holiday hearts

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
 - Charles Dickens

The holidays can be a powerful source of love-filled traditions we look forward to each year. But how do we maintain the warm, fuzzy feelings of family, giving, and gratitude they provide after the decorations come down, our pants fit a little snugger and our credit card bills loom with yet-to-be-paid-off holiday purchases? Here are a few tips to bringing some of your holiday heart energies into 2015….

• Continue giving to those in your community. Even if you’re feeling the ol’ wallet pinch post holiday spending, donating your time can be a valuable resource for organizations in your area who offer assistance to people, animals or mama earth year round. An employee at the San Francisco Food Bank once told me that after the holiday rushes die down, and folks tuck their resolutions on a shelf to (really, we mean it!) revisit next year, the number of daily volunteers drastically reduces. During the traditional winter holiday months of November - January, it’s often difficult to snag an open spot, since so many feel inspired (and reminded) to pay it forward. This is great, of course. But if we want to really step up and make our time valuable? Commit to lending a helping hand in late winter or Spring, when they greatly lack the same influx of volunteers.

• Remember that big mistakes provide a platform for big comebacks. Whatever might have happened in 2014 to rock the boat, shake your core, or send your ego into a tailspin -- aim to shift your perspective on it. In coaching, we help reframe failure for our clients. I remember early on in my own training having to wear a sticker with a single confetti-decorated word: FAIL! We’d get a check on the sticker each time we missed the mark in class, and boy, I really hated that damn thing. But slowly, my pulse racing anxiety over receiving a dreaded check turned into lightness, giggles and breathing room. At the core, I was learning. Aren’t we all? A fellow coaching classmate of mine told me about a tradition she and her gal pals started earlier in the year called “Failure Fridays”. “Every Friday”, she said, “we update an email chain with how we each failed that week, and then celebrate one another -- and if we feel as though we don’t have anything to share, then we know we haven’t taken enough risks that week!” A cheerleading squad/support group for failing -- what a remarkable idea! The truth is that failure is a stage on which some of the greatest minds, artists, and history makers have performed to a standing ovation. Fell flat on your face in 2014? Jazz hands, baby.

• Take time to nourish, or heal, ourselves each and every day. Keep it simple, so that you’re more likely to continue the self love until it’s an unshakeable habit. I love things like a morning ritual of hot water with lemon out of my cherished Golden Girls mug, or reading a few chapters of anything Anne Lamott has written while rocking an organic mud mask. What feels really good to you? Succulent, in that fill-you-up way, even if it means looking silly with dirt on your face and old ladies on your cup? Honestly, living is an act of courage. Why not take a few moments to be gentle with ourselves and nourish our souls in whatever way feels right to us?

• Schedule an “Un-Birthday” or official “Christmas in July” event. An organization I was in during my college days at Penn State surprised its members each year with an “Un-Birthday” party -- they’d contact our families, inviting them to send silly cards and small gifts, which were distributed while we ate cake and ice cream in a classically balloon and streamer decorated spot. It was such a simple idea that brightened our afternoons each year, especially since the majority of the group didn’t know when it would happen. Our ages didn’t matter; it was simply fun to share this fake celebration with friends in a way that felt as though we were all, equally, deserving of some love. Remember -- you don’t have to burden yourself with sole event planning responsibilities. Share the party prep with people you dig! Who says holiday cookie baking with neighbors must only occur in December? The point is to think about the traditions you most love -- and gain the most from (hopefully emotionally, and not via cookie weight on the pants line) -- and give them a chance to shine in fun, new-twist ways outside of the timeframe they’ve been limited to previously. Ask yourself: What is it really about these holiday traditions, what are the values behind them, that fill our hearts and can possibly be replicated all year long?

• Say thank you. Take deep breaths. Constantly ask yourself a sentiment my dear friend and yoga teacher once proposed to our class -- Do you want to make people’s spirits feel big, or do you want to make them feel small? This mantra has changed my life in a way many other mindfulness practices have not. As my sister asks her elementary school students when they are struggling with another classmate, Does that give you the warm fuzzies, or the cold pricklies? The point is, our minds can be ego centered tricksters who want words, words, words to make us “right”. But magic happens when we go quiet for a moment; when we tap into our kinder instincts to ask what sort of energy we want to be responsible for putting out. This is the only energy we are responsible for, so let’s aim for big spirits and warm fuzzies, shall we?

How will you keep a holiday heart this New Year? Cheers to you and yours in 2015!


In Gratitude,


Trish