Here’s the scenario:
I spend the holiday season with my loved ones, just the right amount of time with family, just the right amount of time with friends.
Interesting and lovely holiday music plays in the background. Enticing smells float from the kitchen. We play games of Scrabble and charades and I always win. We go for walks and practice yoga together and feel great in our bodies.
We share lots of great conversation and laughs. It’s great to catch up and share the season with each other. We also have just enough alone time to process the glory and to recharge.
The gift giving – if any – is perfect. Perfect gifts all around, perfect amount of money spent. Actually, scratch that. No gift giving. The gifts we give are our attention and love.
We eat healthy, beautifully prepared food, and here’s the best thing: we eat with caloric impunity.
Perhaps we watch a movie at night or go for a long walk.
This is not the holiday season I usually have.
Why not? Because the holiday season is about connecting with others, and that means some external compromise. But it doesn’t mean you have to compromise what’s really important to you.
Enjoying life on your own terms
Does enjoying live life on your own terms make you selfish? We’re not talking about having all your external stuff handled perfectly. We’re not talking a wrinkle-free life.
So what do I mean ‘live life on your own terms’? I means knowing:
- yourself deeply, so your conversations are authentic to you and your truth.
- what fuels you, so you don’t waste your precious life in draining situations.
- where you want to make an impact, so your creative time is meaningful and satisfying.
- what feeds you, so the food and information you consume contributes to your creativity and well-being.
- who you cherish so you can spend quality time with them.
Your own terms is less about managing the external environment and more about owing and accepting your internal environment. This deep level of self-awareness and self-trust will inform your experience no matter what your external reality.
What are your own terms? How do you stay in alignment with yourself in all and any circumstances?
Thank you for this. This morning, the spotlight turned onto me.
We have entered the second holiday season that I am spending with my honey and conversations have included the different ways we each related to holidays with our families of origin and the things we wish to receive and experience from holidays now. It’s funny how, speaking with him, I often find myself feeling if not overtly, then internally belligerent about my traditions. “This is how it’s supposed to be” I find myself thinking. And yet neither he nor I live traditional lives, in many senses. Why, then, do I return to the idea of traditions that are merely that?
Today I’ll ponder what, precisely, do holidays on my own terms me? Where does the compromise and routine encroach on that. Where can I find adventure in seeking out new and authentic holiday landscapes?
Namaste.
Melody,
I love the awareness you are bringing to the season. Your comment makes me so curious for you: to really understand what’s important about traditions, which traditions are still dear to you, what you and your honey can invent for your own traditions…
I know you have the creative resources and the heart to sort out what’s right for you so you can relish this sweet time.
yes, yes, yes. I’m painting each day for the sheer joy of doing it vs for an end result for someone other than myself. Christmas Eve we keep low key and have people at our house. Christmas day is always jammies and takeout…
Cassia,
That sounds perfect. It’s so important to have a creative process for its and our own sake, not for showing or sharing. My friend and mastermind buddy Lisa Sonora really is helping me with this one.
I love the thought of you getting to have art time every day, and an easy and fun holiday with your family. Enjoy!
Holiday Bliss for me is having my husband and our four kids
gathered, around the candy caned tree. in our warm livingroom.
We celebrate our childrens safety, health and thank God for each of them Embracing their smiles and banter as these youths open their gifts and present their romping pups with chewy bones.
Steva,
I love the sweet simplicity of this scene. It’s infused with your love and gratitude and I think that’s contagious.
Thanks for sharing that, especially the puppy part!
As I read this post, the phrase ‘quality in the moment’ jumped into my mind and I knew that ‘quality’ will be my word for 2014. Not mindfulness or focus or exercise! Those words don’t give me anything; they just beat me up.
The 3 previous comments used the words bliss, adventure and joy. Sounds good to me.
Holiday Season this year means the girls come home and we binge on Netflix, takeout and museums.
Bobbi,
I love your word for 2014. You are so right, a theme or word needs to strike the right internal chord or it’s bunk.
Sounds like you have a great holiday season ahead of you! Enjoy it!
Couple of movies I’ve watched on Netflix that you might enjoy:
Haute Cuisine
The Day I Saw My Father’s Heart – great for you as a photographer!
Both French films I really liked.
Thank you for writing this blog! The message is, I think, the key to happiness… for us all. Because truly, what works for me, works for the people around me. Doing things begrudgingly, doing things because I think I “should,” doesn’t work for anyone.
I’m creating a holiday season filled with connection and love.
You are welcome, Amy! I am glad it struck a chord with you. I love that you know that the ‘should’ energy permeates and isn’t invisible.
Keep loving and keep connecting, and thanks for commenting here!
WOW I loved this one 🙂
For me, the holidays add a layer of stress I don’t usually experience the rest of the year and so I especially appreciate the reminder and gentle encouragement to know myself and my needs at this time of year and to stay true to myself. My eyes watered at, ‘Don’t waste your precious life on draining situations.’ YES and amen to that.
So grateful for the sparkles you share with us, and also, here’s to eating with caloric impunity!! Woot!
xox
Robin