Inner Glow: Prioritizing Holistic Self-Care This Holiday Season

How can we as women, be empowered, be hopeful, and be peaceful during  “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”?

The stress is real. The emotional pressures are real – especially during the holiday season. From long to-do lists, to special gatherings, activities, and traditions. For some, feelings of grief and loss are more strongly felt due to loved ones that have passed. For those struggling with anxiety or depression, triggering circumstances can easily occur.

There can be pressures – emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually that risk the integration of our overall well-being during this time of the year. Rather than peace, joy, love, and hope, it can also be marked by loneliness, isolation, depression, and stress which may feel more overwhelming than the prior mentioned.

There are so many things we can do to protect our peace of soul, mind, and body, but it’s really understanding our relationship with ourselves that makes the daily efforts toward wellness transformative. 

It’s exactly times like these when we ought to foster encouragement towards each other, support one another intentionally, and to truly love ourselves by prioritizing our health and wellness– soul, mind, and body.

When it comes to our mindset, especially during this season, our focus can significantly impact our overall well-being. In our modern age, we are bombarded with messages about what we “should” have or what our lives “should” look like. As difficult as it can be to do so, we want to challenge you with the incredible opportunity to shift the focus from having more to being more. It’s when we have this paradigm shift, as Stephen Covey says, that we move from a concern of what we have or don’t have, to an intentional focus on who it is we are aspiring to become.

This simple mindset shift is an expression of our internal freedom. It is honed by self-awareness and imagination, which we all have. Doing so can relieve us from the burden of what others may think or do– helping us ditch the comparisons that may lead us down a negative spiral.  Or perhaps even make us more grateful for what we already have. But more importantly, it restores our hope in our internal freedom to choose every day to become evermore that whole version of ourselves that we all desire to be–whether we’re conscious of it or not.

So this holiday season, we invite you to deepen your understanding of the principle of stewarding your own integrative well-being and prepare yourself for more private victories. 

We want to invite you to this foundational step: being proactive about deepening your self-awareness. Here are some questions** to help you get started: 

1. “Do I spend my time and energy, or do I invest it?” 
2. Where do I spend/invest my time and energy? Do I spend it mostly on concerns that I have no real control or influence over? Or do I invest in my mental, emotional, social,  physical, and spiritual well-being,  prioritizing self-care? 
3. What do I want my life to look like? Vs. what I’m told it should look like
4. How much do I desire to influence others in a positive way rather than seeking to change them? 
5. In what ways can I be more proactive as I aspire to become the whole version of myself? 
6. How often do I use reactive phrases such as “If only,” “I can’t,” or “I have to”? (101)
7. At the essence, what do I value most this holiday season?

The great news is, you can choose to be more peaceful, more joyful, more aligned, and more intentional during this time of the year – and all the seasons that follow. 

It all begins with self-awareness and tuning into your own intuition–identifying and honoring your needs and connecting with the people, places, and meaningful activities that align with your values. 

And if you don’t think you have people in your corner to hold you accountable, we are and we are determined to do so. 

So whatever the situation is: unrealistic self-expectations, family drama, financial stress, or lack of community, you don’t have to let the swings and throws of “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” make you believe that your self-care is compromised.

• **Questions inspired by 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.