My Top 3 Tips to Surviving the Holidays: Embodiment Edition

During the Holiday season, everything is heightened - every emotion seems heavier, and a little harder to carry. At least, the negative ones do. Is it any surprise that these months can end up feeling so draining, so exhausting?

For those of us who are still practising living in an embodied way, it can be difficult to carry such emotions and feel everything so deeply. But you are not alone and most importantly, you don’t have to move through the holiday season just getting by.

Today I want to share my three favourite tips with you for enjoying the holidays by approaching them in an embodied way. I want you to lean into these words, understand them and apply them to YOUR festive season…

1. Depth and then direction

But what does that mean? Most of the time, people are moving in a ‘direction and then depth’ orientation - I need to do *this* in order to feel *this*. But my suggestion would be to swap that around, invert it. Put energy into cultivating what you want to feel before you make your to-do list and plan all the festive details!

Feminine depth is about how you are being in the world. And directionality, or getting from A to B is generally a more masculine energy. As embodied feminine practitioners, we are focused on depth first, and then direction. In other words, put the focus on the experience you want to be having and then allow the masculine structures and direction to arise in support of your feminine depth.

As you’re planning your weekly to-do, remember to check where you are in your cycle and take that into consideration. This helps you be in more flow and alignment rather than feeling like you’re swimming against the current (for example, trying to do a lot of social engagements or shopping the week of your bleed). If you don’t bleed or you just want to, you can also tune in to the lunar cycle this month. The full moon is coming! What does that energy mean for you typically and how does your cycle align with it this month? 

2. Get clear on your priorities

This works all year round but during the festive season there is *so much to do*! Who hasn’t been asked, “Can you help at this Christmas party, do you want to join our gift exchange, are you free for a girls holiday lunch, can you host dinner for the family, have you wrapped the gifts?” The list is endless.

When it comes to nailing down your priorities during the festive period, make a list of your top 20. And then distill it down, until you have your top 5. The top 5 things that matter the most to YOU during the holiday season. And then… you actually need to AVOID numbers 6, 7 and 8, because they are the ones most likely to pull you away from your top 5. Those are the things that you want to do, that are worthy of your attention, but they are NOT your top priorities and they will pull your attention and energy away from the things that are most important to you.

And when we allow that to happen, it causes stress and pressure and a sense of never quite having enough time. It’s how we end up feeling a lack of fulfilment in life - and this is exactly what I want to help you move past and become unstuck from.

3. Commit to how you want to feel instead of what you want to do

This last tip combines the two previous ones, in a way. In the first tip I spoke about depth before direction - deciding how you want to feel before writing your to do list. And then I examined how you can get clear on your priorities, and focus on the top five to avoid spreading yourself out too thin. 

Now, we’re committing to how we want to feel. Who you want to be during this holiday season, and what do you want to be having a bigger experience of? What are your heart and soul hungry for? By leaning in to your desire it becomes so much easier to understand what it is you need to do (and not do) in order to achieve that.

No one is going to come do this for us. It’s up to you to orient yourself towards depth & how you want to feel, who you want to be, and the experience you want to have this holiday season. And you get to create it! I hope these tips will help you feel empowered to do just that.

These are three ways you can help yourself have a more embodied holiday season, one that lifts you up instead of bringing you down, one that will shift your mindset and ensure you dance into 2022 feeling grateful, fulfilled, embodied and ready to be the best version of you. Don’t just ‘get by’ this holiday season - embrace it. Live it. Enjoy it.

And if you want some extra support, you can still grab my half-price Soul Alchemy session (until Winter Solstice!) which is the perfect way to anchor into your commitment to yourself and HOW you want to feel in this season!