The holidays can present highs of delight, surprise, and taking in family rituals. The wisdom in this time of celebrating winter holidays can be dimmed by being overstimulated. This is a reality for so many in our modern world.
I know so many people on anti-anxiety medication. I know others who self-medicate with CBD or THC. It is part of our modern culture. We are simply involved in so many activities. With lush opportunities abounding in every inbox, mailbox, or text — we find that the challenges may be in simply being.
Remembering the simplest nurturing actions is so common that I hear my family, clients, and friends share that they forget to drink water. They don’t have time to exercise.
I see in my yoga classes that many students are forgetting to breath. Asana practice takes time to refine and sometimes coordinating breath with the thought of foot placement can be too much.
Practicing breathing sounds so simple, right?
Adding intention to all of these actions elevate the common human survival needs of water, air, and movement into the glorious action of self care! That’s right! We can simply shift our thoughts toward making much ado about these motions of life and create a graceful existence — even during the complex nature of navigating the holiday season! Check out the steps here:
1. Breathe in and out through the nose.
It goes without saying, right? We just breath and go through the day working, thinking, doing, being. However, shifting the mindset just a bit and adding an intention to your day that you will pause X number of times a day to breath slowly for X number of minutes. This can elevate your experience in a FREE and nourishing way that will produce an outcome of you being clearer in thoughts and actions.
Other outcomes of pausing to react to awkward moments, decide that you will being planning a holiday meal that will be the most delicious yet, or take time to think about a gift that your partner would just love.
These elevated actions are not always easy to work into the busy-ness of the holidays. Breathing adds the extra allowance for time to pause and think. It helps elevate your vibration as a positively oxygenated person with clarity in thought.
Try it and let me know how it works for you!
2. Hydrate with sips of water throughout the day.
Drinking water is essential and maybe you enjoy this practice already the way I do. I find that drinking water is a way for me to ground into my day with fluid from the earth. It is almost spiritual for me at this point in my practice and now I crave drinking water throughout the day. This can happen for you too!
Outcomes of hydrating throughout the day with sips of water are you are better nourished with water and the cells in your body can be bouncy and vibrant and your skin looks bouncy and vibrant. You will feel better because your organs are able to cleanse the ama from the body. Flushing out toxins and murky undigested bits that you have absorbed through the skin, nose, or mouth can easily move out through the excretory system.
These elevated states inside the symphony of motions in the body are brought to you by the hydration schedule you have brought to your self care. Continuing this one will establish a baseline of hydration that you will seek naturally. This is wonderful for your body.
Set up a water station in your work area if you can. Find a lovely tray, a pretty vessel from which to dispense water. Add herbs or fruit to the water to enhance your attraction to this action of hydration. Include a beautiful glass for you to drink from and enjoy making it special for you!
Add gratitude to this practice for having abundant access to delicious clean water for you to drink and embody thanks that creates positivity into the world.
3. Move the body with exercise.
So many of us get wrapped up in work or other activities that present too much in our day to steer us away from the practice of exercise. This one really requires intention to allocate the time to sweat a little during the day and be mindfully in the body. This isn’t the way everyone exercises. But when we are able to connect with the body as we move, we have an opportunity to better understand our unique body and how to care for it.
Outcomes of moving our body include exercising the heart, improving blood flow, balancing hormones, sweating out toxins (another excretory action), having fun, celebrating our bodies capabilities, and creating a positive mood for ourselves. These are just some of the nourishing actions that we can experience when we are able to take a long walk, climb a hill, go to the gym, do yoga, or ride a bike. We can connect with a mentor when we attend a class and enjoy the lessons from a practiced teacher of yoga, dance, or trainer.
One of my favorite ways that we can benefit is by inspiring those around us who may notice our exercise and want to do it too. Humans respond by mirroring in so many instances. Exercise can be that, too. We are drawn to it more when we identify with someone that looks like us doing this. So for those of us who may be self-conscious about our appearance…. just know that you will inspire another person to also add self care to their world.
Self care is key to elevating your experience.
The positive energy is boundless. When we apply good self care, these simple actions ripple out from us into the world! These actions are almost free, depending upon where you are exercising and from where your water is drawn. However, the impact can be profound when you can inspir others to positive actions of self care.
All of these actions are potent when it comes to the inevitable awkward holiday moments that can be tedious to navigate. Moments like these:
- Your neighbor gives you an expensive gift — and you don’t have one ready to give.
- Your BFF gives you strange gift that is going straight to the re-gift pile or the bag due for the Salvation Army.
- Your beloved partner is having a moment and just doesn’t want to deal with the in-law holiday dinner.
- Your mother has a panic attack because everything is just too much.
All of these kinds of things happen around the holidays. Handling these moments AFTER we have taken good self care to breathe, hydrate, and exercise our bodies help us to approach problem solving with calm. The peacefulness that we can feel with good self care inspires a pause in our responses. Being calm and peaceful allows us to offer supportive boundaries to others when they are not at their best.
Good self care offers us the supportive boundary that we need to calm our senses and nourish our bodies. These simple practices of breathing, hydrating, and celebrating our bodies remind us of our human nature in an elevated state. When we create a practice of feeling this way, we can observe the awkward moments and support others in these moments with a natural boundary that we’ve created when we oxygenated and hydrated our cells. When we exercised our nourished body, we created an elevated experience in our body.
Enabling ourselves to be in a better position to pivot and recognize the awkward moments that do come with meeting others where they are during a stressful time that the holiday season can bring. This act of self love ripples into others as a gift of positivity. I have found that this non-material gift has done so much more for my loved ones than anything I can buy them.
What about you? How does this work for you.
Did you like this content? Then you may enjoy this podcast version of these lessons AT THIS LINK.
You may also enjoy this video of pranayama breathing practices AT THIS LINK.
Would you like to learn more about Health Coaching services that help you establish nourishing practices with positive support? Click the button below for a FREE session to learn more about Ayurveda & Yoga practices can benefit your unique body.
Angela Rosoff is a Health Coach in San Francisco. She loves hanging out with her children. She serves women over 35 years to help them realize Total Body Vitality.
