The holiday season can be stressful for many of you. Due to its hectic nature and demands (many of them self imposed) it is common for people to get out of balance. That, combined with being around family members who may still be living by old conditioning and belief systems that do not match who you are and whose presence may very quickly bring to the surface unresolved hurts, is a recipe for getting triggered and reactive. Most enlightening human beings later feel great remorse for having that response and can be quite hard on themselves, indeed.
If you did get triggered during the holidays, the first thing to do is to simply forgive yourself. Understand this is a part of you that is seeking your love and compassion. What does that part of you need from you? Take the time to sit with it, to love it, to reassure it, to give it compassion and a safe space to be heard. The last thing that part of you needs is for you to be berating yourself. It needs your love and guidance, and that is well within your capability to give to yourself.
Taking the time to tend to yourself first, with love and compassion, is the first step to being able to keep your balance during future holidays. Next, examine how you might have allowed yourself to get out of balance. Did you take on more than you should have? Did you over give and not allow yourself to receive assistance? What did you take on that really wasn’t necessary? How could you have improved your self care? Now is the ideal time to reexamine how you handle holidays and to move them into a better balance.
If you announce now how you will be changing things up for the next holidays, people will have plenty of time to adjust to the change and will not be shocked when the time comes. It’s important to shift with how your family has grown. Are there new members of the family who can become part of your traditions and assist? Have children grown to be older and can now help more? Ask people how they would like to contribute. You might be surprised to realize there’s more help available to you than you realized now that you are open to the help. How could you make holidays more manageable and more joyful for everyone involved, including you? What traditions are lovely and enjoyed by all that you wish to keep?
Last of all, take a moment to make a strategy on new ways you can respond if people do the things that you find difficult in future holiday get togethers. Write them down and leave them where you will find them next year, because humans have a tendency to just want to move on and forget. When you have a plan you won’t get caught off guard when those triggers occur and you will be able to respond in brand new ways because you will be prepared.
Dear Ones, please do not beat yourselves up if you feel you could have handled things better. Use your regret to create new strategies that better serve everyone involved. Apologize if necessary. Accept apologies if you receive them. Stay focused on the apology if given or received as a loving connection point and resist getting drawn back into the same old issue if it starts to go there again. Remember, as you change the music, the dance steps change.
Please know your families are where the conditioning and belief systems you are releasing and healing beyond were born, and because of that they are often the last territory you master. Be kind and gentle with yourselves, forgive yourselves and others for not knowing better, and know you can always choose differently next time. This is all part of your evolution and the triggers serve to shine a spotlight on where you need to direct your love and nurturing for yourself the most, and that is a wonderful and empowering thing. ~Archangel Gabriel through Shelley Young