Enjoy a relaxed Christmas with mindfulness
20 Dec, 2021
With Marisa Garau
While Christmas should be a fun time with friends and family, for many of us it is quite stressful. Not only are you busy at work completing your projects, you also have to source the presents, put travel arrangements in order and plan for the Christmas dinner. Fortunately, you can stop stress from building up by practising these three simple mindfulness exercises which will help you relax and enjoy the festive season to the fullest.
1. Let go
It’s okay to want to have things under control. But when you find yourself juggling a thousand last-minute tasks, impatiently barking orders to everyone who don’t manage to avoid you, and having emotional meltdowns every other day, try to think how this behaviour must impact your partner, children and pets. Wouldn't it be better if you let go of rigid expectations and be more relaxed? Understand that even if you are not on top of all the preparations like a drill sergeant, Christmas dinner will happen one way or the other. It really doesn't all depend on you. If you feel stressed and anxious, repeat three times a day: “I let go of perfectionism and trust that everything will be fine. I'd rather be nice and relaxed than perfect and unbearable.”
2. Recognise negative judgements and move on
We all know that celebrating Christmas with our families is often not the glittering experience of formula Hollywood movies. In real life, a festive family dinner is the ultimate occasion where all carefully suppressed tensions tend to surface. And before you know it, you find yourself incredibly annoyed by your selfish sister-in-law or your spoiled nephews. Mindfulness helps you to recognise negative thoughts, but to not get involved. Gently tell yourself: "Hey, my thinking is producing negative judgments. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just what the human brain does.” After that observation you consciously distract yourself by focusing on all the good stuff that’s happening at the Christmas table.
3. Choose a different role
As soon as you spend a few hours with your family, you involuntarily fall back into the role you played as a child. And so within no time all the adult siblings behave like troublesome teenagers again. Your brother is a pain, your sister tries to please everyone, and you are bored out of your mind. But wait: this time you can practise mindfulness. This time you’re not condemned to behaving as a child again, but free to take on the role of a mindful adult. Rather than obsessing about your own feelings and whether or not you're being treated fairly, you make sure you're fully present to the others by not asking for attention but giving it. So you don't dominate the conversation as usual, but instead listen mindfully to the stories of your relatives. This allows you to wriggle free from the clutches of your ego’s suffocating demands, while kindly focusing
on the well-being of the people around you. You will find that this gentle approach is very fulfilling and relaxing… for both you and your family.
Happy practising and Merry Christmas!
n Marisa Garau is a mindfulness expert who has lived in Mangawhai since 2007. Find more practical tips on how to de-stress your life at her website or flick her an email if you’d like to have a personal chat: marisa@growingmindfulness.com
