adult issues that are probably gonna be at the adult parties, the politics that may be discussed, the, you know, who’s getting what and when and the will and you know, all those big adult things.
And number five that I didn’t mention, I’m gonna add one more in, is to use nervous system calming techniques. If you don’t know what they are, do a quick Google search. It can be as simple as, “I am safe in this moment.” Having a phrase like that. Or using elongating your breath. Your exhale to be twice as long as your inhale. So breathing in to a count of three, say for instance, or five. And then breathing out twice as long. So if you’re breathing in for three, breathe out for six. If you’re breathing in for five, breathe out for 10. Those are some really great ways. You can also, you can also touch something that’s soft or smooth like a stone or a really soft blanket. Or if you have a really soft sweater or shirt that you have, you can wear that or bring that and rub that or give yourself a hug. Those are just a few of the nervous system regulation tips that can help you physiologically support yourself.
I said there were four, but now there are five different tools and techniques to deal with the holidays. Okay, friends, I hope this is helpful. Remember, there’s a free energy class that you can register for. I’m gonna put the link in the notes and it’s all over social media. I’ve been talking about it for the last week and more about this is coming up in my upcoming book, Whole Body Upgrade. Yes, it’s coming. It’ll be coming at the beginning of the year as my hope- fingers crossed. So you can be on the lookout.
Okay, dear ones, take good care of yourself.
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