When I was a young mother and I began to feel fried and frenzied instead of happy and joyful for what I had; I would often step out of where I was and what I found myself thinking and doing and take a different perspective of the whole thing. This isn’t a bad thing to do when you feel yourself loosing it over something that is in all reality small. When we get overwhelmed and especially at night everything, and I do mean everything seems to be bigger and badder (I know that’s not a word, but you follow!). Things seem to grow beyond that which we can comprehend and understand and we go into that ugly place where we ever hate ourselves.
What can you do ?
My biggest suggestion is to just S T O P! Stop what ever you are doing and disconnect from it. Yes, you can, even with small children. S T O P. When you stop and remove yourself from the situation you disconnect your mental hampster wheel and if you can get some distance in the fresh air into your body, the blood starts pumping and you clean out the toxic and regain mental space to deal. I’ve bundled those precious ones up and put them in the stroller and walked around and around a cul-de-sac, down the street around a patio or just gone outside and sat in a chair looking up at the stars and just letting all that fried stuff drip off of me and onto the ground. You know pretty soon (maybe 10 minutes or so, you will notice your breathing changes and that rapid pulse has slowed and you feel almost sleepy because you have been on an adrenaline high and now there is a let down.
When you feel fried during this holiday season; stop all the “to dos” for 24 hours and work with what is in front of you. Here’s what I mean. If you are just piling up the packages at your front door from the delivery service, stop. Open the packaged and gift wrap it and joyfully write the name tag and be thankful for the ability to buy the gift, to wrap it and to give it to your loved one. Then place it under the tree. Here’s a great skill that I learned a long, long time ago. When you buy a gift – wrap a gift. If you do bulk shopping all in one day or one weekend. Take your gift stickers with you and place the sticker on the gift as you buy it. How many of you have gotten home and not know what was for whom? Oh, yes it does happen. If you are giving just one gift, be extra thoughtful about the gift and wrap it beautifully.
Being joyful does not take any more effort than being fried. One lifts you us and the other exhausts you.
To recap:
When you feel overwhelmed and fried: S T O P! Disconnect from the environment. Move and get some fresh air.
When your to do list is overwhelming you: S T O P for 24 hours and process what you have in front of you or most likely what’s in the shopping bags in the closet, basement, garage, trunk or attic.
One more very big thing here is; only do those things that your family cherishes. I would suggest a family breakfast meeting. Let everyone tell you what they love most about this time of year. It may be far less than your to do list suggests and my guess is if you do only those things which are meaningful to those you love; you will have a more joyful holiday season from Halloween through New Year’s Day.
What do you think?
