It’s December.
We are full-on in the holiday swing – Thanksgiving happened just days ago, Hannukah has begun, and Christmas and New Years’ are only days away.
The holidays can be beautiful, magical, and wonderful times of giving, thankfulness, thoughtfulness, and love. They can be filled with gorgeous decorations that make us feel warm and welcomed. Songs about love, acceptance, faith, and trust. Food — oh my God, the food — that fills our souls and jogs fond memories of baking with our grandmothers.
The holidays can also be stressful, frustrating, and agonizing in equal measure. They can remind us of loss or the absence of delightful experiences others had the fortune to have. They can stretch our bank accounts and our boundaries as we surround ourselves perhaps with people who we love but who don’t always “get us.”
All of these things can happen concurrently. So little of our experiences are ever totally in one bucket or another. We exist in complex but precious grey zones even during the “best time of the year.”
Creating additional complexities during this Holiday season is that we still face a global pandemic that isn’t taking a break because we want to deck our holly, light our Christmas trees or Menorahs, or get drunk on spiked egg nog (or some other festive beverage of your choice).
Challenges in the world and in our own lives can certainly seem harder when we are supposed to be celebrating Holidays. Right?
Whether we can be with our loved ones or not, the Holidays are happening. I am not suggesting we pretend everything in the world is unicorns and fairy dusty either. Our power is in how we respond and be during this time.
I’m talking about how we can still feel grounded, joyful, and celebratory.
How do we do this?
It helps to begin by understanding what’s going on with the month of December.
We are in the time of Sagittarius. This is a restless, fiery but optimistic energy. That means it’s important to:
1. Get support in getting grounded. I love using crystals for grounding. Here are my favs for grounding: hematite, pyrite, red jasper, garnet, or tigers eye. I absolutely love this local Denver shop for purchasing crystals.
2. Clear your energy every day. Check out this YouTube video: “Everything is Energy but not all of it is yours.”
3. Honor your body’s desire to rest. Winter Solstice is coming which means each day (as in daylight) is getting shorter.
Going beyond the energy of December, and thinking about the energy of the holidays, I offer these tips as well:
1. Create connection without physically being present (because you know, we want to keep you healthy and safe). Leverage a great many tools and technologies at your disposal to chat, message, video call with all your favorite people, and tell them you love them.
2. Offer kindness not just to others but to yourself. It’s wonderful that you’ve sent cards to everyone you can think of, purchased a gift for each member of your family, donated money to your favorite charity, baked warm, delicious cookies for your neighbors. Please don’t forget to be thoughtful and generous to yourself even if that is in the form of a long winter’s nap or cuddling up in your favorite chair to read a book.
3. Continue to develop your intuition. A developed intuition is a powerful compass to navigate you – pointing you in the right direction when you’re feeling lost and offering you answers when you feel uncertain.
Whatever tips you employ, I hope, with all my heart, that wherever you are, however you celebrate, whatever you believe, and whomever you are with, that your holidays are filled with good health, happiness, joy, love, and many blessings.