Keeping the Holidays Sane, Simple and Real 🎄🕎🙏🏻

With the holidays coming at the end of the year, it’s great time to be reflective and thankful, and share with others what they mean to us. Sometimes with the holiday rush though, outside pressures, and need for everything to be perfect, can result in things getting costly, exhausting and frustrating.

Holiday Gifts: Instead of buying expensive gifts, maybe suggest token gifts and enjoy time together, even if it needs to be after the holidays. Instead of offense, you may just hear a sigh of relief! Some cool things to consider gifting are: 

🧶Something homemade 

💌A letter or poem letting someone know how much they mean to you

💍A family heirloom passed down

📺Subscriptions to websites, apps or streaming services

🎭Events or movie tickets

👟Association memberships

🥘Classes

💅Professional services

🥰You, and your time

Entertaining and Holiday Decorating: Truth is, people want to be around other people in order to feel a connection, not be bestowed with their decorations (at least that can be said for the people we want to be around!). And if there is an impression, it can be fleeting. What they will remember is the time with you. I used to worry endlessly about menus and setting everything up to impress, but now I enjoy the moment and the people I am with, and allow myself to be human. If you enjoy doing it and it’s fun, great. If you are doing it to impress, it may be something you need to re-think. Some of my best memories are being with people in one of our homes with no fanfare, just creating memories. When cooking recipes, things sometimes don’t come out perfectly, and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Just have fun with it and don’t let your need to be perfect stop you from trying new things. As Julia Child once said "One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.” Good advice for cooking, holidays, and life.

Schedules: To help keep holiday events and invites organized, I like to keep everything in my calendar, color coordinated, so I can see what I need to prepare for, and how many things I have scheduled. I get an overview of what my days and weeks ahead look like in order to plan new events. I am then able to manage my time without over-scheduling or missing commitments. 

Eating Healthy: When I eat out, I like to check out menus beforehand, so I can get a sense of what will be a good option, both in terms of taste and health. When going to a buffet-style event, I do the “food tour” before piling anything on my plate. I see what is available and then pick my favorites. When going to events at people’s homes, I take a little bit of everything to be respectful and appreciative of the host, and then enjoy what I am eating in moderation. 

The holidays are a great time for us to be present and connect with others. As people remember the way that they feel, (as opposed to the taste of the meals, the decorations, or expensive gifts) it’s great to focus on the experience and time well spent, and savor the moment as a result. The holidays can be a great reason to get together with people you haven’t seen in a while, and reflect and enjoy what can be the most wonderful time of the year. My wish for you is to enjoy, in whatever ways your holidays are spent.

 

If you would like to see more, please subscribe to my blog by sending an email to HolisticSpiritualLiving@yahoo.com. 

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The Freedom of Living With Less. 🕊💫

 📸 image by https://unsplash.com/@harpersunday

Minimalism is not just a design concept of living in a sparse, mostly white, sterile looking room. Living a Minimalistic Lifestyle is a concept of being realistic about what we need, what is going to add value to our life, and what we truly value. Having lots and lots of stuff is overwhelming, distracting and expensive. When I worked as an organizer, I met clients who had many items (often very expensive ones) that they had lost interest in, or had no use for, and they felt overwhelmed trying to keep track of it all. Looking at closets full of stuff and knowing the amount of money we have wasted by not using these things, brings regret and shame - and it suffocates our spirit.

But we can’t just blame ourselves. In the consumerist society in which we live, we are urged and constantly bombarded to buy things - things that we may or may not need, may or may not have use for, probably don’t have room for, but look interesting enough to click, “add to cart” and order. On accounts where we are members, we don’t even have to punch in our credit card, as they already have it. Based on our shopping and browsing history, suggestions of things will pop up in our feed (as well as other websites that are tracking our history). And with all that convenience comes the added feature of everything being delivered to our doorstep in 24 hours. Multiple studies show that when people receive things that they bought, but do not like or need, very few return the items because of the hassle. 

By buying less, owning less and living with less, we can give our full attention and appreciation to what we do have and love, and we can give special care to those special items. With this, comes the ability to focus, and be more grateful. Things that are stuffed in corners, closets, or rooms locked up for no one to see, are mind numbing. When we have lots and lots of stuff, it’s hard to manage, hard to find things and hard to give special interest to anything.

Some people love having things in their space that bring back memories of their life experiences, but I suggest trying to eliminate at least 5 things that either no longer bring you joy, subject you to negative feelings, remind you of things you have wasted money on, or items that simply do not serve you. Once you do that, try 5 more. This can turn into a habit of being mindful of your space and lifestyle, so much so that while passing a bookshelf, you may see a book that you know you will never read again, and without hesitation, you grab it off the shelf and donate it. 

There is also the financial aspect. Things cost money to buy, repair and maintain. We waste money when we purchase things that we already own, but can’t keep track of.

Living a Minimalistic Lifestyle is living with intention. In spiritual terms, intention is the energy of us telling the universe what we want. The universe will help us, if we give it the direction. What do we intentionally want and need? What matters? Not only will your life feel more free with more intentional living, but having less will free up your mind to focus on things that truly matter to you. 

Ask yourself this big question: “How much is enough?” We have nothing to prove, nothing to show, and we need nothing needed to give us a sense of worth, because we are already enough without our stuff. 

 

If you would like to see more, please subscribe to my blog by sending an email to HolisticSpiritualLiving@yahoo.com. 

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