The holiday season can bring an extra sprinkle of joyful celebrations and connections for many. It can also bring with it an extra dose of stress, drama and discomfort! By being intentional, you can transform your holiday experience into something truly fulfilling for you. Here are seven ways to be intentional with your family during the holidays, along with real-life examples to inspire you.
1. Move Beyond the Right and Wrong
The right thing to do is spend time with family.
The wrong thing to do is take space for yourself.
The right thing to do is buy presents.
The wrong thing to do is save.
The right thing to do is be social.
The wrong thing to do is stay home.
There is not a right or wrong way to enjoy the holidays or your family. Yes there are set expectations, societal and familial but you don’t have to let them define your experience of the holidays. You are a powerful conscious creator and you have a choice. We can move beyond all the ideas of right and wrong and what should be.
Moving beyond the ideas of right and wrong starts within you. It might seem like these ideas come from other people and they probably do, but in order for you to experience them, there must also be an agreement within you.
When you come face to face with a holiday season stressor, identify what thought or belief you are feeling stress from. Am I reacting according to something I think is right or wrong?
What if we could practice releasing our mental attachment to things being right or wrong this holiday?
Action Tip
To help you identity right/wrongs you might be holding onto, ask yourself what around your holidays feels like an obligation.
2. Set Intentions for Your Experience
Being intentional is about living on purpose. It’s about making choices about how you think about things and how you react to people, places and events. Being intentional around holiday time has the potential to completely transform your experience.
The first thing to keep in mind about setting intentions is you only get to set them for you–and not for others. As tempting as it is to say you intend for the kids to behave, you don’t get to create in their experience. What you do get to be intentional about is your experience of your kids. For example, your intention might be to be easy and open with the kids.
Action Tip
Think of a holiday experience that is upcoming but may have caused you stress in the past. What intention do you want to set for your experience this year? Who do you want to be?
3. Let Go of Negative Judgments
With holidays often comes seeing more of family and friends. The more people we are seeing, creates more opportunity for more judgement. And the longer we have known them, the more past experiences we have to draw judgments from.
Releasing judgments of your family and friends could be the single most freeing decision you make this season. This is your permission to choose a blank slate.
The uncle that you judge for being irresponsible with money; the neighbor you judge for religious beliefs; the friend you judge for always showing up late; the parent you judge for being not supportive enough…what if you just didn’t this year?
When you decide to release a judgment, it doesn’t automatically mean you are agreeing with the quality or behaviour of the other. It means you are unwilling to feel resistance within yourself about it. You are choosing acceptance within yourself, for yourself.
Allowing other people to be themselves is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone. And isn’t that ultimately one of the biggest things we want to receive? The freedom to be as we are. As you are willing to do this, you free both yourself and the other and create a more relaxed and enjoyable environment.
Action Tip
Think of one person you know you will see over the holidays. Write down the first 3 thoughts that come to mind. If any of these are negative judgments, consciously decide to release this old thought and choose a new one.
4. Own Your Dream Holiday Experience
Often times the expectations of what we should or should enjoy, different traditions during a holiday season are just handed down to us. When you grow up experiencing the holidays in one way, this becomes your normal and accepted as the way it is.
This is perfect if you also enjoy that way. If you don’t it might be time to explore what you would enjoy. The more we grow up into our own individual preferences and self, the more important it is to understand what lights us up.
Only when we know what holiday experiences are enjoyable to us, can we consciously prioritize and create our own dream holiday.
Often I have found myself caught in a lot of ‘sitting and talking’ experiences over the holidays. I’ve realized that this doesn’t always light me up and some of my favourite memories come from doing fun activities together. This has allowed me to intentionally prioritize different activities like baking cookies, snowshoeing, hiking, or biking with friends and family, and created a more fulfilling holiday for me.
Action Tip
How do you enjoy connection with people?
Ask your friends and family how they like to connect best.
What type of gatherings are fun to you?
Can you bring a holiday theme into something you love to do?
5. Open to Possibility
Nothing limits the potential of joy like expectations of what has been! Open your mind, open your heart, maybe even open your doors. The potential for ease, flow, fun and love exists within all of us and within every interaction we have. The more open we are, the more we can access and feel the natural flow.
Opening to possibility happens primarly within you and is manifest through everything we have covered in the first four points. You are the creator, when you are willing to move beyond your judgements of right and wrong, and set intentions about who you want to be, you effortlessly align with the Source flowing through all and are supported in creating a dream holiday experience for you.
Action Tip
One of my most favourite ways to open to possibility is to remind myself “it can be better than I can know” and if there is anything I know, it’s that I don’t even know how good it can be. So I mine as well be open to what’s possible and let myself be surprised and delighted.
Key Takeaways
- Before you arrive at an event or gathering, set an intention for who you want to be. Keep your intentions around what you want for you and not from other people.
- Perception is not just a given, it’s a choice. Your perception of a person directly affects your relationships with them.
- Be deliberate about the thoughts and stories you hold for your family, friends and neighbors and release negative judgements when you can.
- You have everything you need within you to create the holiday experience you desire–start by asking yourself how you enjoy connecting with others and make the choice to prioritize that.
- Just because it’s always been, doesn’t mean it has to continue to be. The more you open to a new possibility, the more you create in the Truth of anything is possible!
If you’d like to sink in a little deeper with these takeaways, you can listen to our Podcast episode. HERE.
By incorporating these intentional practices, you can create a holiday season filled with love, joy, and meaningful connections. Happy holiday season creators!
