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It's the most wonderful time of the year… or so we are told. No matter which holiday you celebrate, excellent food, festively decorated homes, singing, presents, and spending time with loved ones all play a major part. In short, the holidays symbolize everything we wish our ideal life could be like. It's no wonder that the expectation of holiday cheer leaves so many people feeling depressed, stressed, or both. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the pressure to make the holiday special and enjoyable for everyone else. Luckily, there are some ways that we can mitigate the anxiety of the season and tap into our joy.
Here are 5 tips to avoid the holiday blues and find your cheer:
1. Trust that the Creator is in control of the situation.
We often have an idea of what a holiday should look like and go to great lengths to create a picture-perfect experience, but reality rarely lives up to our expectations. There are a lot of aspects of that goal that are simply beyond our control. We can't force people to be cheerful and kind, and sometimes the carefully prepared holiday meal ends up getting burnt. Our unrealistic expectations and inability to let go of control set us up for failure.
There is nothing wrong with planning and preparing, but make sure to manage your expectations. Know that the Creator is really in control of the situation. If something throws off your plans, accept that it is the perfect situation you are meant to be in, in ways you might not understand right now. The Creator knows what your soul needs. Trust the process.
2. Make a short list of the things that are most important to you during the holidays. Focus on those and ignore the other pressures.
There are so many aspects to the holiday season – the food, the decorating, the gift-giving, the time with family – the pressure to make everything perfect can be overwhelming. Stop and ask yourself: what are the individual elements that make the celebration meaningful to me personally? Maybe it's the baking. Or sitting around the tree drinking eggnog. Be clear about what excites you and let go of the other external pressures that create an impossible reality.
3. Identify ahead of time what is NOT going to bother you.
Family gatherings can be fertile ground for disagreements and tense conversations. Most of us know which people and topics are most likely to push our buttons. Set your intentions ahead of time. Be clear about what you will not let bother you. You get to choose what to make of your experience.
Think of your time with people you disagree with as a fun experiment. What is a silly thing that this person is going to say? Plan to not get angry, no matter how outrageous it is, and decide that you won't yell at them no matter how much you disagree because you don't want to invest your energy there. Going into the situation with awareness and intention can help you to not get heated in the moment.
4. Look at the holidays as an opportunity for growth.
Family gatherings provide important spiritual opportunities for growth. One of the ways to use the festivities for transformation is to utilize them as a gauge for how much you have grown in the past year. Do things that triggered you last year affect you less this year? Do you find you are seeking approval or validation from your family less?
Approach holiday gatherings as opportunities for spiritual practice and learning. There is always a lesson to be gained or some way to help others.
5. Don't limit your joy to just the holidays. Find ways to celebrate every day!
To a large extent, we've been conditioned to put our joy and bliss on hold for our daily responsibility, obligations, and priorities. We put so much pressure on the holidays because we've assigned them as the time when we are finally going to relax, eat what we want, put everything on hold, and just be happy. But what if we had that kind of joy every day of our lives?
Every single day is an opportunity to appreciate and spend time exactly as we want to. Look for ways to begin cultivating joy on a daily basis rather than trying to fit it all into a single day or week. Live every day as if it were a holiday – finding joy in giving, enjoying delicious food, and spending quality time with the most important people in your life. You don't need to wait for those assigned days to celebrate Monday morning, Thursday afternoon, and all the time in between.
The holidays are a time when we put extra care into our appearance, decorating, baking, shopping, and wrapping – all to experience the elusive holiday cheer and to achieve the picture-perfect memories that will live on forever in our photo albums and social media. Yet like so many things, the fantasy often doesn't match reality, causing us stress, anxiety, and even depression.
Rethink what the holidays can and should be by setting your expectations and your intentions, focusing on the few areas that are most important, looking for opportunities to grow, and finding ways to celebrate all year long.