‘Tis the Season of Joy • Bright Future Now

‘Tis the Season – of Joy, or Is It?

As the festive season kicks in there is much to celebrate and enjoy. Christmas is a time of social and family gatherings. Along with the good cheer, it can pose some unique challenges. This is not always a happy time for everyone. How can you make this Christmas a joyful celebration for yourself and your loved ones?

Be Merry and Bright

Christmas is a great time to get together and celebrate the year and your achievements with colleagues, friends and family alike. There’s so much going on this time of the year. With increased commitments to be ready, be prepared, get the shopping done, see all those people, it’s easy to feel under pressure both financially and socially. All this activity needs to be balanced with just being – enjoying the season. It’s a balancing act. Balancing the needs of others with your own needs.

Balance Giving with Receiving

The spirit of the season is kindness, giving, generosity and gratitude. Equally, allow yourself to receive. Receiving without saying ‘Ah you shouldn’t have…’. Receiving graciously with just a ‘thank you’, allowing others the pleasure of doing something for you. Balancing the give-and-take in relationships; what’s good for you personally with what’s good for the people you care about, is an essential fine art and you owe it to yourself.

Rest

Nature begins to go into hibernation now, becoming still, resting, recuperating, and so should we. I’m sure, like me, you feel ready for a break. The holiday season is long-awaited and yet it can fly by, with so much on the go. Amidst the shopping and social events, build in some quality personal hibernation time. Rest, reflect, be still – balance all that “busyness” with much needed self-nurturing. Clearing and resetting the mind now will be a valuable investment in your own well-being.

Stay Healthy

Maintain a healthy balance between festive celebration and eating for good health and a healthy immune system. Get out often for a breath of fresh air and movement, creating your own winter well-being experience.

Maintain Good Relationships

Christmas time often brings extended families under one roof, all expressing their varied opinions and ideas. This can create tension and stress. Have you ever wondered why this can be so challenging and when they go you start missing them again? It’s because the dynamics change radically when people live under the same roof and they reflect your shadow-self back to you once too often. When in company, we are always looking in a mirror. We can only change ourselves – we cannot change others. When you change your perceptions, people change, and your experiences begin to change too. Everyone around you is your teacher – helping you to learn something about yourself. That’s how you grow and evolve. Your greatest teachers are those testing people around you. We learn more about ourselves when our buttons are pushed.

Stay Emotionally Healthy

It’s always good to say how you feel and best to say it straight away. Biting your tongue and speaking days later is least effective because people only remember their own version. Besides, keeping your emotions in, makes you uncomfortable, unsettled and withdrawn. When you express your feelings, people get to know you better and they have a chance to see another side.

Christmas is not always a happy time for everyone. I know many people who have lost loved ones this time of the year and they can feel sadness. Allow yourself and others to talk about those who have gone, bringing them into remembrance. Honouring and expressing all of your emotions is the path of healing. Then you can remember the good times and treasure the precious memories.

It’s a Time for Joy

Mindfully tune into your feelings, to learn from them and grow in wisdom. Allow yourself to embrace and experience all your emotions and, without wallowing in them, keep moving towards love and joy. Yuletide is a time of peace, joy and celebration. Joy opens the heart and suddenly the world is a better place. This uplifting experience makes Christmas a special time. Make that your mission this season, to create the kind of joy that can take you deep into the new year with happiness and an open heart.

Be Grateful – Count your Blessings

Joy is feeling happy for no reason at all. What if you can’t feel joy? There is nothing more magical than a practice of gratitude to bring instant upliftment to the spirit. Reflect firstly, on a person you are grateful for, secondly, an event you are grateful for, thirdly, something about yourself you are grateful for. Listen to a Gratitude Meditation to make it easier for you. In your meditation, focus on the feeling of gratitude rather than the story.

Be at Peace

It’s best for your own well-being to be at peace with everyone in your life. You don’t have to necessarily like everyone, and there will certainly be people you won’t want to spend a lot of time with and that’s alright. As long as you are at peace in your own heart for your own sake. Sometimes we have to practice forgiveness to be at peace. There is nothing more freeing than forgiveness as it restores your vital energy too. This release can feel like a huge weight lifting as you put the past behind you peacefully. Nothing facilitates this better than the practice of Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian forgiveness ritual. It means ‘to put things right, to make peace’. Remember, you are essentially doing it for your own well-being and your own peace of mind.

Set your Goals

So what will 2019 hold for us? The best way to predict your future is to create it. Create your future with thought-intention. By considering the kind of future you’d like to have, you begin to create it. With the power of your mind and your thoughts, you create your outcomes. Your mind is immensely creative, and the possibilities are infinite. Everything starts with a thought, an idea that we energise through focus. What you focus your mind on is a conscious choice. Often we think ahead with ‘what if type’ of thoughts fearing what might happen. If you focus on what can go wrong, you create more fear. We seem to be good at telling ourselves what we don’t want to happen. That leaves your Unconscious Mind confused about what you do want. Goals and intention give the Unconscious Mind a positive focus and direct the mind towards what you do want. Use the joyful uplifting season of Yuletide to cast your mind and thoughts ahead with a positive focus towards what you would like. This way you begin to create a magical 2019 ahead of you. Write your goals and intentions down now, to make your future more meaningful and purposeful. Next year this time you can look back and reflect on them, celebrating your achievements with joy again.

Thank You!

In the true spirit of Christmas, I thank you all for you support throughout the year. It’s been an amazing year. I’m truly grateful for everyone making my work a joyous experience. Together we laid the foundation for next year. I’m particularly excited to celebrate the publishing of a new book “Foundations of Mastery” with you in January 2019. Until then, I wish you and your loved ones a blessed Christmas – make it a joyous celebration of all that you are.